Introduction to the Chapter

You are entering a realm in which you will either feel extremely comfortable because you have a vision of life and know where you are going, or you will feel extremely uncomfortable because to date you have been drifting along, somewhat aware of your talents, aware you are coming to a crossroads and will no longer be told what to do every day by your parents, teachers, coaches, and friends, but you will have to decide where to go.

Read the learning objectives and the learning outcomes below, so you will understand what you need to learn in chapter 1, but also what you will want to do before chapter 1 is over.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, students will do the following:

1. Know how a vision board will impact your life
2. Know how to develop huge personal goal or goals and then lay out the SMART objectives to achieve that goal or goals
3. Know how to daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly lay out your life to reach your objectives and earn your life goal by using the seven habits described by Stephen Covey

Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the following:

1. Build a vision board
2. Pick a large life goal and lay out at least twenty objectives to reach that life goal.
3. Use the seven habits to help your life move forward every week.

Huge Life Goal

Build your vision board asking yourself the following questions:

1. What does the next chapter of my life look like?
2. Who do I need to be?
3. How do I need to grow?
4. What skills do I need to learn?
5. What steps do I need to take?

Once you have a clear idea about the questions, find your images. Look for pictures that are real for you. Look for pictures of where you live and the life you live on a daily basis.

Once you have developed your vision board, you will start to see all the pieces of the puzzle of your life start to come into focus. Place this vison board where you will see it every day. Seeing your vision daily brings that vision into your self-conscious. Now that you have a vision of your future, I want you to pick a very large goal in your future. This is not graduating from college, and it is not an internship; those things lead you to something much bigger. Ask yourself, “What is that bigger thing?”

Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits

Once you have that bigger goal and you make that goal part of your vison board, then you will see how Stephen Covey’s seven habits apply to you. As you watch the YouTube on Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, take notes. Each time you see these videos, they will have some deeper meaning for you.

Learning how to develop using the inside-out approach will allow you to build the roots you need for all your future efforts. Greatness starts from the inside and works its way out. You cannot fake character ethics. There are no shortcuts. We will review with you the seven habits and give you examples of times during specific leaders’ careers they exemplified the seven habits.

Habits 1 to 3: Dependence to Independence

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Here is the opportunity for you to control your life. In this chapter, you were encouraged to pick a huge life goal.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Picking a huge life goal is beginning with the end in mind. Don’t worry about where you are today; just pick that huge life goal that is meaningful to you. We have done this exercise with hundreds of students. One student decided that he was going to work for Patagonia and make a difference in the world of outdoor adventures. He won an internship with Patagonia, and today he is making that difference. Another student wanted to be a composer. We encouraged him to see the Oscar he was going to win for his score in a Hollywood movie. He now works for a major Hollywood studio, and we are all waiting for our tickets to the Grammys and Oscars to celebrate with him.

Habit 3: First Things First

Once you have decided on your huge life goal, you can start to prioritize your life with your huge goal and vision board in mind! This is the start of your time management. As the video described the four quadrants of your life, you too have to decide how important your goal is. Once you have defined your compass and the eight major quadrants of it, you will be able to prioritize your life accordingly.

As you heard on the video, these first three habits are for our personal growth and will take you from dependence to independence once you have incorporated them into your life fully.

Habits 4 to 6: Interdependence

Habits 4 to 6 will then take you from independence to interdependence. Let’s talk about them.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Most people, when they are dealing with others, believe things have to be win-lose. This is because they do not understand the principle of abundance. If you believe all resources are limited, you are fighting your entire life to get as many resources as you possibly can. You believe you have to always win. The principle of abundance teaches us that the world’s resources are completely abundant. When you are in a situation in which you are pitted against another person, another team, or another company or country, enter the situation trying to always see the win-win. How you help others succeed will also help you succeed.

Usually, we already know how we can win. Sometimes it can be as easy as just asking the other company what they need. You will be amazed at how the conversation will open up if you start with the question “How do we help you?” We wanted to buy a company. We knew what owning them could do for us. We had no idea what they either wanted or needed to succeed.

Once they learned we were more interested in helping them, they dropped their guard and let us know they needed capital to expand, wanted to buy three other companies, and just wanted to be sure all their employees were protected and would continue to work for the company. This information helped us form the buy-sell agreement that optimized all their potential.

We had never thought about buying the three companies, nor did we know the property they wanted to buy was for sale, and as far as their employees go, all two hundred of them had been with the company for years, were brilliant, and helped us grow to over one thousand employees in less than two years, expanding our market by 200 percent.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood

As we gain experience in life, we have a vision of the path forward. Jo Koy tells a story about him and his mother. Jo is a brilliant comedian. If you have never heard him, you should take time to hear his stories. Because he is Filipino, he uses his accent (actually, his mother’s accent) to bring laughter to people. He tells of the day he told his mother he wanted to be a comedian. His mother immediately tells Jo, “Why do you want to be a comedian, Joseph? All your aunties are nurses. All your cousins are nurses. Do you see any clowns in this family?”

Obviously, Jo is making a joke, but how many of us, when we are engaged in a conversation, will not wait for the person to complete their idea? We will immediately reach into our history and interrupt the person, telling them our answer before they even finish telling us about the situation from their point of view. Seeking to understand indicates that we must listen empathetically. We must learn to hear the other person before we develop our answer.

Habit 6: Synergy

Most of us know we need others. Most of us realize that, no matter how small the job, working with someone else makes whatever we are doing easier and faster, but do we really see how synergy, how being part of a team, how growing that team helps us become limitless? This is the principle of synergy.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

What does “sharpen the saw” mean to you? What happens when you are trying to cut something and your saw is dull? It is true labor. It is hard; every stroke of the saw is work. Stop what you are doing, take the saw to a professional, have them sharpen the saw, or buy a new blade. What happens? The saw cuts through whatever you are trying to cut with an ease that turns the work into fun. The same thing happens with you.

All our saws get dull over time. Our saws have four components: physical, spiritual, cognitive, and social. Each component is a way to sharpen our saw. I work out almost every day. I watch people at work. They come to work and grind at work for eight hours, and when they are done, they are exhausted. I start work earlier, because for me, I am more creative and a much better writer early in the day than I am late in the afternoon. I work for three to four hours, and then I take a break and I go work out. When I come back to work, I am all fired up and ready to create for the rest of the afternoon.

Doing yoga, meditation, and just taking a walk each day is sharpening your saw. If you have never done yoga, you can do it in your chair at work. Look online, you will find examples of chair yoga all over the internet. You don’t have to take a class or change into your Lululemon’s; you can just push away from your desk and try a few poses. You will be amazed at how yoga can change your life. Meditation works the same way: You can do it at your desk, in your car before you go into work, or before you drive home. We all do some form of social health sharpening, whether it is happy hour with your coworkers or dinner with your family and friends, or an outing each week—each of these adds to our sharpness.

Lastly, remember that no one is too old to continue their education. I am writing this book because I have always felt I was called to write. At the age of 71, I am starting my doctorate, so you are never too old. I try to read a book a week; lately, I have been reading two and three because friends of mine have given me so many excellent suggestions about books I can’t believe I have never read. Make a list and work your way through the list of great books. There are so many out there!!