Some quotes

P21. The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. -- Albert Einstein

P22.
We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. -- T. S. Eliot

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle

P26. The P/PC Balance: P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.

P28. Too much focus on PC is like a person who runs for three or four hours a day, bragging about the extra 10 years of life it creates, unaware he's spending them running. Or a person endlessly going to school, never producing, living on other people's golden eggs -- the eternal student syndrome.

P30.
No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. -- Marilyn Ferguson

Be patient with yourself.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods. -- Thomas Paine

*****BE PROACTIVE*****
P34....But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise."

P38.
 -"You don't understand. The feeling of love just isn't there."
 -"Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."
 -"But how do you love when you don't love?"
 -"My friend, love is a verb. Love -- the feeling -- is a fruit of love the verb. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

P40. "Lord, give me the courage to change the things which can and ought to be changed, the serenity to accept the things which cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference."

P43. Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system.

*****BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND*****
P45. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

P46. Measure twice, cut once.

P48. Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual phrased it, "like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic."

P51. Hear both sides before judging.

P52. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

P61. We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Remember, "If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other."

P65. He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail. -- Abraham Maslow

P67. One of the main things his [Dr. Charles Garfield] research showed was that almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actually do it. They Begin with the End in Mind.

*****PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST*****
P78. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contributions, if you let it.

P79.
The way you spend your time is a result of the way you see your time and the way you really see your priorities.

It's almost impossible to say "no" to the popularity of Quadrant III or to the pleasure of escape to Quadrant IV if you don't have a bigger "yes" burning inside.

P81. Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas of life. But can it really? Perhaps it can for a limited time in some areas. But can success in your profession compensate for a broken marriage, ruined health, or weakness in personal character? True effectiveness requires balance.

P84. Use a compass instead of using a road map.

*****PARADIGMS OF INTERDEPENDENCE*****
P91.
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. -- Samuel Johnson

You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.

P92.
Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think that idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way.

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are.

P99. It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.

P101. P Problems are PC Opportunities.

P105. ...But the problem is that lose-win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings never die; they're buried alive and come forth in uglier ways.

P112. [Talking about win-win] No deal is always an option.

*****SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD*****

P120. The real key to your influence with me is your example, your actual conduct. Your example flows naturally out of your character, of the kind of person you truly are -- not what others say you are or what you may want me to think you are.

P121.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak.

A father once told me, "I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me at all."
"Let me restate what you just said," I replied. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's right," he replied.
“Let me try again," I said. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's what I said," he impatiently replied.
"I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him," I suggested.

P130. Our perceptions can be vastly different. And yet we both have lived with our paradigms for years, thinking they are "facts", and questioning the character or the mental competence of anyone who can't "see the facts".

*****SYNERGIZE*****
P136. That which is most personal is most general. -- Carl Rogers

P142. ...And the key to valuing those differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are.

*****SHARPEN THE SAW*****
P147. Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things.... I am tempted to think...there are no little things. -- Bruce Barton

P155. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. -- Goethe