THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE BY STEPHEN COVEY - ANIMATED BOOK REVIEW

I remember My grandmas favorite story was
about how everything cost two cents when she was
young. But now, everything constantly got more expensive.
And it was all because of the government. These uneducated pigs didnt know how to
control prices. And when I was privileged enough to hear this
story, her complaining would last for hours and hours.

And that's exactly what reactive people do.
They always focus on the things that they cannot control.
Its not possible that a concept like inflation would exist.
And if it did, its impossible that they wouldnt know about it! On the other hand, proactive people realize,
Look, even if my complaining were completely objective,
it doesn't help me. So I'm going to focus on what I can control. If a proactive person owns a business where
he sells a product, instead of focusing on how people these days
dont appreciate good products anymore, and how the government has horrible regulations,
he focuses on, How can I improve my product, so my customers
cant live without it? Do you realize how much responsibility,
how much dedication, how much hard work
comes along with asking that question? And what do you think our effort-minimizing
brain is going to pick as default? And that is exactly why most people focus
on the things that they cannot control, rather than focusing on the things that they
can. Habit number 1 is: be proactive.

Now imagine youre at a funeral,
but this ones different from all the funerals you've ever been to.
Youre standing over the casket and you see yourself.
What do you have to say about yourself? This is one of the most powerful questions
you could ask. Are you doing the things in your life,
which are aligned with what you want to be able to say?
Do you want to say that you were a good spouse? If thats the case,
how does coming home and instantly being negative towards your spouse affect that?
Do you want to be remembered as a person who added value to society?
If thats the case, are you doing the things that will allow you
to say that, or are you scared of failure and choose comfortable
mediocrity instead? Almost every one of us will have to readjust
how we live when we ask that question. Habit number 2 is: begin with the end in mind. Now if I were to ask you,
What are the most important things to you? The most common answers I would get would
be either your wellbeing,
or your relationshipsyour family, your spouse, your children.
You would never ever say, Organizing papers or watching TV
But how many of us spend more time organizing papers and watching TV,
than planning our nutrition and going to the gym,
or cultivating a healthy family environment? Theres a horrible disconnect between what
we say and how we actually allocate our time.

Habit number 3 is: put first things first. Now imagine youre an author, and Im
an author. And We both write interesting books,
and we both have access to an audience of about a 100,000 people.
I read your book and I love it. So I decide to share it with my audience.
And as a result, you now have 1,000s of people buying your
book and reading your ideas.

You see this and think, Who is this guy?
Let me take a look at his book. You start reading my book and think I have
ideas that are valuable. So you decide to share it with your audience.
And as a result, I now have 1,000s of people buying my book
and reading my ideas. Notice how different this is from my creating
a little creepy Amazon account, finding your book and leaving a bad review,
hoping that this will deter a few people from buying your book,
which will in turn somehow get them to buy my book.

Habit number 4 is: think win-win.
Stop thinking of everything as a zero-sum game.
For you to win, another person does not have to lose. Something I want my viewers to do is to subscribe
to my channel, but you will never hear me say,
Well, I worked really hard guys. I dedicated so many hours to this.
Please subscribe. Look, who cares if I worked hard?
Who cares if Ive spent days creating this video?
The real questions are, does it offer value to you?
And Why should you dedicate your time to subscribing, when you could be doing anything else that
you want? Habit number 5 is something that I try to
use every single day, with every interaction that I have,
and with every comment that I reply to, and it is this: seek first to understand,
then to be understood.

Now imagine there are two people,
and a tree with five apples on it. They are both too short to reach the apples,
but if one of them sits on the others shoulders, he can reach all five of the apples.
This is called synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Now Ill be the first to admit that you
cant achieve this with everyone, but you should always be looking for opportunities
to create synergy.

With every synergistic opportunity you create,
you can gather many more apples than you otherwise would by yourself. Habit number 6 is: Synergize. A man has been trying to cut down a tree for
hours. And after a while his neighbor cant take
it anymore, goes over and says,
You know, if you sharpen the saw, youll be able to cut it down faster.
And the man replies, But, sharpening the saw is going to take
time.

Now we might laugh at this story, but we do
the same thing all the time. We cant find 30 minutes a day, 4 times
a week to go to the gym. Our health deteriorates to a point,
where were physically incapable of being effective.
We cant read a book for 15 minutes a day and mentally stimulate ourselves.
No! These things take too much time! And then we have the audacity to ask for little
tips and tricks on how to be effective. Its like telling your engineer,
Dont worry about the foundation, where can we get the magic bricks that will
float in the air? Habit number 7 is: sharpen the saw.

And these are the 7 habits of highly effective
people by Stephen Covey..