Seven Habits

Aesop’s Fable, “The Goose and the Golden Egg,” is the story of a poor farmer who one day visits the nest of his goose and finds at her side a glittering golden egg. Though he suspects a trick, he decides to take it home where he learns to his delight that the egg is actually pure gold. Every morning thereafter the farmer gathers one golden egg from the nest of the goose, and soon becomes fabulously wealthy. As he grows rich, however, he also grows greedy and impatient with the output of the goose. In an attempt to get at once all the gold in the goose, he kills and opens it, only to find nothing.

The moral of this Old fable has a modern ring to it. Like the foolish farmer, we often emphasize short-term results (golden eggs) at the expense of long-term prosperity (the goose). Indeed, it seems that we are often more concerned with doing things right (efficiency) than with doing the right things (effectiveness). In his attempt to be efficient, the farmer became grossly ineffective; he destroyed his capability for getting the desired results.

In this presentation, I introduce seven habits of highly effective people — habits used consistently by people who achieve desired results. Albert E. Gray in his essay, “The Common Denominator of Success,” says, “Successful people have the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either, necessarily, but their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”

Habits are patterns of behavior composed of three overlapping components: knowledge, attitude, and skill. Since these are learned rather than inherited, our habits constitute our second nature, not our first. We are not our current habits; hence, we should avoid defining ourselves in terms of our habits, characteristics, and reactive tendencies. Habits of effectiveness can be learned, habits of ineffectiveness unlearned.