Tag Archives: CNN

My Teacher – Stephen Covey

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One of the best complements we can give to anyone is to call him or her Our Teacher.

Stephen Covey was and will remain a teacher of mine.  I have never met Mr. Covey and sadly never will.  He died today.  He was 79 years old and died from injuries from a bicycle accident.  He remained vibrate to the end writing books, speaking around the world, and teaching at the business school of Utah State.  I suspect the students attending the business school at Utah State received an education equal, if not better, than a place like Harvard due to their teacher, Stephen Covey.

Stephen Covey, if you are not aware, wrote the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“.  By many influential sources, it is one of the top business and personal effectiveness books ever.  If you have never read this important book, do.  If you read it years ago, read it again.  That is my plan in his honor.

I have read other books written by Stephen Covey.  These include “Principle-Centered Leadership”, “First Things First” and “The 8th Habit”. I have learned much from each of these books.  Here, briefly is one learning from each of these books.  I invite you to explore for yourself each of these books and other writings by Stephen Covey.

  1. From 7 Habits, I learned – How to recognize my Circle of Influence.  That is where I need to operate.  From there I work to expand my Circle of Influence.
  2. From Principle-Centered Leadership, I learned – A leader is continually learning.  The more I know, the more I do not know.  As my circle of knowledge grows, ignorance gets absorbed.
  3. From First Things First, I learned – Look at your work in units of one week.  Change your Outlook Calendar to show a full week of appointments and tasks.  We start the week with planning and end it in reflection.  We then continue the cycle.
  4. From the 8th Habit, I learned – The 4 roles of leadership: Vision, Discipline, Passion and Conscience.

In today’s news, CNN placed the story of Stephen Covey’s death in the Entertainment section.  They considered him to be a writer and that is it.  He was much more.  This is national and even international news.  An important voice went quiet today and the world should stand up and notice.   Rest in Peace Stephen Covey … a teacher, my teacher.

Here is just one of many videos of Stephen Covey speaking.  He is talking about an important artifact, The Talking Stick.  I have a version in my office sitting on my conference table waiting for its moment.

We Have To Belong

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This is a continuation from my last post. 

Funny how things connect for us, right?  By chance I bumped into an article on the CNN Health website last night that speaks in some depth on the topic of belonging.  In my last post I paid homage to Marina Keegan who wrote a touching essay for her fellow graduates this year at Yale.  Her tragic death only heightens our awareness of her message:

  “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.”

The CNN story, written by Amanda Enayati answers Marina’s question.  The opposite of loneliness is belonging.   The article (read it here) presents psychological research namely, Belonging Intervention, that helps people understand the importance of belonging.  For negative events in our lives we can shift from “It’s just me.” to “I’m not alone and there are other going through it.”

Because as humans, we need to belong.

To one another, to our friends and families,

to our culture and country, to our world.

Belonging is primal, fundamental to our sense of happiness and well-being.

Research referenced in the article confirms that a sense of social belonging can affect motivation and continued persistence, even on impossible tasks.   A key research tool was simply storytelling.  The researchers asked upper level students to write and share stories of how they worked through their early challenging years in college.  The researchers told these students that the stories were for incoming freshman to help with the transition to university life.  Alas, the focus was on those writing the stories all along.  Through the shared storytelling these students realized that they were not alone and they shared similar issues.   This understanding of belonging can serve to reduce anxiety and stress while helping each of us move forward and work through life’s problems.

People have asked me why I titled my blog, WeMoveTogether.   I knew my focus would be on leadership and all my potential blog names included the word, “Leadership”.  Somehow inspiration lead me to WeMoveTogether and the term felt right immediately.  In earlier posts I have stated my stance that we humans have forgotten more than we have learned.  I argue that we are less connected to each other; our sense of belonging is fading in this so-called modern world.   We must re-establish ways to connect.  Alas, facebook is not the answer (a post for another day).   For me WeMoveTogether represents that spirit of connection and leadership is so important for this goal.

Leadership is there for all of us.  Each of us can influence the world and support a renewed sense of belonging.   Let me finish where I started with Marina’s beautiful essay.  She sums it up better than me.

It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together.

Read More:

CNN Article, The Importance of Belonging

Once more, Marina’s Essay