[BOOKS] - FIRST THINGS FIRST(by Stephen Covey)

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Unit 1 How many people on their death bed?

1. The peace of mind and spirit are achieved only by aligning our lives with governing principles.
2. In this ever changing world, the only things we really control are the choices we make.
3. Quality of life cannot be achieved by taking the right shortcut, but there is a path.
4. Meaningful life is not a matter of speed or efficiency. It's much more a matter of what you do and why you do it, than how fast you get it done.
5. The enemy of the best is the good.
6. What is needed out there and what is my unique strength, my gift?
7. Time management essentially ignores the reality that most of our time is spent living and working with other people who cannot be controlled.
8. Time management itself is a management not leadership perspective.Management works within the paradigm. Leadership creates new paradigms.
9. The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them - Albert Einstein.
10. The unexamined life is not worth living - Plato.

Unit 2 The Urgency Addiction

1. What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal life?
2. What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your professional or work life?
3. Urgency addiction is a self-destructive behavior that temporarily fill the void created by unmet needs.
4. The more urgency we have in our lives, the less important we have.
5. Many important things that contribute to our overall objectives and give richness and meaning to life don't tend to act upon us or press us.Because they are not urgent, they are the things we must act upon.
6. Preparation, prevention, values clarification,planning,relationship building, true-recreation, empowerment.
7. Many important activities become urgent through procrastination or because we don't do enough prevention and planning.  

Unit 3 To Live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy

1. Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.
2. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow.
3. Peak experience is self-transcendence or living for a purpose higher than self.
4. I want to be thoroughly used up when i die.
5. Our ability to create quality of life is a function of the degree to which our lives are aligned with extrinsic realities as we seek to fulfill the basic human needs.
6. Values will not bring quality of life results unless we value principles.
7. All the history can be written in a simple little formula challenge,response.
8. The greatest fulfillment in improving ourselves comes in our empowerment to more effectively reach out and help others.
9. We are the product of our choices.
10. Writing truly imprints the brain, it also helps you remember and apply the things you are trying to do.
11. An educated conscience impacts every aspect of our lives.
12. Dis-obedience to conscience makes conscience blind.
13. Our security doesn't come from the way people treat us or in comparing ourselves to others. It comes from our basic integrity.
14. Your body is the only instrument through which you operate in life.If you don't get control of your body, how can you control the expressions that come through your body and your mind.
15. The greatest battles we fight are in the silent characters of our own souls.
16. Our lives are the results of our choices. To blame and accuse other people, the environment or other extrinsic factors is to choose to empower those things to control us.
17. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and to others, little by little we increase our strength until our ability to act is more powerful than any of the forces that act upon us.
18. The best way to predict your future is create it.
19. We are not in control of our lives, principles are.
20. If we act based on principles, it will produce quality of life results.
21. Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.

Unit 4 Quadrant II Organizing "The Process of putting first things first".

1. Where there is no gardener, there is no garden.
2. What's most important? What gives your life meaning? What do you want to be and to do in your life?
3. What difference would a clear vision of my principles, values and ultimate objectives make in the way i spend my time?
4. How would i feel about my life if i knew what was ultimately important for me?
5. Would a written statement of my life's purpose be valuable to me? Would it affect the way i spend my time and energy?
6. How would a weekly re-connection to such a statement affect the things i choose to do during the week?
7. An hour a day spent "Sharpening your saw" creates the "private victory" that makes public victories possible.
8. With the "more is better" paradigm, we are always trying to fit more activities into the time we have. But what does it matter how much we do if what we are doing is not what matters most?
9. To begin organizing the next week - pause to ask question such as 

 - What goals did i achieve?

- What challenges did i encounter?

- What decisions did i make?

- In making decisions, did i keep first things first.

10. The greatest value of the process is not what it does to your schedule, but what it does yo your head.

11. Keep the main thing the main thing.

Unit 5 The passion of vision

1. It's easy to say no! when there is a deeper yes! burning inside.
2. We don't invent our mission, we detect it. It's within us waiting to be realized.
3. Empowering mission statement is the blue print before the construction! the mental before the physical creation.
4. We can act, instead of being acted upon.
5. You want to be good, but you want to be good for something.
6. An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence. What you want to be and what you want to do in your life.
7. When we talk about time management, it seems ridiculous to worry about speed before direction, about saving minutes when we may be wasting years.
8. Creating and integrating an empowering personal mission statement is one of the most important quadrant II investment we can make.

12/06/2013

Unit 6 - The Balance of Roles

1. The faster i run, the more out of balance i feel.
2. The way we see the problem is the problem.
3. Gandhi observed, "one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department.Life is one indivisible whole.
4. Trust was the foundation for effective corporate synergy.Integrity was essential to lasting corporate influence.
5. Socrates observed that "over whatever a man may preside, he will if he knew what he needs and is able to provide it.
6. Roles that are truncated from needs,principles and mission, a work role that has no meaning except economic security, a relationship based on illusion instead of principle; or community service based on the expectation of others instead of inner conviction have no sustaining power because they don't tap into that deep burning."Yes".
7. A steward is "one called to exercise responsible care over possessions entrusted to him or her" we are stewards over our time, our talents, our resources. We have stewardship's at work, in the community and at home.
8. Instead of a task orientation, that gets in the way of relationships,awareness of the social dimension of each role helps us develop a people orientation that creates rich, rewarding relationships with the people with whom we live and work.
9. Organize your planner or organize around your roles.
10. Work on mission statements or stewardship's agreements for each of your roles.

14/06/2013

Unit 7 The Power of Goals 

1. Only a few had the strength to make it.
2. It takes strength to set a heroic goal, to work on chronic problems instead of going for the "quick fix" to stay with your commitments when the hide of popular opinion turns against you.
3. Conscience - the deep connection of goals to mission, and principles.
4. Self-awareness - the accurate assessment of our capacity and the balance in our personal integrity account.
5. Goals that are connected to our inner life have the power of passion and principle.
6. Be loyal to those not present.
7. It soon becomes apparent that knowing what to do and even deeply wanting to do it are not enough. The doing has to be based on the principles that create quality of life.
8. Doing the right thing for the right reason in the right way is the key to quality of life and that can only come through the power of an educated conscience that aligns us with vision,mission and true north.
9. If change is driven primarily by urgency, mood or opposition, it takes us away from the best, if change is driven by mission ,conscience and principles, it moves us towards the best.
10. Without principles, goals will never have the power to produce quality of life results.
11. A principle based goal is all three: the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way.
12. When we exercise the courage to set and act on goals that are connected to principles and conscience,we tend to achieve positive results.
13. Identify each of your goals for the week as a determination or concentration.

Unit 8 The perspective of the week 

1. Priority is a function of context.
2. Personal leadership is cultivating the wisdom to recognize our need for renewal and to ensure that each week provides activities that are genuinely recreational in nature.
3. Life is one indivisible whole.
4. The person who comes home from work at night is stronger and better than one who left for work in the morning.
5. It's the abundance seeing that leads to abundance doing and abundance living.
6. We can put content in context and choose the best over the good.
7. Quadrant II organizing is not prioritizing what's on the schedule;It's scheduling priorities. It's not filling every time slot with scheduled activity;It's putting the "big rocks" in first and filling in with whatever sand, gravel and water we need to add.
8. The objective is not to fill the container to the brim, but to make sure that the big rocks are there and that the container is not so full it can't accommodate conscience directed change.
9. The moment of clarity when we organize the week gives us the perspective to set aside the time necessary to make that preparation possible. Obviously, when things go as planned, we are generally much more effective when we're prepared.But even if things change, time spent in preparation empowers us to move quickly and effectively recognize the value and cost of change and to move in the right direction.
10. The best way to understand the difference is to experience it.
11. The point was not to schedule every little thing, but to work on first things first.

15/06/2013

Unit 9 Integrity in the moment of choice

1. Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.
2. The purpose of Quadrant II organizing is to empower us to live with integrity in the moment of choice. Whatever detours may come up, whatever new roads may be built after the may is created, we can depend on our internal compass to keep us moving in the right direction.
3. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
4. We may find it convenient to live with the illusion that circumstances or other people are responsible for the quality of our lives, but the reality is that we are responsible - response-able- for our choices.
5. I can't believe the difference in my life once i started to realize that i have my own inner guide. I feel a sense of direction in every thing do and as long as i am true to it, everything seems to work together to make it happen.
6. We pause between stimulus and response to proactively choose a response that is deeply integrated with principles,needs and capacities.
7. It's the manifestations that our desire to do the right thing is greater than our desire to just do something.
8. People are more empowered when they use words that most effectively communicate in their own language.
9. What's the best use of my time right now?
10. What most important right now?
11. What is life asking of me?
12. What's the right thing to do now?
13. Wisdom is a marriage - a synergy of heart and mind.
14. The wisdom of the heart transcends the wisdom of the mind.
15. It takes courage to realize that you are greater that your moods, greater them your thoughts and that you can control your moods and thoughts.
16. "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do" said Emerson, "not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our ability to do has increased.
17. Educating the heart is the critical complement to educating the mind.
18. When we are tired or ill, we often tend to be more reactive.
19. Our body is a fundamental stewardship,it's the instrument through which we work to fulfill all other stewardship's and responsibilities.
20. The most fundamental ingredients to success were such things as honesty, integrity, humility, fidelity, justice, patience and courage.
21. Time is life.
22. An individual's life is part of a greater whole.
23. In his book " The pursuit of happiness", David meyers said study after study shows that those who have this bigger picture orientation in their lives are happier, more satisfied, contributing people.
24. If i had been doing the things in my own life, i knew i ought to be doing, i never would have had those feelings in the first place.
25. "People seem not to see", said Emerson, "That their opinion of the world is also a confession of character". One of the best ways to educate our heart is to look at our interaction with other people, because our relationships with others are fundamentally a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.
26. When we don't listen to or live by our conscience, we tend to blame and accuse other people in an attempt to justify our own inner dissonance.If we don't have a sense of mission and principles to measure ourselves against, we benchmark against other people instead of our own potential, We are into comparative thinking and win-lose mentality.We become self-centered and autobiographical.We impose our motives on the actions of others. We see their strengths and weaknesses in  terms of how they affect us. We empower their weakness to control us.
27. Don't you think that the main source of all these tensions and pressures is that you are not being true to your conscience? You inwardly know what you should do
28. The challenge is to develop the character and competence to listen to it and live by it - to act with integrity in the moment of choice.

18/06/2013

Unit 10 Learning from living

1. As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
2. The value of any week is not limited to what we do in it;it's also in what we learn from it and become as a result of it.
3. I have found that regular personal evaluation and renewal time is a vital part of learning from living.
4. The repeated process of organizing, acting and evaluating helps us see the consequences of our choices and actions more clearly. It's the four endowments in action.It empowers us to learn from living and to live what we learn.
5. Connect to mission, Review your roles, Identify your goals, organize the week, Exercise integrity, Evaluate.

Unit 11 The Interdependent Realty

1. Love is not love till you give it away.
2. To learn is to grow, to feel ourselves expanding.
3. The world we live in is the legacy of those who have gone before us.The choices we make in it create a legacy for those who will follow.
4. We bring children into the world, but we are not committed to the tremendous time and effort it takes to teach and train, to love and listen.
5. Learning is superficial - we are into skills, methods and techniques without understanding the principles that empower us to act in a variety of situations.
6. The independent achievement focus to "\the development of a cancer,whose most characteristic feature is that it cares only for itself.Hence it feeds on the other parts of its own host until it kills the host and thus commits biological suicide.Since a cancer cell cannot live except within the body in which it started its reckless, egocentric development.
7. Total quality begins with total personal quality.Organizational empowerment begins with the individual empowerment. That's why work in our deep inner life and integrity are so important.
8. Gandhi once observed "A person cannot do right in one department of life whilst attempting to do wrong in another department.Life is one indivisible whole".
9. If we are duplicitous or dishonest in any role,it affects every role in our lives.
10. People who are into control have basically internalized sufficient principles or natural laws of life so that they think they are the ones making things happen. But its really their obedience to those natural laws and principles that make things happen.
11. Self-awareness empowers us to have other awareness.Because we know how to listen to our heart, we can listen to the hearts of others.

19/06/2013

Unit 12 First Things First Together

1. Cooperation is far more productive than competition.
2. We look at life through the glasses of win-lose and if we fail to develop self-awareness, we spend our lives competing for "dinner" instead of cooperating for "dollars".
3. Gandhi said, "Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint".
4. When both people understand both perspectives, instead of being on opposite sides of the table looking across at each other, we find ourselves on the same side looking at solutions together.
5. The high performance companies spend significantly more time doing things that are important, but not urgent and significantly less time doing things that are urgent but not important. The principal reason behind these differences , in most cases, is in the degree of clarity about what is important.
6. A powerful shared vision has a profound, effect on quality of life in the family, in the organization, in any situation where we work with others. We become contributing parts of a greater whole.We can live,love,learn and leave powerful legacies together.
7. Universal mission - "To improve the economic well being and quality of all stakeholders".
8. Empowering mission statements focus on contribution, on worthwhile purposes that create a collective deep burning "Yes".
9. In our personal lives, when we see our roles as segmented parts of life,they conflict and compete with each other.But when we see them as parts of a highly interrelated whole, the parts work together to create abundance living.
10. Frustration is essentially a function of expectation.
11. The spirit of true empathy is foundation to effective synergy.
12. In a high trust culture, people supervise themselves according to the agreement.

22/06/2013

Unit 13 Empowerment from the Inside Out

1. Anytime we think the problem is "Out there" that thought is the problem.
2. We empower circumstances and the weaknesses of other people to control us. We put our energy into our circle of concern into things over which we have no control.
3. Character is what we are, Competence is what we can do. And both are necessary to create trustworthiness.
4. Competence without character doesn't inspire trust either.
5. The reality is that character and competence drive everything else in the organization. To nurture character and competence is the most high-leverage thing we can do to create empowerment.
6. There is no such thing as organizational behavior; there is only behavior of individuals within the organization.
7. Anytime we help create shared vision and strategy with a boss, a peer, a direct report, a spouse, a child, an associate - we empower ourselves and others.
8. Do i typically wait until I'm told to do things i already know ought to be done?
9. While management works in the system, leadership works on the system.
10. We accept the responsibility for our own excellence.
11. Criticism or praise from others is secondary to our own connection with conscience.
12. We also have the wisdom to realize that feedback tells us as much about the people from we receive it as it does about ourselves. 

01/07/2013

1. Continue, Stop and Start: "What are the things I'm now doing you'd like to see me continue to do? What would you like to see me stop doing? What would you like to see start doing that I'm not doing now?"
2. Feedback should be given against performance and effectiveness criteria not character criteria.
3. Management focus actually generates the need for more management to deal with all the problems that result from neglecting leadership.
4. Weekly organizing encourages leadership with vision and perspective.
5. It takes humility to seek feedback.It takes wisdom to understand it,analyze it, and appropriately act on it.Bit it truly is the lunch of champions.
6. Winning companies realize that they are only as strong as the intelligence, judgement and character of their employees.
7. When someone comes to you with a problem, ask him or her, what do you recommend? Don't be quick to solve problems that people can and should solve for themselves.Encourage them to use their creativity to find newer, better ways to do things. Hold people accountable for results, not methods.
8. I discovered that being a leader/servant was a lot tougher at-least the first time then being a controlling leader.
9. Accomplishing tasks through people is a different paradigm than building people through the accomplishment of tasks. With one, you get things done. With the other, you get them done with far greater creativity, synergy and effectiveness and in the process, you build the capacity to do more in the future as well.

27/07/2013

1. In almost every situation,if you build your skills and capacities and work within your circle of influence, you can change people's paradigms of you and your job over time. If you don't have a clear vision of what you want to do in your job and a willingness to pay the price to create change, it's easy to dis-empower yourself, to get into blaming and accusing. The key is to stay empowered, to realize that you can make the choice to try to change the paradigm or to change the situation.
2. This manager shared his personal experience with them and encouraged his staff to build their security on their capacity instead of their job.
3. Examine your fears and free yourself so that you can be and give your best.
4. Often negative judgments about character grow out of misunderstandings.
5. It's important to realize that we are not ultimately responsible for the development of anyone else. WE can never really change someone; people must change themselves, but we can help.
6. If a person is highly dependent on others opinions, he or she will likely have serious blind spots - weakness that are too sensitive to be admitted to consciousness.
7. Establishing excessive controls to protect against the problems of a few people will affect the performance of the entire organization.
8. In a high trust culture, honest mistakes are taken for what they are an opportunity to learn.
9. People are not truly self governing unless they are free to fail.
10. The Chinese bamboo tree is planted after the earth is prepared, and for the first four years, all of the growth is underground. The only thing visible above the ground is a little bulb and a small shoot coming out of it. Then in the fifth year, the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet. Principle centered leaders understand the metaphor of the bamboo tree. They understand the value of working in Quadrant II.
11. A high trust, empowered culture is always home grown.
12. Only by acting in harmony with correct principles, exercising patience,humility and courage and working within your circle of influence, can you transform yourself and positively influence your organization. You can only create empowerment from the inside out. 

Section 4  The power of peace of principle centered living

1. Principle centered living is not an end in itself. It's the means and the end. It's the quality of our travel along life's road. It's the power and peace we experience each day as we accomplish what matters most.
2. In a principle centered life, the journey and the destination are one.

Unit 14. From time management to personal leadership

1. Which of these activities is most important?
2. What can i safely postpone?
3. What can i delegate?
4. What can i get out of?
5. What can i do more quickly?
6. How can i arrange my schedule to accomplish what is most critical?
7. It's not only a matter of when to to things, but whether or not to do them at all.
8. You would see tasks, not as things to do, but as indicators of a larger process that you want to improve.
9. Involve people in the problem; work out the solution together. As you solve the problem, build relationships that will empower you to effectively solve problems in the future as well.
10. Communicate your criteria. Help that person become more capable. Nurture self government and self accountability, build capacity.
11. To involve every member of the family in understanding what they want to accomplish and in deciding how to work together to accomplish it is empowering.
12. One of the greatest legacies we can leave our children is a sense of purpose and responsibility to correct principles.
13. What happens when I am in harmony with principles, I see a pattern, a beauty an order. The more I align with principles, the more opportunities I see.
14. Each part of life starts to add to the others. There is more of every good thing. 

Unit 15. The peace of the results

1. Peace and quality of life come only as we discover and align with the fundamental laws of life.
2. Peace is essentially a function of putting first things first.
3. We see that there are purposes higher than self toward which we can focus our energies and efforts with passion and confidence that we can create quality of life results.
4. Skills alone don't produce effectiveness and leadership need character.
5. Sharpening the saw is daily and weekly renewal. Each moment of choice becomes a space in which we can exercise our human endowments to act with integrity.
6. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition, such as lifting weights, we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.
7. What difference does it make when we expect people to see things differently, when we value that difference.
8. One of the riches areas for eliminating much of the frustration we experience in our lives is to examine our expectations.
9. Only as we focus on contributing than consuming can we create the context that makes peace in all aspects of life possible. It's in leaving a legacy that we find meaning in living, loving and learning.
10. Courage comes as a result of knowing there are principles, of fulfilling our needs and capacities in a balanced way of having clear vision, balance between roles, the ability to set and achieve meaningful goals.
11. Wherever we are, the best way to develop courage is to set a goal and achieve it, make a promise and keep it.
12. C.S. Lewis observed, "Pride is a spiritual cancer, it eats up the very possibility of love or contentment or even common sense". It eventually leads to hate, envy and war.
13. When the cry of competition is louder than the whisper of conscience, what's the impact in terms of really putting first things first in our lives.
14. The antidote for the poison of pride is humility.
15. We can only free ourselves to work on first things first as we let go of other things and focus our time and effort on the most important.

28/07/2013

1. The only real mistake in life, "said one" is the mistake not learned from.
2. Each decision we make is an important decision. Some may seem small at the time, but the reality is that they add upon one another to become habits of the heart that move us with increasing force toward some destiny.
3. There is a wisdom for greater than my own, and that living in harmony with it is the key to contribution and joy.
4. There are key turning points - times when we must take a stand and make deep personal commitments in order for change to take place.
5. The family is the key institution that shapes the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, moral, social and economic future of individuals and of our society.
6. Humility is the mother of all virtues.
7. There is simply nothing that has greater impact on our time, on the quality of every moment of our lives, then learning to listen to and live by conscience.
8. Our two greatest gifts are time and the freedom to choose - the power to direct our efforts in the use of that time. The key is in not spending time, but in investing it in people, in empowerment, in meaningful projects and causes. Like any capital resource, if we spend time, it's gone. We dwindle away our inheritance. If we invest it, we increase our inheritance, and it will redound to the blessing of generations that follow.
9. Gandhi said "we must become the change we seek in the world".
10. Emerson said, "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles".

Appendix A

1. I will to keep commitments not only to others but to myself as well. I know that my mountain may seem no more than a hill to others and i will accept that. I will be renewed by my own personal victories and triumphs no matter how small.
2. Controlling all my actions is a strong sense of integrity which i believe the most important character trait.
3. You can do anything you want, but not everything. It builds on the goal approach and adds the important concept of sequence: "Concentrate your efforts on your most important tasks first". It includes techniques such as values clarification and task ranking. The assumption is that if you know what you want to accomplish and focus on those things first, you will be happy.
4. When goals are not based on principles and primary needs, the focused drive and single mindedness that makes achievement possible can blind people to imbalance in their lives.
5. If our goals are not deeply anchored in correct principles, we will never be able to achieve deep fulfillment and quality of life.
6. Skills alone do not provide the answer.
7. More than skill or technique, individual and organizational quality is a function of aligning both personal character and personal behavior with principles.
8. There are many times when accomplishing what's important means exercising independent will and swimming upstream instead of merely going with the flow.
9. Life is better when we treat others as we would be treated.
10. The great apparent dichotomy is that the more we give, the more we get. 

END

[BOOKS] - WINNING BY JACK WELCH(Former CEO of GE)

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1. You should be candor in the meetings without feeling afraid.
2. You should try to give more and align with company values.
3. Identify proper executive for the proper position.
4. For a good executive, you should have good value with good delivery.
5. You should not take yourselves too seriously.
6. Being a congenial, upbeat person will not get you ahead by itself.You need everything else we have just talked about great results, expanded job horizons, good character, visibility, mentors etc.
7. In the long run, luck plays a smaller role on your career than the factors that are within your control.
8. Nothing will get you a new job faster than terrific performance in your old one.
9. If a job doesn't excite you on some level, just because of the stuff of it - don't settle.
10. As you get older, life and relationship get complicated.
11. By grasping the scope of the problem early and taking ownership of its solution, ultimately resulted in a lot of goodwill from consumers.
12. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

END