Tag Archives: the seven habits of highly effective people

From Manly Macho Man to Man of Meaning. Why take so long?

13 Thursday Feb 2020

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I am a Man. I’d go as far as to say I am a Manly Man, insofar as I try to be the stoic man-of-action when/if the situation demands. I have had fights and car chases ‘in the name of the law’ although I’ve never asked anyone to stop for that reason. (I did hear someone do that, once, and I cringed.) I have climbed cliffs, done a racing driver’s course, served in HM Forces, and I have experienced many other things that one might associate with the term ‘macho’.

I still, occasionally, would like to do some of that stuff again. I am 58.

Yet just lately, my cultural tastes have changed. Despite all that manliness (I have an exceptionally hairy chest – and back – and I’ll leave you with that image), I no longer seek out war films, I have exceptional problems with the end of E.T., and am in bits when Private Ryan, U.S. Army (Retd.) asks, “Have I been a good man? at the end of the film bearing his name.

And one of the nicest films I have seen of late was ‘The Way’, which was about Martin Sheen walking a religiously significant route across El camino de Santiago, in the Pyrenees. The plot revolves around how his son is killed on the first day of his walk along the route, and Dad elects to take his son’s ashes along the walk for him. Hardly ‘The Dambusters’ (man film, obligatory viewing for all male children – and why didn’t MS Word recognise that term? WHY??).

The truth is that like most ‘blokes’, I suspect that as we mature we start to see that all the fun we had doing blokey stuff was just that – fun – and it’s time to think about more important things like family, legacy, principles and so on.

Which is why I think that many people in the machismo/action ‘field’, and men in particular, seem to dismiss and resist the idea of reading books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People until they are middle-aged. Which is a waste of about 30 years.

When you start to get a bit older, you get a little more mature, mentally. For some sooner than others, I might add. And you start to realise that there is more to existence than just you. Your children stop being funny little human puppies and start needing serious help in their lives. You start to notice how people do stupid things on our roads and admit that you used to do them. You stop worrying about spending your hard-earned cash and start thinking about how it will benefit your spouse and kids. You volunteer to be designated driver and you question the future hearing capability of the teenager driving past you with the ‘BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP’ so loud inside the car that it actually drowns out the ‘BRRRRRRAAAAAPPPPPP’ coming from the excessively large exhaust.

You suddenly realise that the life of living has turned to a desire to have a life of meaning. And you also realise that time is running out.

Instead of waiting until you’re 50 to discover what you’ve missed, try reading this book, or ones like it, early enough to be able to have fun while living a life of meaning. Have you noticed that the ‘better’ celebrities do that? They have fun and still contribute, while some (the a-holes) just have fun, and they soon become figures of hate and derision.

That book in particular, and many others like it, are valuable reading when you reach that ‘age of maturity’ that differs for all of us.

But wouldn’t it be great if the contents were routinely taught in school?

Habit 2 – Brush Daily.

03 Monday Feb 2020

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And today’s question is: What am I doing (Am I doing anything??) to establish Begin with the End in Mind as a habit of effectiveness in my life?

Seems a simple question. If I was to guess, when it comes to work-related strategies and tasks, most readers would have a list of answers available. However, I would also surmise that the Beginning with the End in Mind in respect of work is more about processes and protocols that dictate what you do, rather than actually applying that particular habit at a conscious level.

All the same, work examples proliferate, so I’ll ask you to look, instead, at your personal lives, and perhaps at the most basic of levels. What are you doing at home to which you apply End in Mind thinking?

Here’s an odd one. I’ll be blunt and say that I hate cleaning my teeth. Don’t know why, some childhood trauma, I suppose. Maybe one day I was cleaning my teeth and Dad walked into the room naked. Whatever, I hate standing still long enough to brush, and this was more obvious before I invested in an electric toothbrush, and these days it is a habit, as it should be.

This morning, though, I had a blinding flash of the obvious. What is the End in Mind with tooth-brushing? The most obvious answer would be avoidance of bad breath and cleany-whitey teeth, but that in either case that is a day-long, fleeting objective.

No, this morning I realised that the End in Mind was a 6-month process. It wasn’t about the sensibilities of my workmates or going out on the pull with pearly white pearly whites. It was about going to the dentist and coming away without the impending terror of a needle and a drill.

That was my new end in Mind. I love cleaning my teeth, regardless of Dad’s indiscretion.

That may be a silly example, but it does illustrate how little we think about Ends in the moment. We think about today’s tasks, and we think most of all about what is smack bang in front of us in the moment. Which is one of the reasons a lot of professionals feel stress at work – the ‘in your face’ prevents us doing the ‘important’. We are constantly interrupted by minutiae, but minutiae that someone demands we do, whether now or to some arguably random and unnecessary deadline invented to make life easier for an administrator rather than an operator.

But like tooth-brushing, if we stop for a moment and really think about the End rather than the interim objective, perhaps we can see more clearly what is important, what brings the most return on our time, or even just what the ultimate benefit could be. And at the same time see what really should be left until it absolutely has to be done, and with the appropriate non-priority.

Think about all those things you hate doing, which you put off easily or completely avoid.

What IS the ultimate, perhaps more important objective?

If discovering that changes your perspective enough to maximise your effectiveness, do it.

It’ll save needing professional help later. I promise.

And the dentist ain’t buying a new BMW on MY dollar.

The Wisdom That Saved Me.

09 Thursday Jan 2020

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This will be an absolute, unashamed plug. But it has an X-Factor style back story about me.

In the early 1990s I read a book. I have, admittedly, read some more since then. In the mid-1990s, I threw what those in my former profession called a ‘double-six’, which is an inexplicable euphemism for losing it emotionally and doing something that exhibits the point at which a straw broke your camel’s back. In my case, and I really didn’t see it coming, I broke down in tears in front of one of the best, most understanding supervisors I ever had the honour to serve. I suspect he was as surprised as I was. Evidently, a build up of stress factors over a period of time just hit me and I suffered an emotional collapse.

Traditionally, when this happens to coppers they have 6 months off, see the doctor for some pills, and later debate with their friends who has the highest dosage of said pills. Which is not a judgment on whether or not they were suffering from stress, because they invariably were. It is just a statement based on my experience of my colleagues’ response to it. Absence, medication, discussion. Standard procedure.

In my case I left work at the start of the shift during which it happened, had the following shift off, then after a three day weekend was back for my morning shift on the Monday. Two workdays lost, a weekend off as per the rota, and back.

One might suggest I wasn’t really stressed. Well, I don’t cry easily. I am/was a macho, rooftop-chasin’, car-chasin’, door-kickin’ kind of guy. So tears at lunchtime suggest a breakdown.

What ‘sorted’ my depression for me was not drugs. It was application of what I’d learned in the aforementioned book. It espoused taking control of events by using the gap between stimulus and response to decide, consciously, deliberately, in a considered way what, exactly, to do about the event. I took my family to dinner, decided what changes I felt I needed the job to make in my regard and, with that clarity, sought and got it.

Never lost it again. I’ve suffered some severe cr4p since then but it’s never brought me to tears or caused a lay-off.

On the 9th of March 2020, the 30th Anniversary Edition of that book will be released. It’s been updated, and if the font size remains the same there’ll be an extra 120 pages of ‘stuff’ in it. I’m already pumped and waiting to buy it.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012), amended by his son Sean.

If you want an intelligent, profound and systematic take on effective living that doesn’t dictate what you should do but focuses on how it is you who decides what and how you need to do things, this is it.

I’ve read tons of stuff. Anthony Robbins, Ziglar, Tracy, Sinek, and others. They all provide great advice on how to get what you want.

But every time I think about ‘life’ and consider ‘doing’ what these writers promote, I find that I always come back to the wisdom – and the book – that Stephen Covey gave me. And if the book blurb is true, 50,000,000 suspect the same.

Go on. Treat yourself. Buy a book that I can assure you from experience, really is life-changing.

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Yep. Shook his hand……