I fell behind in my goal of reading 12 books in 2012! But I am back at it slowly! I just finished the book called “The seven habits of highly effective people” This book was kinda hard to read but I was still able to get a lot out of it! I probably just wouldn’t be able to explain it all to others very well but I will do the best I can!
Habit 1: Be Proactive: For me this meant to take charge of my own life and quit reacting to the negatives of others! I have a bad habit of always putting myself in the “victim role” which is not really necessary to do!
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: This was easy to understand because I had already learned this when I was doing Chalene Johnsons personal development trainings! What ever your goals are, think of yourself as already achieved them! Write it down on paper!
Habit 3: Put First Things First: Make a list of everything you need and want to get done, do this for today, this week, this month, this year, then go thru the list and decided which ones are the most important and that need to come first and are things that will push you towards your most important top priority goals! Do those tasks first!
Habit 4: Think Win-Win: Interesting enough, when I was reading Habit 4 I was experiencing a situation with a business owner and a few customers having a disagreement and could clearly point out that no one was going after “win/win” and clearly seen how this permanently damaged some of the business! If everyone was going after “win/win” this part of that business would have flourish tremendously! But everyone involved had an “OH ILL SHOW YOU” attitude! It was quite sad but at the same time very exciting for me as a learning experience and I got to see first hand how not going for that “win/win” caused everyone involved to “lose” one way or another! Will that business recover from this little incident? Probably so, but imagine how much more that business could grow if a few mind sets were to change! I think every business owner should be required to read this book in order to obtain a business license!! Just my two cents!
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood: OHHHH SNAP!!!! This habit was an eye opener for me!! I am always waiting for my moment to reply when someone is talking to me and oh so ready to judge and tell the other person what I think would be the better solution! I am practicing this habit and have to admit that I am seeing some great positive changes in all my relationships! 
both business and personal!
Habit 6: Synergize: Ok, so this would have been a great one for my last job for the management to learn! We should all work together as a team, no one is better then the other, no need for power trips! No need for someone to boss everyone else around in a degrading insulting way and no need to make other do things that you don’t do yourself! Everyone works together as a team and uses the strengths and weaknesses of everyone involved which makes for a better workplace and employees who want to do the work and the extra work because everything feels like they are all equal!
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: This to me means to put all the other 6 habits into motion, practice them and learn from them! When we make a mistake, learn from them and keep going! Its all good!
This was definitely a great book! I would say that I recommend this book for anyone who needs to practice better communication skills in business and personal life!!
