Top quotes on Change & Trust by Stephen Covey (2024)

September 10, 2019September 10, 2019

I’ve first read this book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” in the 90’s – timeless inspiration!

1. “There are three constants in life – change, choice and principles.”
2. “Make time for planning; Wars are won in the general’s tent.”
3. “Be proactive.”
4. “Begin with the end in mind.”
5. “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smiling, nonapoloegetically– to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.”
6. “Put first things first.”
7. “Think win-win.”
8. “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.”
9. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. Most people listen with the intent to reply.”
10. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.”
11. “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
12. “Treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”
13. “The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”“Leadership is a choice, not a position.”
14. “I am not a product of my circ*mstances, I am a product of my decisions.”
15. “Strength lies in differences not in similarities.”
16. “Listen with your eyes for feelings.”
17. “The way we see the problem is the problem.”
18. “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
19. “Accountability breeds response-ability.”
20. “Highly proactive people don’t blame circ*mstances, conditions or conditioning for theirbehaviour. Their behaviourof their own conscious choice.”
21. “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
22. “Be a light not a judge. Be a model not a choice. be part of the solution not part of the problem.”
23. “He who has a why can deal with any what or how.”Stephen Covey
24. “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”
25. “The only thing that endures over time is the Law ofthe Farm. You mustprepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water it if you expect to reap the harvest.”
26. “A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decisionwe make.”
27. “Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important.”
28. “To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before you need to start doing things you’ve never done before.”
29. “Live out of your imagination, not your history.”
30. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
31. “Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom. The power to choose, to respond, to change.”
32. “I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.”
33. “Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else trie to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”
34. “You can change the fruit without changing the root.”
35. “Our character is basically a composite of our habits because they are consistent. Often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.”
36. “Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”
37. “If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself.”
38. “Once you have a clear picture of your priorities that is values, goals, and high leverage activities, organise your life around them.”
39. “What you do has greater impact than what you say.”

Also see quotes from Peter Drucker