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

7/10

It's been a while since I read this book, but it was nice to thumb through it and read many of the good principles and quotes contained in this book. It is loaded with good advice and I enjoyed recognizing several gospel-oriented teachings sprinkled throughout the book. In fact, David O. McKay, Ezra Taft Benson, N. Eldon Tanner, and probably other church figures are quoted in this book.

Lots of times when I haven't read a book in a while I will have forgotten most of what it was about but will usually remember at least one thing throughout the years. When I picked up this book to post on this blog the one thing that has remained with me through the years was this: "One person's mission is another person's minutia. To make a deposit, what is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you." I immediately thought of people like my Dad who would listen with seeming interest to my endless rants about the Bluejays' ups and mostly downs. As I post this now I think of my wife who endures the same rants. They have always made me feel that they are genuinely interested in my passionate discourses. It is not that they are interested in baseball or the Bluejays but they live the quote mentioned above. I have always hoped that I can do the same for others in my life and I hope to be able to do that for my kids as they grow and develop interests and hobbies.

There's also this funny part where he mentions "a person who runs three or four hours a day, bragging about the extra ten years of life it creates, unaware he's spending them running." It reminds me of a missionary I lived with who would only drink room temperature water because it is supposed to be better for you and he will live a year or two longer because of it. I always thought how that wouldn't be worth it especially since he would have to drink room temperature water for two extra years. I'd rather die two years earlier drinking refreshing cold water than live two extra years drinking warm water my entire life.

I was going to share a few quotes but there's just too many to share. So I will just share this longish one:

"[I]f you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathetic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character."