The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The fundamental problem has nothing to do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a wrong map.

As long as we are working in our Circle of Concern, we empower the things within it to control us.

Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.

Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” the maxim goes.

The real beginning of influence comes as others sense you are being influenced by them—when they feel understood by you—that you have listened deeply and sincerely, and that you are open.

If I say “I am responsible,” I might have to say, “I am irresponsible.”

what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.