Stephen R Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Part One:

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EPISODE 175

[00:00:00] Mike Parsons: And welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 121. I'm your, co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man who's rather effective, Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Hey, good 

[00:00:14] Mark Pearson Freeland: morning, Mike. What a stocking season and series that you and I are in the middle of right now for moonshots.

[00:00:21] Can you believe that we're only in our third episode, in the timeless classic series 

[00:00:26] Mike Parsons: and classic, they are indeed mark. And we just had an onslaught of Dale Carnegie, both he's rather famous book, but also how to stop worrying and to start living. It was great that Dale Carnegie, Susan. Yeah.

[00:00:42] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, I learned so much myself and I can see from the engagement that we've had from all of our listeners, that both of these books are just, they're classics, they speak to every generation. Yeah. They can inspire all of us no matter what we're doing in our [00:01:00] life. I think the lessons that you and I learned out loud together were prevailing and relevant for students, for schoolchildren, for professionals, for anybody really.

[00:01:12] I think there's a lot of mileage in these 

[00:01:14] Mike Parsons: lessons. Dale Carnegie had a lot to give and It just reminds you that this classic series that we're doing, they're not just of a moment, but they truly are timeless. And where are we going next? Because boy, it's going to be a big one, mark. 

[00:01:30] Mark Pearson Freeland: This one was such a big episode that we decided we, it would be a disservice.

[00:01:37] Mike, if you and I were to try and tackle this next book only in one hour. So listeners today, you will be. Part one of Stephen Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people. This is an absolutely enormously, not only meaty and powerful book, but also very [00:02:00] useful when we consider how we're going to go out and be the best version of ourselves.

[00:02:05] This was a book from 1989, Mike, just a little bit younger than me. Yeah. 

[00:02:11] Mike Parsons: And my, the the thing that we can expect today, and I want to make a pitch to our listeners and to you about why we should return to this classic in particular, because he does a great job similar to what Dale Carnegie did in the thirties.

[00:02:28] But what he did in the eighties is Covey essentially said, look, let's improve ourselves. And then let's improve how we connect with the world around us. And today we're going into the first. Of these highly effective people habits. And I believe that this work is so significant in reminding us of these essential timeless trues on how we should behave, how we should think this [00:03:00] deserves a rereading.

[00:03:01] It deserves returning to, we may think we're very familiar with these habits that Covey out lays for us, but even if you are, they are so powerful. What I would propose is that they deserve to be returned to, I think at the start of every year, I think we should be going to these like a perfect way, a foundational way to start your year, to remind yourself, to keep yourself on track.

[00:03:31] And hopefully today we can go to the world of Stephen cubby and we can remind ourselves on how we can really go inside. Of how we think and how we can master our selves. Mark, are you ready? 

[00:03:48] Mark Pearson Freeland: I'm ready, Mike, this is going to be a pretty good journey and I can't wait to dig into the first three of Stephen Covey's habits today followed by the next for next week.

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] Now, Mike, the question is, would you like to get started? Oh, of 

[00:04:03] Mike Parsons: course we would end the great thing is that coming up in the show, we've got a lot of clips from Covey himself a little bit more recent than I'll dial Carnegie, but mark, I think we're going to start with some other people giving some really interesting thoughts on COVID.

[00:04:19] Mark Pearson Freeland: W we are one of the fundamental principles and foundations of Stephen Covey's seven habits book is his reflection on people. And he reflects back to pre 1920s and people post 1920s. And one of his concepts is around what he calls the personality ethic. And he believes that around the 1920s people started to view success in a slightly different way view success in how do I go out and achieve this?

[00:04:47] How do I almost want to replicate somebody else's behavior that became more of a drive, this idea of public image. And he looks back before the 1920s and thinks, but hang on, wasn't there a difference? [00:05:00] Was there less a public image and attitude focus and something more, a bit, a little bit more humility and so on.

[00:05:07] And this is pretty fundamental to his book because I think it creates the foundation of the seven habits. So this first clip, this introduction to Stephen Covey's the seven habits of highly effective people is a great little synopsis on how the personality, as well as character ethics are quite different.

[00:05:25] And this is a great little synopsis from wisdom for life. 

[00:05:28] Wisdom for Life: Now, this book has touched millions of people's lives. It's one of, if not the most well-known success books out there, there are literally thousands of success books out there. So why should this one be any different? Stephen researched the last 200 years of successful.

[00:05:43] And found something quite interesting in the last 50 years, most of the books have been focused on the personality ethic, things like public image, how you dress, how you perform in social interactions, positive mental attitude, skills, and techniques to get people to behave in certain ways. [00:06:00] These books focus on how to appear rather than how to actually be the seven habits of highly effective people takes an inside out approach.

[00:06:09] It focuses on the character ethic rather than the personality ethic. In the words of Stephen Covey, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the character ethic as the foundation for success. Things like integrity, humility, temperance, courage, and justice patients, industries, simplicity, modesty, and the golden rule.

[00:06:32] The character ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living. And that people can only experience true success in endearing happiness, as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character. Greatness starts from the inside out. Of course, there is a place for personality ethic, but character forms, the foundation personality, ethics need to be rooted in character.

[00:06:58] The personality ethic can be seen [00:07:00] as fake or as a fake it till you make an image. If it's not rooted in character, sometimes people apply these personality techniques in order to use and manipulate people to meet their own goals and agendas in the long run. People will eventually see through this duplicity, but you can't fake character ethic.

[00:07:20] If you're still a little fuzzy on this concept, picture an iceberg, right? The personality ethic is above the water. The character ethic is below the water. It forms the foundation. It's where the greatest impact over the long-term is. It's where you sow the seeds of 

[00:07:37] Mike Parsons: great. The seeds of greatness. Oh my gosh, mark.

[00:07:42] He didn't warn me that we were leading. There's such a heavy first clip. We could stop the rest of the clips and just talk about this for the next hour. Oh my gosh. Isn't this interesting that Covey reminds us to return to virtues of true character, [00:08:00] which, this must have Ryan holiday, like nodding furiously in agreement.

[00:08:04] This is so profound in getting back to your true values that will inform how you behave and avoiding the mistake of trying to be a personality. Episona you think you should be? And this for me was when I relate to this personally, I think one of the greatest things that has changed as I think about my career and actually far beyond.

[00:08:34] Is that learning and understanding and reminding yourself of what you believe in, and then just being yourself, if you will, the character and the personality alignment there, stop trying to be a personality or a persona that you think is expected of you in your roles, whether it be at work [00:09:00] or in life, but go back to the fundamental.

[00:09:03] Be in touch with those values, remind yourself of them live by them. And as a personality, one of my biggest breakthroughs and I've by no means mastered, this is to be the true person you are. Don't try and be the person you think others expect, or just to please people to win people over. It is so great that just in the introduction to this book, we just uncover this huge idea.

[00:09:32] And so what I propose to you, mark, is how with such a big idea like this, how do we come back to our character, this foundation? How do you stop falling for the trap of just that personality fix that we heard from wisdom for life? 

[00:09:48] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah it's tough, isn't it? And it's going to be I imagine something that a lot of our listeners have to contend with day-to-day as well, because we are naturally, I think, raised [00:10:00] into.

[00:10:01] This almost emulation culture. We see a lot of inspiring people all around us every day, and it's very easy to think, Hey, I want what they have. I want that car, or I want to be confident. It can be both emotional as well as physical concept the need or the desire to have that personality ethic as Stephen is my financing.

[00:10:22] But I think something that is really valuable is exactly what you've just said. It's the Ron whole-day approach. It's thinking from a stoic perspective and thinking, okay what actually makes me happy? Is it being a nice guy? Is it being caring for other people? Is it being considerate? And it could be something as simple as holding the door open.

[00:10:41] What gives you that small little smile that only you can give yourself? Do you know what I mean? Something, when you make a difference in somebody's life, maybe you pick up there, dropped off. Oh their phone and they say, oh, thank you. That was really helpful. That's a very small, I think [00:11:00] character driven behavior that perhaps only you would do in that 

[00:11:04] Mike Parsons: sort of.

[00:11:05] So what I would propose is the way we can remind ourselves or even discover what our character really is. I think first one is you've got to read a lot. Don't you, man? Yeah, that's true. That's true. You've got it. You've got to introduce new ideas to provoke your own thoughts. Does that sound right?

[00:11:22] How do I relate to that? How might I do that? And I think the second thing is. And I think this again, another big breakthrough for myself, you got to write about it. You've got a journal you've got to, you've got to manifest these things. It's all very good and well, to say, I'm going to work hard, but you got to write it down and you got to do it every morning or every evening you've got to go to the mental gym and build that muscle, that commitment, because then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

[00:11:54] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. As even Steven himself is going to call out later in this show, it's one thing [00:12:00] to say, you're going to do it, you're going to in, in today's in today's episode, we're going to dig into three of these habits, but there's going to be seven in total. And it's one thing to say, oh yeah, great.

[00:12:10] I understand them. I know what Stephen Covey's talking about here, but it's another thing to put them into 

[00:12:16] Mike Parsons: practices. The great news is that we've actually got this next clip, which is from from Covey's son. And this is Stephen, Mr. Covey the son of the author of the seven habits of highly effective people.

[00:12:32] And he's going to do something very important for us. He is going to give us a sense, the meaning you might say of this whole idea of being affected. 

[00:12:42] Stephen Covey: If we're going to be effective, we need to understand what we mean by highly effective. It could be efficient people, or it could be even successful people, but the term is effective and they used the story of ASAP and the fable of the farmer [00:13:00] who is down on his luck and is terribly poor.

[00:13:05] And then he finds a goose and to his delight, this goose, the next morning has laid a golden egg. And he's thrilled because it's truly a negative goal. He's able to sell it, gain value. And then the next day he lays another golden egg. He's thrilled again. And the next day, another golden egg and the goose is continuing to lay in this golden eggs.

[00:13:26] And the farmer is absolutely delighted and thrilled. And then after a several days, he becomes increasingly greedy and he wants all the gold. And so as in his effort to get more gold, faster, he kills the goose, reaches inside to get all the gold and realizes that there's nothing there, but a dead goose.

[00:13:50] So he's just killed the goose that lays the golden egg. We use this fable as a metaphor and we hear it all the time, the goose, the legs, the golden egg. That's [00:14:00] what we mean really by effectiveness. It's really a combination of both those things, the goose and the golden eggs is our performance, our production.

[00:14:10] When we produce and perform, then we're being effective, but it's not enough just to produce him perform. If we don't have a healthy goose that will lay these golden eggs. And so as always, then also in addition to the performance, the production, it has the health, the maintenance and the wellbeing of the goose.

[00:14:29] And there's many organizations that sometimes can drive for a result. And get the production and get the golden eggs, but they do it in a way that diminishes. And in some cases even destroys the health of the goose. And over time the goose gets sick or even dies. Sometimes they, same thing happens with us as individuals.

[00:14:48] We might drive hard for results, get them again and again, but doing it in a way that destroys the health and the welfare of our groups. So to speak where we become less effective [00:15:00] and over time, lose our effectiveness or dial together in our ability to produce. Now, clearly the other side is true as well.

[00:15:06] If someone only has a healthy goose and never delivers the golden eggs, that's just potential. We're not delivering real effectiveness is that balance of production and production capabilities, the golden eggs, as well as the. 

[00:15:23] Mark Pearson Freeland: Or two big intro clips to set us up for today's show. We 

[00:15:28] Mike Parsons: never get to the actual seven habits cause the intros are doing good.

[00:15:33] I know, I 

[00:15:33] Mark Pearson Freeland: really enjoy that Aesop fable. I think that's such a good relatable tale. Isn't it again? This is why we're in the time, this classic series, Mike, 

[00:15:42] Mike Parsons: you don't know where the do I explore this on a personal basis because you could easily see that allegory being not only for people, but for companies and organizations, and isn't it interesting that the idea of the goose that lays the golden egg, how pervasive that is in business [00:16:00] culture, understanding, your point of difference, your unfair advantage or on a personal basis.

[00:16:07] What is this relationship that if you're not healthy and healthy body, healthy mind, it's so fascinating. You can see us on so many levels. It just speaks to the power of the work from Covey, this the seven habits of highly effective people. It's, we can't even get to the clips markets that good.

[00:16:25] Mark Pearson Freeland: We're still in the intros. But I think both of those two clips that we've just heard are setting the scene for our next couple of shows, Mike because we now understand this idea of effectiveness. We're not necessarily focused on efficiency. What we're trying to find is how do we balance the production?

[00:16:44] So maybe the eggs, as well as the production capabilities, I, the goose, how do we maintain that equilibrium? Because if you wait too much on the actual production piece or your. Start to lose track or [00:17:00] even as Stephen Covey's son puts it, kill the goose. And by not finding your core character driven ethic this from the stoic point of view, really being inward facing and reflecting on yourself, you're not going to be able to, I think, balance that equilibrium correctly because fundamentally your production output and your capabilities are intrinsically tied to your ability to understand yourself and be the best version of yourself.

[00:17:30] Day-to-day 

[00:17:31] Mike Parsons: well, I think we better jump in or else we could find ourselves just jamming on these the first two, two clips for the whole show. And that would be rather disappointing for all of our listeners. So let's kick this off. Let's go to this idea of a habit. Number one. It's all about proactivity and not reactivity, but what's really fascinating is there's actually lots of ideas deeper inside of this that you may have heard [00:18:00] of.

[00:18:00] So let's start by listening to Covey himself, talking about this idea of being proactive. Now we want to 

[00:18:09] Stephen Covey: look at the foundational habit, habit one to be proactive. Why foundational? Because all of the other habits flow out of it. You have habit. One is present. You can cultivate the other six. If it is not present, you will not call the bait.

[00:18:31] The other six habit one be proactive basically means that your life is a product of your values, not your feelings that your life. Or the organization's life is a product of your decisions, not your conditions. The opposite of being proactive [00:19:00] is to be reactive, which basically means that your life is a function of your feelings, your moods, your impulses, other people's treatment.

[00:19:17] The underlying principle of habit. One be proactive is to take responsibility. The concept is you and I have the capacity to choose our response. If you don't believe that you're capable of choosing your own response, if you don't have that vision of yourself, if you're deep into victim, isn't all just about guaranteed.

[00:19:46] You will become disempowered. You will not begin with the end in mind with careful thinking about the future. You'll be a function of the past. You will put second, [00:20:00] third, fourth, and fifth things first with your ladder leaning against the wrong wall. You'll think win, lose, or lose win. You'll always seek to be understood first, rather than to understand.

[00:20:13] And you'll be constantly botching, all kinds of relationships because both parties feel misunderstood. Ego battles will develop at best. You'll end up with compromise instead of synergy. And you will not take the time to sharpen the saw because you simply don't have the time to get gas. You're too busy.

[00:20:34] You're buried in the thick of thin things. That's why I haven't. One is so foundational. It is the vital foundational component of every other habit. 

[00:20:48] Mark Pearson Freeland: What a perfect place to start with Stephen Covey essentially laying out the next seven habits. Yeah. 

[00:20:56] Mike Parsons: It's he said, it's the precondition to the other six [00:21:00] habits is you got to get be proactive.

[00:21:02] But it's more than just go after the day and be on top of things, isn't it? 

[00:21:06] Mark Pearson Freeland: Oh, it's so much deeper. This is a fundamental shift in the way that we think you cannot go after the other six habits and be highly effective unless you get this first step, unless you essentially learn to think or learn to walk, in the right way.

[00:21:23] And this idea of being and thinking. Proactively is pretty fundamental, actually, Mike, and it's something that I think maybe some of our listeners will relate to because for me, at least I've probably found myself in a reactive state, more than once in my life or reactive being. I'm happy to complain about circumstances, happy to say, Hey it's just the way things are.

[00:21:52] I can't change. And it's very surface level. Isn't it? It's very immediate as opposed to what Stephen's [00:22:00] telling us here, being proactive, take responsibility and ownership of your own reactions, your own decisions and responses to a certain problem and go out and make that difference. Owning that moment of decision, I think is really fundamental to this idea of being perhaps 

[00:22:20] Mike Parsons: parallels here with Ryan holiday's workers.

[00:22:24] A lot 

[00:22:25] Mark Pearson Freeland: Of collaboration sorry, consistency with Ron holiday, as well as I'd say Dale, how to stop worrying. 

[00:22:31] Mike Parsons: Yeah. Your mindset. So I think in a moment we will deconstruct it, what we call that circle of influence, like the things you should be focused on, the things you should be proactive about owning.

[00:22:43] But my let's call out some of the things let's remind ourselves of what we shouldn't be worrying about. This circle of concern, there's stuff like politics yeah, a classic one is our, business is going to be tough. The economy's really bad after COVID. That's another good one. [00:23:00] What else do you see that people preoccupy themselves with which they have absolutely no control of.

[00:23:06] So there is no point in worrying about what else do you see them doing? 

[00:23:10] Mark Pearson Freeland: The biggest one that I think it's consistent in a lot of these other. Innovators and lessons that we've learned together, Mike is what other people think of. You can't control what other people how they respond to you, how they interpret your actions or what they think of you.

[00:23:28] I think that for me, this idea of other people's opinions, it's so easy. I think we covered it in Gary V the episode as well. We did it's so easy. Isn't it to get caught into a, oh, I'm really concerned about what thinks 

[00:23:41] Mike Parsons: that you still, I think our ego wants everyone to love us, but I'll go even further.

[00:23:47] What I think is perhaps equal to that in this circle of concern that Covey is saying, do not focus on these things. They speak clear, do not go is what I see is a lot of judgment and blame in [00:24:00] organizations towards others who supposedly didn't perform, or haven't done their job and people can get really uptight and spend a lot of energy focusing on the mistakes of others.

[00:24:12] Don't. 

[00:24:13] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. It's very easy to instead of working at creating a solution to the problem, finding where you can point the finger. 

[00:24:22] Mike Parsons: And the interesting thing to, to use some of Carnegie's insights and blend it with Covey. He's just it is a total waste of your energy because it achieves no gain worrying about the economy, politics, what people think of you, the mistakes of others, the opinions of there, there is no net gain for that consideration.

[00:24:45] So why would you dedicate your time, energy, and effort to that topic? I think all you're doing is wasting energy that could be diverted into your circle of influence [00:25:00] mark. And there's a lot of goodies in. 

[00:25:02] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. Just a few circle of influence ideas that come to my mind, Mike is, it starts with your attitude.

[00:25:09] This is what exactly be proactive habit. Number one is talking about your attitude and your response to challenges or opportunities I think are the ones that might be are the skills that you can learn. You referenced earlier, Mike one of the great traits is to pick up a book and be continuously learning.

[00:25:28] I think that feels as though it's something you yourself can control, right? 

[00:25:32] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And what Covey was pointing out is this idea of victimization where people say are, the world is conspiring against me. It's terrible. It's awful. Poor me. Or you may not control some things, but you do control your attitude, how you learn, how you think, where you put your energy, the routines, the rituals, the habits that you have and all of these concerns.

[00:25:58] Towards you being the [00:26:00] best version of yourself. Cause think about it. You might be facing a struggle. Challenges problems. And if you were yakka, Willink, you'd say problems are opportunities or even more. So we've got a problem. He just says good. Good. I can't really do good. So the point here is, might put your energy where you're going to get something back where you're going to get a return.

[00:26:23] And that is okay. The problem may suck, but let's move on. Let's have a growth mindset. Let's embrace the challenge. Let's see problems as opportunities let's learn, let's grow. And I think this is really important to remind ourselves, but particularly when we've had a time in 2020, where so much happened around us, that we're not really in control is that you have to divert your energy towards the things you do control that circle of influence.

[00:26:54] And that's where you can be doing things every single day that are part of your purpose, [00:27:00] why you're on the planet, why you're doing the things you do. So you might not have achieved the end outcome, but the fact that that you are learning things every day, you're adopting the attitude in the enthusiasm and the habits, the atomic habits.

[00:27:15] If we think about James clear, that will get you to the destination. So even though you don't have the whew, I've made it, you have the whoo I'm doing the right things to me. And I think this is the power of habit. Number one, be proactive from Mr. Covey himself. 

[00:27:34] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. It's really all about acting rather than being acted upon.

[00:27:38] I think isn't it. It's taking that first step and letting your conditions drive you rather than the other way around. I 

[00:27:46] Mike Parsons: remember that story holiday I'm told, was it Edison? Who said quickly go get your mother. She'll never see. Oh, I love 

[00:27:53] Mark Pearson Freeland: that. Yeah. Yeah. It was Edison. And it was in our fourth Ryan holiday episode.[00:28:00] 

[00:28:00] And that was a wonderful story of just accepting the situation. Edison's factories burning down, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, all going up in flames. And what does he do? He can't do anything about it. He can't put it out single handily, so he just stands back. And what.

[00:28:20] Enjoy the ride. 

[00:28:21] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And that's really the payoff to this habit. Isn't it? Because when you accept that there are things in the circle of concern that you can't change and focus your effort on what you can influence yourself. You're on the right track and you get positive energy back.

[00:28:35] You can still move forward. You can still grow and be the best version of yourself. Now we've mentioned a lot, this idea of like where you're going to like the end destination, and you have to enjoy the journey as well, but there's lots of questions and choices, lefts and rights as we go along. And this next clip, it really talks about the second habit from Stephen [00:29:00] Covey.

[00:29:00] This is all about beginning this journey with the end in mind, where 

[00:29:07] Stephen Covey: do we get our sense of who we are? Where do we get our sense of what our life is about?

[00:29:16] Is it not from social mirrors, parents, siblings, teachers, leaders, the media heroes models. Isn't that possibly the case of a mistaken identity. Think about it. Ask yourself, where do I get my knowledge of myself and what my vision in life is? What is it that I am really about? What is truly important to me in habit [00:30:00] to begin with the end in mind is a clear.

[00:30:07] And powerful declaration that you are the guardian, the protector of your identity of your future. In essence habit, one is the awareness that you are the programmer. It's the budding awareness that the best way to predict your future is to create it. Habit two decides what your life is about and everything would flow from that.

[00:30:41] Every decision large and small would be a function of that. Not only what your identity is, but what your purpose is, what is your vision of what your life is about? You are the programmer, then write the. 

[00:30:57] Mark Pearson Freeland: You are the programmer, right? The [00:31:00] program. I think this is a kind of just saying to me, Mike, don't take guidance or knowledge of yourself from anyone, but yourself don't let the opinions of others or the success of others really drive.

[00:31:16] What makes you happy? Because fundamentally you are. As Steven puts it in that clip, you are the program or you program yourself, your mindset, your reaction to these 

[00:31:26] Mike Parsons: moments and legacy is really what he's nudging at here. And this came up with Clayton Christianson, spoke how you live your life.

[00:31:34] And there's a bit of Jim Collins in this as well, which is, beginning with the end in mind. And in the book is a really a disruptive question that he asks, which is what will people say at your funeral. Now I know that sounds a bit dramatic here for our podcast, but if you just just go with it for a second, it's a very good.

[00:31:59] Question. [00:32:00] And if everybody who listens to our show, all you moonshot is we know that you want to be the best version of yourself. So let's all take this test. How many times have we not just thought about, but how many times have we written down what the end is? If Covey is saying begin with the end in mind, what will be said at our funeral, how will we be remembered?

[00:32:26] What is our legacy now? Here's the challenge. How many times have you not just thought about it? How many times have you written down your legacy? Because if that is the end goal, this should tell you how fine tuned you are, how aligned you are today with who you want to be tomorrow, right up until the end.

[00:32:51] Who do you want to be? What are they going to say at your funeral? What is your legacy? This is really powerful and I think most [00:33:00] people will find, they have never written down what they want people to say at their funeral. 

[00:33:04] Mark Pearson Freeland: Oh I can't imagine many of the people that I know who have done that because it's a pretty confronting and pretty sensitive topic.

[00:33:15] Isn't it? Because I think the very act of writing down what you want people to remember about you, what you want to leave behind what you want people to say about you. If it exposes any of your existing insecurities, oh, if I have not achieved this. Concept. So maybe I want to be remembered for, I don't know being being a great guy, then I might call into question, Hey, but am I a great guy?

[00:33:45] And this is exactly what Stephen's talking about. Isn't it, by forcing yourself into the act of writing it down, visualizing and thinking about it only then can you expose those uncomfortable moments and you think, [00:34:00] okay am I got a little bit grumpy last week, will that damage my eulogy from my friend who was gonna say that I'm a great guy at the wedding or the funeral, and I think that's.

[00:34:13] Valuable habits. Isn't it, Mike? This act of actually, 

[00:34:17] Mike Parsons: yeah. And I will go one further. This is just a practical tip. Cause we're all learning out loud together here on the moonshots podcast. I even go back, not only to journaling on it, I actually have a whole series of mantras. All of which one of those, the opening one is my purpose.

[00:34:40] And so I will repeat this. I will write this. I will listen to it. So I've even recorded all of my mantras so that sometimes when I'm walking to a meeting, jumping on a train, going for a walk, I will listen to those mantras to [00:35:00] remind myself of who I want to be and how I'm going to get there. And I think what's inside of this is.

[00:35:09] You will only in the end be the person that hold yourself accountable to your dreams and your visions and your hope. And I know I don't want to be too dramatic about all of this, but in the end, nobody else will hold you accountable to what you dream of being other than yourself, it will be on you. So you may as well get a bit uncomfortable, right?

[00:35:30] Take us, take some advice from Joe Rogan, embrace the discomfort and really ask yourself, holy smoke. Am I building the legacy that I wanted to leave for the world and think about what that will mean to the people that you really care about? I think this is ultimate accountability. It's a little bit brutal.

[00:35:49] It's certainly heavy duty for the moonshots podcasts. That's for sure. But I think these are fundamental questions that unlock our potential. And I think that's why we [00:36:00] want to go there. 

[00:36:01] Mark Pearson Freeland: That's exactly why we do it. Isn't it. Mike, we want to understand how we can dig that little bit deeper into ourselves in order to be, maybe it's more effective.

[00:36:11] Maybe it's more patient. Maybe it's more joyous in the way that we live our lives, but only by really digging into ourselves. And exactly, as we caught out at the beginning of this show that inward facing look very stoic. Can we begin to even uncover or scratch the surface of that? 

[00:36:29] Mike Parsons: Absolutely.

[00:36:30] Absolutely. Mark, we are only. Through two habits of seven. Thank goodness we divided the show into two parts, but I think we really want to take this moment, mark two, to thank all of our listeners from all four corners of the planet, they're all joining us to learn out loud. And mark, I want to propose to you that one of the ways we learn and you and me is we learn from all of our [00:37:00] listeners and we love it when they reach out to us when they share ideas with us.

[00:37:04] So mark, if our listeners are super Brian, they're feeling very effective, right? Very effective. As they're listening to us, what is your invitation to. I 

[00:37:15] Mark Pearson Freeland: would invite everybody every one of our listeners to pop on over to www.moonshots.io, where you can find some of those mantras, perhaps the Mike's been talking about maybe not the recorded ones.

[00:37:28] I think that by the way, we should come back to that. That's a great little tip, but over a www dot moonshots today, you've got some of our written mantras. You've got all of our episodes or 121 by the time that this one comes out both past as well as future shows that we want to try and do. You've got the ability to sign up for our newsletter bottles.

[00:37:48] You've got an opportunity to leave us a little bit of feedback. We'd love to hear from you listeners. As Mike said, one of the ways that he and I learn out loud is by getting recommendations and [00:38:00] inserts from you guys. And one particular individual who I don't have their name. So I hope that they're listening and recognize the little story, but they got into the moonshots podcast by wanting to learn something about architecture and listen to the Frank Lloyd Wright episode and the architectural series that we do add into.

[00:38:19] And now they listen to us every morning. Isn't 

[00:38:22] Mike Parsons: that fantastic. It's great. And by the way, the Frank Lloyd Wright show was a bit of a dark horse out of nowhere extremely popular. So thank you to all of you for listening to not only the most recent and current shows, but also digging into our back catalog, which you can get@moonshots.io.

[00:38:40] And I want to send a special shout out to all of our new listeners in Thailand, because I don't know what's in the coffee in Thailand, but they certainly getting into their moonshots podcasts because we have catapulted up the chops in Thailand to number seven in business and entrepreneurship. So we really do want to welcome all our [00:39:00] listeners in Thailand who have they've tried.

[00:39:03] The Eastern Europeans we were doing so well with Slovenia and Poland. And we have so much great love from Eastern Europe and central Europe, but now it's the great Asian wave of awesome Thailand listeners is joining us. And we just want to welcome you to somewhere here at the moonshots podcast, where we like to learn out loud together, just striving to be the very best versions of ourselves.

[00:39:30] Mark, we've got a few more clips left and stick with us because the next episode we'll do the remainder of Stephen Covey's book. The seven habits of highly effective people. Mark, where do we go now that we have primed ourselves with being proactive, starting with the end in mind. What's next from Stephen?

[00:39:52] Mark Pearson Freeland: The first three habits are all around self-mastery and Stephen Covey's idea of moving from dependence to [00:40:00] interdependence. So we've heard about habit, one being proactive rather than reactive habit. Two was about beginning with the end in mind. And now we're going to listen to habit three is about putting first things first, and this is really all about managing ourselves more effectively.

[00:40:15] Having the discipline to prioritize our actions based on essentially what's important rather than urgent. And that's a really big, fundamental shift that we're going to dig into, but this let's listen to Stephen himself. Tell us a little bit about put first things first 

[00:40:33] Stephen Covey: in a sense to use the computer metaphor habit.

[00:40:35] One is the awareness you are the programmer habit. Two is where you write the program habit three. It's where you run it, you execute around it. The third habit is put first things. First, I'm going to try to teach an entirely new paradigm in the field of time [00:41:00] management. Essentially it is a paradigm or a way of thinking, which focuses on relationships rather than schedules.

[00:41:13] The traditional paradigm in the field of time management is always dealt with time. Scheduling control, efficiency, doing more things faster. The paradigm is one focused upon efficiency and control. It's called time management. So you manage your time. The clock is the symbol. It drives us toward efficiency.

[00:41:44] Have you ever tried to be efficient with a loved one on a tough issue, say with your spouse, how did it go?

[00:41:52] Have you ever tried to be efficient with say a difficult teenage situation? How did it [00:42:00] go? You see right off the bat, you and I know how foolish it is, but look at the paradigm that drives it. So what do we do when it doesn't work? What do we do? We try to do it better, more efficiently. We try to be nicer.

[00:42:18] We try to be more positive, but the underlying paradigm, which is not questioned of control and efficiency and that we're right. And the other is wrong. Turns people into a thing. The paradigm I'm trying to teach today is. One of a compass based upon the sense of focusing upon the first things in our lives.

[00:42:46] And there are always relationships, the older one becomes and the wider and deeper, the perspective of a person's life is the more relationships become the Supreme thing. And the [00:43:00] essence of all effectiveness basically deals with people with relationships. But these are governed by a moral sense of principles of what is right and what is wrong and have integrity around those.

[00:43:19] I'm asking for sufficient openness and humility to just get into this pair of glasses. This frame of reference this new paradigm, this new map based upon relationships, not schedules based upon. Principles not values based upon leadership first, then management based upon a compass and then a clock. 

[00:43:45] Mike Parsons: I'm amazed that this is still such a relevant topic.

[00:43:52] Mark. I cannot tell you how many of my colleagues that I work with to help them [00:44:00] understand the difference between things that are urgent and not urgent important versus not important. And I think the big struggle we all have right now is being so interoperable that everything becomes both urgent and important on this first things.

[00:44:19] First tool, some people call it the Eisenhower matrix, where you have a matrix of what's urgent, what's important. And then you put things into the different quadrants. I think we might do that together in a second, but don't you think the battle we all fight is that we just have a mega list for today and that does consume just so we're really not able to think about tomorrow, let alone think about what should be on that list one?

[00:44:46] And 

[00:44:47] Mark Pearson Freeland: isn't, there's very few things that are as suffocating as having, 20, 30, 40, 50 items on your to-do list because you then don't feel aligned enough [00:45:00] to know where to start. Where do I go? What do I begin? How do I categorize what's the most important, because I can work on any of them right now.

[00:45:09] So what do you end up doing? You do a little bit of each. Yeah. When 

[00:45:13] Mike Parsons: you start multitasking or you don't go deep enough and, talking about deep work, big nod to Cal Newport, but an amazing piece of work that book was, but to bring us back here if you are able, why we're chatting definitely Google the Eisenhower matrix because this is the quadrant thinking that Covey is talking about.

[00:45:34] But I think there's a, I think we should go into this a little bit deeper. Don't you map? Let's explore if we're going to put first things first, what is that? How do we do it? So I want you to all, imagine that step number one is to focus on, things that are, have some urgency time and importance, meaning big impact.

[00:45:56] And so that might be pressing problems, [00:46:00] deadlines for projects, or maybe unexpected crises that you need to solve. What you want to do in that box is put things that meet that criteria because they have some urgency and need to happen fast and there, they really matter. But you actually, now this is the beauty of the model.

[00:46:16] You want to reduce the number of things in that box, so that there is only a few things there. And I think mark, we all struggle by putting too many things in the urgent and important quadrant, right? We all think that everything is a crisis. Everything is urgent, everything is super important. And I think that's the big blocker.

[00:46:42] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. Yeah. Another few things that would jump out in my mind, a big new business opportunities might come into that box. I think like you say, crises any immediate problems, things that you've got that you feel like you just. Turn off. [00:47:00] Yeah. There's always going to be a lot of stuff. 

[00:47:02] Mike Parsons: And if you don't minimize what's in that urgent and important box, you're just never going to, you're going to be like a hamster, stuck in the wheel, spinning around, running around no time to think about tomorrow, but I found them. Powerful tool is to actually look at your calendar and schedule something. That's not, it's not like super urgent for today, but it is really important to you is you use calendar blocking as an activity to schedule it in the future.

[00:47:33] Something that you need to dedicate time to on your current projects. But here's the other important thing. The other things that should go into that are proactive relationship building planning for not just this week, this month or this quarter, but starting to think about H one H two years start building roadmaps for yourself.

[00:47:53] Those things need time and consideration. You need to schedule those sorts of things in don't you make it otherwise you just [00:48:00] keep going through your daily list and that's it. 

[00:48:03] Mark Pearson Freeland: Exactly. And you might tick off a couple of them along the way, but it's never going to be as efficient as if you dedicate time to getting them done properly.

[00:48:12] It's almost 

[00:48:13] Mike Parsons: like this is the longterm box. This is the box of things that compound and create all sorts of value. These is the strategic box. This is the, I think where a lot of people let themselves down is they don't schedule. They don't appoint enough time for those really important things that are not urgent, right?

[00:48:31] Thinking about broader plans, plan BS thinking about purpose and legacy and all those sorts of. Now that's not the only two parts. There might be two parts, but that's not only what is in this Eisenhower matrix of putting the first things. First. There's two other parts to this mark isn't there and they're pretty nasty things.

[00:48:55] This is where it all goes. This is where it all goes wrong. I think this is [00:49:00] the danger zone, don't you? 

[00:49:02] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, exactly. And the other ones are really how you distinguish, is the right word, Mike, or maybe identify the things that actually feel very urgent, but aren't important at all. And those things are distractions.

[00:49:17] They are deceptive as you caught out in the Eisenhower matrix, it's where we would call the ability to delegate work or delegate items really come into it such as those meetings that you think, oh, I've got to, I've got to address it because it's at 10:00 PM today. Or maybe somebody else can go, oh, those emails, those calls that I keep I'm getting, how can I do the deep work that Cal Newport would recommend when I've just got to be online all the time, responding to other things?

[00:49:50] Mike Parsons: The common thing we find ourselves doing when we don't delegate is, oh, it will be faster if I do it right. 

[00:49:57] Mark Pearson Freeland: Oh, and look, I'm going to be totally honest with you [00:50:00] as well as our listeners. I do that all the time, 

[00:50:03] Mike Parsons: The thing is that You will. So he's, here's the insight.

[00:50:07] If you invest in now in the delegation, you'll be much faster in the future because you won't need to do it at all because someone else will do it. 

[00:50:14] Mark Pearson Freeland: You only need to train 

[00:50:15] Mike Parsons: somebody once. So delegations is another one. Now here is the fourth quadrant. This is where something is not urgent, nor is it important.

[00:50:27] So it might be a bit trivial, lots of time-wasters. This is often maybe things that matter to others that have no relevance to you, but somehow you're getting roped into doing them. Now we've talked about reducing in the top quadrant scheduling for those more long-term things we've talked about, delegating, if it's urgent, but not important.

[00:50:47] Mark, what do we do in this. 

[00:50:48] Mark Pearson Freeland: And the de-cluttering I think it's just trying to not get too bogged down and spend all of your time at it. It's those animals. I'm going to check 

[00:50:58] Mike Parsons: my mark. I'm going to challenge you. [00:51:00] No, not at all. Here we go. You ready? Here's what you do? You say a magic word? 

[00:51:07] Mark Pearson Freeland: No. I will not take part in that.

[00:51:09] Mike Parsons: That's it? You have to eliminate trivial staff. Time-wasters that don't touch them. That's the whole point. And that's what, when by putting first things, first, last things you don't do them. You don't do them at all because if you use the formula, is it urgent? No. Is it important? No, don't do it easy now. So here's the interesting thing because we're often, humans.

[00:51:37] By default then. Nice. And you find yourself saying yes to things you shouldn't have said yes to, but that takes you away from focusing on important and urgent things, which is part of your purpose, which will no doubt have a positive effect, both for you and the people around you, the people you're serving.

[00:51:57] So see this, as I'm [00:52:00] saying no to this person, so I can say yes to others. That's a very good way of reframing this. So you don't feel like you're being really nasty, but I'm sorry. I can't do that. Because if I was to do that, I would not fulfill my current responsibilities done. 

[00:52:18] Mark Pearson Freeland: It really comes down a quadrant, this idea of future planning and investing yourself.

[00:52:24] Long-term it's looping us back to the habit too. Isn't it begin with the end in mind? No, where you're going know what's important to you work on those relationships, work on yourself. And this is going to come into our next episode as well, Mike, with some of the other habits about building your own personal sharpness, should we say?

[00:52:45] But it's so valuable once you've got that really understood once you know how to delegate or say no, you've suddenly opened up so much time in order to actually reflect and work. 

[00:52:57] Mike Parsons: That's indeed the truth. And one of, one of the things that [00:53:00] happens when you've really got on top of this idea of time management and prioritization is all sorts of possibilities, different roads appear to you.

[00:53:12] And with all that comes good things. And so it would only be appropriate that we listened to Stephen R Covey. One more time talking about going down the road less. 

[00:53:25] Stephen Covey: In conclusion, just remember this, everyone chooses one of two roads in life, whether they're young or old, rich or poor man and women alike, one road is the broad well-traveled road to mediocrity the other, the road to greatness and meaning the range of possibilities that exists within each of these two destinations is as wide as the diversity of gifts and [00:54:00] personalities in the human family.

[00:54:02] But the contrast between the two destinations is as the. Is to 

[00:54:09] Mark Pearson Freeland: the day, a very teasing little outro there, Mike, what's nice is Steven's reminding us. You've just got to be that little bit bold. Be there a little bit daring go off to and down the road. That's that little bit less traveled because once you've invested in these three habits that we've heard today, and next week, we're going to be digging into Stephen's other four habits of his seven habits of highly effective people.

[00:54:34] You can create that ability, that confidence, that durability to go down that road and live that life. That's a little bit less traveled. 

[00:54:44] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And do you, where do you think he's going with this less traveled? Do you think he's distinguishing, there's kind of two roads, there's the easy road, but maybe less fulfilling and then there's the harder road, but that's where [00:55:00] satisfaction, legacy fulfillment lays.

[00:55:02] Is that what you think he's pointing? 

[00:55:04] Mark Pearson Freeland: That's certainly consistent with some of the other work that we've done in the past. You really get out of it where you put in, when you listen to Joe Rogan, you've mentioned Yaka, Willink. There's a lot of our individuals that would encourage us to go out and see obstacles opportunities.

[00:55:19] For example, like Ron Holly, I think what Steven's also calling back here though, is a reminder on the personality versus character ethic that we heard at the very beginning of the show. So rather than assuming everything's very rather than taking the easy route, which I think is what Stephen would now say is the public image approach, the personality approach instead build on your integrity, build on courage and actually develop those character traits that are much more resilient when you get on that road.

[00:55:53] Mike Parsons: Wow. That's pretty solid advice. And can you believe my, we have [00:56:00] only decoded half of the book. It isn't 

[00:56:03] Mark Pearson Freeland: it, we did definitely need two shows. 

[00:56:06] Mike Parsons: Can you believe that? We thought we could squeeze this into one shadow idiots. 

[00:56:11] Mark Pearson Freeland: We w it's just a reminder that this learning out loud journey that we can go on together with books as rich and enjoyable as Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people.

[00:56:24] There's so much to learn. You can relate it so well to your life now. We're in 2021, the book was written 89 and there's still so many lessons that are completely relevant to us. Yeah. 

[00:56:37] Mike Parsons: Yeah. I'm very curious, looking at everything we've discussed today. Having now talked about them, which one?

[00:56:47] Stands. Is there one of these that rises above the others as being really helpful for Uma? 

[00:56:54] Mark Pearson Freeland: I think the being proactive, not reactive. Stephen would call out that this [00:57:00] is the foundation or habit that you've got to get right before tackling the other six. And I'm going to take his side. I'm going to agree with him there.

[00:57:08] I think, unless you've got that mindset, correct. Unless you can consider those different circles of concern and influence and get the balance. I feel as though you're always going to be swimming against the 

[00:57:20] Mike Parsons: tide. Yeah. It's really powerful. Isn't it? Because I think it's, I find myself falling into the trap of thinking, worrying about things I don't control.

[00:57:30] And it's a real discipline to bring yourself back into your circle of influence. 

[00:57:35] Mark Pearson Freeland: Oh, it's so diff I think it's a practice that as you've mentioned, you can build by journaling that can bring you back. You can have those mantras. I think that's a great idea, as well as maybe even. Moments in your diary, maybe you schedule 15, 30 minutes a day when you do consider a recurring a recurring event that says, Hey, are you being [00:58:00] proactive or reactive?

[00:58:01] Yeah. That's a little tip that I think might 

[00:58:03] Mike Parsons: be valuable. What a rich tapestry, we have woven together, mark you, I and our listeners. It's it's been just a delight to return to such a classic and to think. Maybe I thought to myself, Bishop before the show, I've got everything I need from this book, but I find myself right now saying, wow.

[00:58:27] So mark, thank you to you for sharing this journey with me and thank you to you. All of our listeners, as we have gone on show 121 into the world of Stephen R Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people. Wow. And this was only part one, but today we started with this notion of character and we made sure that we thought about protecting the goose as well as the golden eggs taking care of ourselves so we can take care of others.

[00:58:57] And this journey started with the idea of [00:59:00] being proactive and focusing on the circle of influence because you might not control the world, but you most certainly do control your reactions. He, this good advice or yean moonshot is this is good stuff. But it gets better because we also learned that we should begin with the end in mind, what will be our legacy and the way we make that happen every single day is by putting first things first, have a very clear view on what is urgent and important.

[00:59:27] And if you do this good things can happen. You will have the fortitude and the character to go down the road, less traveled and there at the end of that road, you will find indeed your own greatness. That's it for the moonshots podcast, that sewer app.