The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Stephen R. Covey | 4.36 | 1,012,009 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Dustin Moskovitz, Dave Ramsey, John C. Maxwell, and 21 others. See all reviews

Ranked #1 in 2013, Ranked #1 in Business Motivation — see more rankings.

When Stephen Covey first released The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the book became an instant rage because people suddenly got up and took notice that their lives were headed off in the wrong direction; and more than that, they realized that there were so many simple things they could do in order to navigate their life correctly. This book was wonderful education for people, education in how to live life effectively and get closer to the ideal of being a ‘success’ in life.

But not everyone understands Stephen Covey’s model fully well, or maybe there are some people who haven’t read it yet. This is definitely true because we still see so much failure all around us. Now, I am not saying that by using Covey’s model, or anyone else’s model for that matter, you can become a sure-shot success, but at least we should have seen many more successes around us already judging by the number of copies the book has sold! So, where is the shortcoming?

There are two main problems here, and we are talking only about the people who have read the book already. The first problem is that most people are too lazy to implement the ideals of Stephen Covey in their lives. They consider his masterpiece of a book as a mere coffee-table book or a book that you use for light reading when you are traveling and then forget all about it. They do not realize that this book contains life-changing information. Or, they take the information and do not make the effort to actually utilize it so that it becomes knowledge for them.

The second problem is that a lot of people have a myopic view of Covey’s ideals. These are people who are impressed by the book already. If you ask them what the seven habits are, they can rattle them off end to end, but then they miss the larger picture. They do not understand that Covey was trying to tell more than he wrote in words. There are hidden implications in this book, yes, and a lot of people have just failed to see through them.

That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to show you how Covey’s book, or rather, his model, was a complete model in itself. There was nothing amiss about it. If you implement it, there should be no aspect of your life that should go untouched. The only thing is that you have to understand these ideals and try to implement them in your life.

But, before we barge into that area, it is extremely important to understand what these ideals are. What was the model that was propounded by Stephen Covey in his mega-famous book? We shall begin by trying to understand his model first, and then interpret it in such a way that it pertains to every aspect of our life less

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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People from the world's leading experts.

Dustin Moskovitz Co-founder/Facebook and Asana[I] was surprised at how familiar the topics felt. (Source)

Simon Sinek AuthorRecommends this book

John C. Maxwell Author, Founder/The John Maxwell CompanyRecommends this book

Dave Ramsey Author[Dave Ramsey recommended this book on his website.] (Source)

Noah Kagan Founder/SumoRecommends this book

Daniel Pink AuthorRecommends this book

Shay Carl [Shay Carl recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Robert Kelsey I do think you should think about where you want to be in ten years’ time and visualize it very closely and in great detail. (Source)

Sean Si Recommends this book

Kishore Biyani Immensely helpful and influential during my early years, it explained some of the basic mindsets required to succeed in any profession. (Source)

Joe Martin @benmorris @audible_com @Gladwell I enjoy the quiet on the way home, but on the way to work I am listening to the 7 habits book by Stephen Coveru, a fave of mine (Source)