The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges.

Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting), and much more.

The 7 Basic Guiding Principles Of Life ...

This is the best, best, best book I have ever read. It has significantly changed the way I look at life altogether ...

In this book, Stephen Covey has put forward the following few simple principles which can change the way you think & operate ...

(1) Be Proactive
(2) Begin with the End in Mind
(3) Put First Things First
(4) Think Win/Win
(5) Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.
(6) Synergize
(7) Sharpen the Saw

Many of these principles are simple and obvious but they are amazingly powerful. My personal favorite is the habit #7 viz "Sharpen the Saw". We get so engulfed in our day to day life that we forget to sharpen our saw. Over the period of time, it gets rusted and blunt. We end up putting more energy in doing the same old stuff with diminishing returns.

Some of the additional ideas that are interspersed in the book that I liked ...
=> Anything you learn in life, teach it to at least three other folks in your circle.
=> Work within your circle of influence. Slowly & steadily increase your circle of influence.

I would highly, highly, highly recommend this book ...

-Sachin

Good Principles to Live By!

These are good principles to live by. Covey reveals the principles people use who are at the very highest levels of success. My boyhood hero Bart Starr is a big fan of Covey's seven principles, how can I go wrong??If you think seriously about these ideas, your life is bound to improve in the long run. It will make you realize it is YOU and only YOU who can change the course of your life. With patience and perseverence, a person cannot lose. Thanks Stephen for your advice.

Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"

Difficult - Beyond the Point

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is full of interesting points and the habits are laid out in an intelligent and easy to follow manner. Even if you go into this book knowing, on some level, all of the habits and their respective value, the mere presentation of them will spark motivation, or at least insight.

The really difficult part of this book is not the content or even the application (though difficult it is sure to be) but the suspension of cynicism. For me the hardest part of getting into, through, and out of this book was ignoring my overly critical instincts and taking the book for what it is--gleaning such insight as is available.

If the reader is willing to suspend cynicism and just blindly (more of a premeditated willingness) apply the tenets to their life, this can, and probably will be a life changing work in a positive way.