Welcome back my friends for episode 14 of the Derate the Hate podcast which is actually part 3 of a mini-series I am doing on Dr. Stephen Covey's, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". In part three, I go in to habits 4 & 5 which are "think win, win" and "seek first to understand, then to be understood".
Habits 4 & 5 go very much hand and hand, and a perfect example of a complete failure of these 2 habits is the current political climate. A win, win mentality, Habit 4, is the concept that 2 parties in a negotiation look for some type of common ground in which both parties come out the winner or a 3rd option known as "win, win or no deal" is the result. Dr. Covey does a much better job of giving an in-depth explanation of the concept, or habit of win, win, but it is essential in successful negotiations if both parties are to come out of a negotiation feeling satisfied and accomplished.
Habit 5, "seek first to understand, then to be understood" goes very much hand in hand, and is essential in accomplishing the win, win in a negotiation. Imagine going in to each negotiation and saying to the other party, "let's see if we can come to a win,win result in our negotiations, does that sound ok with you?", (they would likely say yes), then you'd say, "I would like you to start, and I want to be totally clear on your position before I begin, would that be OK?". Can you imagine how much differently the negotiations may go?
I've said if before and I'll say it again, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is a life changing book and a must read for everyone who wants to better their life. Next week we will continue and conclude our mini-series when I discuss habits 6 & 7.
For this week's feel good story, we have to go way back in the way back machine to July 1950 in Syracuse, NY. I'm not sure how this article came across my reading list this week but I'm glad it did, because good values are timeless and like I've said so many times before, character is what you do when nobody is looking and this is a great example. In July of 1950, Mary Sakowski was working as a cleaning lady at a local bank, when on her fourth night, she found 4 stacks of money on the floor behind the teller counter. Find out what this exceptional woman who was making a whopping $18 per week did with the $40,000 by checking out our podcast or the article here.
With that I'll just say, don't let all the political theater or doom and gloom media get you down, get out there and be kind to one another, be grateful for everything you've got and remember, it's up to you to make each and every day the day you want it to be.
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