I
remember my grandma’s 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 didn’t 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.
It’s
not possible that a concept like inflation would exist. And if it did, it’s
impossible that they wouldn’t 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 don’t appreciate good products anymore, and how the government has
horrible regulations, he focuses on, “How can I improve my product, so my
customers can’t 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 you’re at a
funeral, but this one’s different from all the funerals you've ever been to. You’re
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 that’s 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 that’s 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 well being, or your
relationships—your 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? There’s a horrible disconnect
between what we say and how we actually allocate our time. Habit number 3 is:
put first things first.
Now
imagine you’re an author, and I’m 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 I’ve 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 other’s shoulders, he can reach all
five of the apples. This is called synergy. The whole is greater than the sum
of its parts. Now I’ll be the first to admit that you can’t 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 can’t take it
anymore, goes over and says, “You know, if you sharpen the saw, you’ll 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 can’t find 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week to go to the gym. Our
health deteriorates to a point, where we’re physically incapable of being effective.
We can’t 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. It’s like telling your engineer,
“Don’t 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.
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