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Rating: 5
50-Card Deck Edition - 7 Keys to Success

"You are not your habits-and you can replace old patterns with new ones!" ~Stephen R. Covey

Stephen R. Covey has created a 50-Card deck to explore the ideas of fairness, integrity, honesty and human dignity. By replacing old self-defeating patterns with new successful habits, you can attain a new level of effectiveness in many areas of your life.

This 50-Card Deck is based on the best-selling book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This book has been translated into 32 languages and is one of the most influential business books of the 20th century.

The first card is quite powerful.

Front: "Take responsibility for your life."
Back: "Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.

Don't we wish that was not true!

These cards are divided up into 7 section:

Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Put First Things First
Think Win-Win
Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw

I've met a lot of people who say I should not keep my promises and I'd like to show them the "Make and Keep Commitments" card. Ok, so none of us are perfect and you might have to break promises to keep your sanity. Still, I think I'm less enthusiastic about making casual promises because I know I'll want to keep them. Keeping promises you make to yourself can help you build your self-esteem and therefore you will see more success in your life.

You may actually find that you are already practicing many of these principles. It might seem obvious that we should have goals, but when was the last time we actually wrote them down and figured out which ones we have already achieved? I recently wrote out some goals and one of my goals is to learn to say "no." Yes, I have a problem with saying no.

Some of the cards you might enjoy reading:

"Practice Empathic Listening."
"See the perspective of others."
"Help people in meaningful ways."

These cards will remind you to overcome habitual tendencies that work against your success.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

Rating: 5
This book has definitely changed my life for the better.

This is a book that has changed my life irrevocably and forever. It required great energy, patience and time to read, one with much meaning and very deep in content. In fact, after struggling through the first two Principles outlined in this book I found myself putting it away on the shelf. For nearly a year it sat there and I didn't pick it up again until I had another reason to. The second time around I could not put the book down and took prolific amounts of notes. The third time I read it I learned even more.

This book is about self, about becoming the true you and living your life optimally. This is not a pep-rally or a psychological breakdown of "The 100 Top Tips to Boost Your Self-Esteem". The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is all about understanding where you can (should) be taking yourself in your life. The influence, the support, the understanding, the energy that Dr. Stephen Covey discusses comes from within yourself; it is not an external influence that fades as soon as the source is gone. You create it; you live it; it becomes you and you become it. These principles are not subject to the whims of others. You create yourself, you build upon yourself and you become an effective person in your life through learning to help yourself and others. You learn how to graduate from dependence to independence and then even further on to a higher level: interdependence all by looking deeply within yourself and following seven sound principles that are laid out in a very logical, rational and emotionally-sound manner. The principles behind Dr. Covey's ideas are based on faith in self, community and God. He helps you to understand the philosophy, "Love Me for Me."

In The Seven Habits, Covey talks about the Personal Mission Statement. This is a project that you create, write, rewrite over and over until it describes the person you most want to be. Then you simply spend the rest of your life living those beliefs until you become that person. It is probably the easiest, yet most difficult thing you will ever do in your entire life. Why? Because you must devote your entire life, and energy to this task. How easy it is to become side-tracked and slide into old habits of comfort. But these old habits are the ones that you want to rewrite with new, better habits. This is a difficult road to follow. It is also, without a doubt the most rewarding activity you will ever do in your entire life. After all, the most rewarding things in life are often the most difficult.

Rating: 5
STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVENESS

Stephen Covey outlines the best strategies for maximum effectiveness in this great book. The fact that this book has remained a best seller for over 15 years should tell you something about the merits of the informmation that it contains.

Highly recommended book.