Paradigm Shifting Books

Book Preview - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

• Stephen H Covey & Britain Covey

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Previewing and exploring the legacy of the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. Discussion around why the book remains influential today. Personal stories from Britain & Stephen growing up with Stephen R. Covey as their grandfather. The hosts also discuss questions they plan to ask their father, Stephen M.R. Covey, in an upcoming interview, which will delve deeper into the origins and core concepts of the book. Listeners are encouraged to send in their questions!

00:00 Why review the 7 Habits?
07:57 Stephen R Covey Life 
13:38 Questions about the 7 Habits

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Stephen:

Hey everyone. Real quick, wanted to mention something up front before we get into the details of this episode, we have turned on the ability for listeners to be able to text us. So whatever, wherever you get your podcast, there should be at the top of the show notes, a link that you can click now. And when you click that link, It'll directly bring you to your text messages where you can actually text us a question and we can receive that. So kind of exciting for us to get feedback from everyone, but it's also relevant for an episode like today where we're previewing the seven habits. So if you have questions about the seven habits, literally Texas right now. So we're, we're kind of excited to see what, what comes in with that.

Britain:

questions or criticisms, feel free to text it all.

Stephen:

Any feedback you have, we'd love to hear, but we're kind of excited about that to hear from you. So shoot us a text. So today's a book preview episode. We've, we've done that before, but our kind of our outline for this episode is number one, Why this book? Number two, a little about the author. And then the third is what questions do we wanna ask and what are some of the core concepts that stood out to us? So Britt, I'll ask you why are we reviewing the seven Habits of Highly Effective People, especially since I reviewed this book when I first launched this podcast.

Britain:

Yeah, well, I think I just put pressure on you. I could not have all the books that I wanted to help review. This is of course at the top of my list because, uh, Stephen Covey is our grandpa and your namesake. Right. So, um, I, I couldn't go without wanting to. To talk about this book. It's had such an impact on my life and on the life of many of my friends. I knew my grandpa in a certain way when he was alive and he passed a few years ago. And I feel like I've come to know him even differently through his work since he's passed. So I'm excited. I have to review this book.

Stephen:

Outside of the fact that he is our, our grandfather the seven habits of highly effective people. And that this goes without saying, but it is probably the most well known. Personal leadership book or, or self help book on the market, or at least if, if not the most, it's usually in everyone's top two or three. And one, one perspective I wanted to give, again, the reason why this book is, uh, Jim Collins, he wrote the book, Good to Great. He's a tremendous thinker. He wrote the foreword to, I think it was the 25th or the 30th, uh, anniversary edition of The 7 Habits. And he had, uh, Some really interesting things that I thought was kind of relevant to set the stage for the seven habits. So he actually sat down with our grandfather years ago and asked him this question, and I'm quoting here. How did you come up with the ideas in the seven habits? I didn't, he responded. What do you mean? I asked. You wrote the book. Yes, I wrote the book, but the principles were known long before me. He continued, they are more like natural laws. All I did was put them together to synthesize them for people. That's when I began to understand why this work had such an impact. Covey had spent more than three decades studying, practicing, teaching, and refining what he ultimately distilled into these pages. He did not seek credit. For the principles, he sought to teach the principles to make them accessible. He saw creating the seven habits, not primarily as a means to his own success, but as an act of service. Britt, growing up around, around Papa, I guess that I feel like that quote kind of embodies what his life was.

Britain:

Yeah. Papa was so humble. You never ever would have, thought that you were around someone famous. If you were around him, he was the kindest person ever. And it didn't matter who it was. It could be the least person in the world or the greatest person in the world. He would take the time for each person. And. Uh, he really genuinely believed that, that he did. He never took credit for the seven habits, um, and these principles. He just said that he organized it in a way for people to understand. And I think that that's a really cool and genuine feeling from him because it's not that common, I think, in these days, but he genuinely felt that way. That they weren't his habits, his principles, because they're not, they're timeless. And, and he just put them together so that we could understand them. And I think that takes a lot of, humility to recognize that.

Stephen:

I've had this question myself, like what, why did the seven habits have such a big impact? Why does it continue to sell copies like it does today? And it's continue continues to be very popular. Another kind of thing, Jim Collins put together, I thought was very well set around this idea. So I'll just read this as well from Jim Collins. He said, Stephen Covey was a master synthesizer. I think of what he did for personal effectiveness as analogous to what graphical user interface did for personal computers prior to Apple and Microsoft. Few people could harness computers to their daily lives. There was no easily accessible user interface. There were no mouse pointers, friendly icons, or overlapping windows on a screen, let alone a touch screen, but with the Macintosh and then windows, The mass of people could finally tap into the power of the microchip behind the screen. Similarly, there had been hundreds of years of accumulated wisdom about personal effectiveness from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Drucker, but it was never assembled into one coherent. User friendly framework. Covey created a standard operating system, the windows for personal effectiveness, and he made it easy to use. And again, that was by Jim Collins. I feel like that is such a good explanation and makes so much sense. And I think that was kind of the genius of, of our grandfather was, was the ability to synthesize. And organize these true principles that, again, he did not invent, but put them in a framework that is, is easy to understand and apply in life,

Britain:

coming from someone who doesn't understand computers, I agree with that. And, and I think it's important that people remember my grandpa or our grandpa, he didn't write this book until he was in his fifties. So he had decades of. Teaching, uh, experience. To see this and put it together. It's not like he came out and just came out with all of these things. I think he saw this in, in action firsthand, which is what kind of prompted him to, to organize these things,

Stephen:

the last thing I'll mention around why the book Seven Habits. Uh, actually an answer, an answer to a question that my grandfather gave. So, um, one time, uh, he was asked, or he's asked this question frequently. Cause again, the book was published in 1989. And the question is, are the, are the seven habits still relevant today? And for that matter, are they going to be relevant? 10 years from now, 20 years, 50, a hundred years from now. And this, this was his answer. I'll say it word for word. He said the greater the change and the more difficult our challenges, the more relevant the habits become. The reason our problems and pain are universal and increasing and the solutions to the problems have been, and are always. And will be based upon universal, timeless, self evident principles, common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history. I did not invent them and take no credit for them. I've simply identified and organized them into a sequential framework. So, Anyways, that's the reason why we're choosing seven habits. Multiple reasons. Um, getting in a little bit about, about the author himself. Our grandfather, just a brief story about his kind of his life. He actually, he grew up in Utah. And kind of the family business was actually running a hotel chain. If you've ever been to, Salt Lake city before, you may have heard of the little America hotel. It's not part of our family anymore or anything, but. When he grew up, that was kind of what his father was running that hotel. But our, our grandfather had zero desire to, to, to be in that business. He, he just, I don't think he enjoyed it. And what he had a passion around was teaching and leadership development and kind of how organizations worked. So he went to his father, our. Great grandfather and basically said, Hey, I, I don't want to be in the business. Like I have a passion for teaching. And to, to his, his dad's credit, he said, that's great. You, you need to pursue that. And if you're passionate about that and you feel a calling to that, that's what you need to do. Our grandfather became a university professor and taught in the business school in organizational behavior. And. Eventually, like Brit mentioned in his late forties, early fifties, he started doing more consulting work for companies and decided to leave teaching to basically start, originally it was called, um, Stephen R Covey and associates. Then it was the Covey leadership center. And then now today the company's called Franklin Covey, but, uh, pretty interesting for a professor to leave his profession of teaching in his fifties. To write a book and kind of start a company. It's a, it's a pretty incredible story, what he did. And obviously our grandfather, he's not with us anymore. He passed away in 2012. So the person we're going to have to talk through seven habits is actually our dad, uh, Stephen Amar Covey. He's been on the podcast before for his book, the speed of trust. But we felt talking to our dad about this, who was heavily involved with the seven habits when it was released and, It's actually the CEO of the company at the time will be a a good person to give us kind of unique insight around that.

Britain:

which once again, if you guys have any questions that you'd like us to ask him, please send them in because he will definitely have a unique perspective and experiences that I'm sure we wouldn't even think about, uh, be prompted to ask him. So please send in your questions.

Stephen:

Obviously anyone can kind of read about some of the things I've talked about talking about our grandfather, but maybe Brett share, uh, what, what was kind of your personal experience? You were, you were a bit younger when he was still alive, but. What do you remember about Papa?

Britain:

Passed away when I was 14. So I really knew him as, as papa, as grandpa, right? Not, not some leadership guru. Um, but I think what I loved most about him that not a lot of people know that read his things was he was a prankster, a jokester. Um, he loved to break down the barriers of professionalism. And I think that's what made him so likable. I still remember. And I think I was in sixth grade or something. I bought a funny hat with long gray wig hair coming out of the back of it. And I wore it to his house and he loved it so much. He took it from me and he would wear it to his presentations. And if you're going to know my grandpa, he was bald by the age of 25. Right. But yeah, he wore this. Fake wig hair that, uh, he thought looked fun and, and he would wear it to his presentations, to these professional events that, that defines his, his jokester in him. And I think I got a little bit of that with me too. So I love that part of him.

Stephen:

I echo what Brit said where growing up, I had no idea that he was this famous author and a lot of people knew him. I just knew him as Papa and that he was really funny and silly and would wear these crazy masks around. And they actually, um, growing up at our grandparents house, they had these pictures on the wall. And one of them was, uh, Picture of, uh, they would make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on top of his bald head. Um, and, and the story was that he would be like on a, a conference call with like a big corporation, like an IBM or something, and having this really intense conversation with like their executive team, meanwhile, like his kids were making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on top of his head, which I just thought, I just thought it's hilarious. I just remember him. He always, even though he had a lot, he's had a lot of kids, a lot of grandkids. I, anytime he spent time with me, I always felt like I was the most important person, in his life at that moment. And I remember my senior year in high school one time was just kind of stressed about the future and. You know, anyone that's about to graduate high school can be kind of a weird time. And I just called my grandpa and asked if he could talk. And he spent half a day with me, um, just out of the blue and realizing how busy he is and the people that he's meeting across the world. And the fact that he would just sit down with me, spend half a day. I look at it now, um, in hindsight, realizing like, wow, That's, that's amazing that, um, someone like him would take that time. And I just thought nothing of it cause I just knew. That he loved me and cared about me and gave me that time and focus and attention. So, um, absolutely love, love everything about Papa and the influence he's had in my life. And I know for Britt's life as well. Britt, what are, what are some questions you want to ask dad kind of about seven habits? And again, I'll just remind the audience, if you have a question, About the seven habits or, or about the development of seven habits or, or Stephen Covey himself shoot us a text and, and we'll, we'll actually be able to incorporate that when we, when we do the interview with our dad on this. So just, just a reminder, but Brett, what, I guess, what questions do you want to explore when we, when we talk through this,

Britain:

I know, uh, he was asked about this multiple times, but it's something that I would be interested to hear dad's perspective on it is what is either the most important habit of the seven or what is the most difficult habit to live? Um, if you can rank them at all, right. Uh, I, I think that's an interesting question that a lot of people have. Um, and then one concept that I've really loved as I've gotten older. That I feel like is difficult to live, but so unique and, and such a, such a papa concept as I would call it, right. Is just the idea that he taught strengths lie in differences, even more than similarities. And, uh, as someone who's married, I think that can be true, but it's also difficult, right? When you have differences and in any relationship. Um, professional, personal, just the idea of how can strengths lie in your differences even more than your similarities and how do you handle that? How do you coexist and thrive together with your differences?

Stephen:

Love it. I think for me, I would like to ask some questions around the origins of the seven habits and I know dad knows a lot more about this than, than I, than either of us do about how it developed from the early years of him being a professor all the way until the book was released. I think there's some, there's some cool stories around that, that I've heard before, but. I don't know intimately. So that's something I want to ask about. And then another thing I just want to explore more along the lines of the name of our podcast paradigm. And one of the things Papa always talked about was this idea of paradigms and that the way, the way you see the problem is the problem. And so I just want to have further understanding and discussion around. Our paradigms, how we see the world and how can we change our paradigms? Cause if you can change your paradigm, then your behavior and attitude automatically change. So those are some of the things I want to, I kind of want to ask about, but. Again, whatever questions you have for the listeners, please send them in because we'll incorporate those into the interview. Just so everyone's aware that the episode around the seven habits with our dad, we'll release that three weeks from now, normally we won't have That big of a gap, but that gives us time for, for you to send in questions as well. So three weeks from now is when that episode will, drop. And I just wanted to let everyone know that's kind of the timeframe for when that happens. So, anything else, Brit, you want to mention before we sign off?

Britain:

No, I'm good. I'm excited. Hopefully people join us on this one. I think it's going to be great.

Stephen:

I do too. And again, we appreciate. Everyone's support. It's been fun to, to launch this with Brit. I'll just end again with, with something Jim Collins wrote that echoes how we feel. He said no person lasts forever, but books and ideas can endure. When you engage with these pages, talking about the seven habits, you will be engaging with Stephen Covey at the peak of his powers. You can feel him reaching out from the text to say, Here, I really believe this, let me help you. I want you to get this, to learn from it. I want you to grow, to be better, to contribute more, to make a life that matters. His life is done, but his work is not. And Britain, I like to think that we play a small part in continuing his work and the things that he taught. And so we're really grateful, to have this opportunity to talk with our dad about the seven habits and about our grandfather. So thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you in three weeks from now.