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  • My grandma’s favorite story was about how everything cost two cents when she was young.

  • But now, everything constantly got more expensive. And it was all because of the government.

  • These uneducated pigs didn’t know how to control prices. When I was privileged to hear

  • this story, her complaining would last for hours.

  • And that is exactly what reactive people do. They always focus on the things they cannot

  • control. It’s not possible that a concept like inflation would exist. And if it did,

  • it’s impossible that they wouldn’t know about it!

  • On the other hand, proactive people realize that even if their complaining were completely

  • objective, it does not help them. So, they focus on what they can control. If a proactive

  • person owns a business where he sells a product, instead of focusing on how people these days

  • don’t appreciate good products and how the government has horrible regulations, he thinks,

  • How can I improve my product, so my customers can’t live without it?”

  • Do you realize how much responsibility, how much dedication, how much hard work comes

  • along with asking that question? And what do you think our effort-minimizing brain is

  • going to pick as default? And that is exactly why most people focus on the things they cannot

  • control rather than focusing on the things that they can.

  • Therefore, habit number 1 is, be proactive.

  • Imagine youre at a funeral, but this one’s different from all the funerals you have ever

  • been to. Youre standing over the casket and you see yourself. What do you have to

  • say about yourself? This is one of the most powerful questions you could ask.

  • Are you doing the things in your life which are aligned with what you want to be able

  • to say? Do you want to say that you were a good spouse? If that’s the case, how does

  • coming home and instantly being negative towards your spouse affect that? Do you want to be

  • remembered as a person who added value to society? If that’s the case, are you doing

  • the things that will allow you to say that, or are you scared of failure and choose comfortable

  • mediocrity?

  • Almost every one of us will have to readjust how we live when we ask this question.

  • Habit number 2 is: begin with the end in mind.

  • If I were to ask you, “What are the most important things to you?” The most common

  • answers I would get would be either your wellbeing or your relationshipsyour family, your

  • spouse, your children. You would never ever say, “Organizing papers or watching TV…”

  • But how many of us spend more time organizing papers and watching TV than planning our nutrition

  • and going to the gym, or cultivating a healthy family environment?

  • There’s a horrible disconnect between what we say and how we actually allocate our time.

  • Habit number 3 is: put first things first.

  • Imagine youre an author, and I’m an author. We both write interesting books and we both

  • have access to an audience of about a 100,000 people. I read your book and I love it. So

  • I decide to share it with my audience. As a result, you now have 1,000s of people buying

  • your book and reading your ideas. You see this and think, “Who is this guy? Let me

  • look at his book.” You start reading my book and think I have ideas that are valuable.

  • So you decide to share it with your audience. As a result, I have 1,000s of people buying

  • my book and reading my ideas now.

  • Notice how different this is from my creating a little, creepy Amazon account, finding your

  • book and leaving a bad review, hoping that this will deter a few people from buying your

  • book which will in turn somehow get them to buy my book.

  • Habit number 4 is: think win-win. Stop thinking of everything as a zero-sum game. For you

  • to win, another person does not have to lose.

  • Something I want my viewers to do is to subscribe to my channel, but you will never hear me

  • sayWell, I worked really hard. I dedicated so many hours to this. Please subscribe.”

  • Who cares if I worked hard? Who cares if I’ve spent days creating this video? The real questions

  • are does it offer value to you? Why should you dedicate your precious time to subscribing

  • when you could be doing anything else you want?

  • Habit number 5 is something that I use literally every single day, with every interaction that

  • I have, and with every comment that I reply to, and it is this: seek first to understand,

  • then to be understood.

  • Imagine there are two people and a tree with five apples on it. They are both too short

  • to reach the apples, but if one of them sits on the other’s shoulders, he can reach all

  • five of the apples. This is called synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

  • Now I’ll be the first one to admit that you can’t achieve this with everyone, but

  • you should always be striving for synergy. With every synergistic opportunity you create,

  • you can gather many more apples than you otherwise would by yourself.

  • Habit number 6 is: Synergize.

  • A man has been trying to cut down a tree for hours. After a while his neighbor can’t

  • take it anymore, goes over and says, “You know, if you sharpen the saw, youll be

  • able to cut it down faster.” And the man replies, “But, sharpening the saw is going

  • to take time.”

  • We laugh at this story yet we do the same thing all the time. We can’t find 45 minutes

  • a day, 4 times a week to go to the gym. Our health deteriorates to a point where were

  • physically incapable of being effective. We can’t read a book for 15 minutes a day and

  • mentally stimulate ourselves. We don’t build up our home environments, and we end

  • up with toxic families. We don’t cultivate friendships. These things take too much time!

  • And then we have the audacity to ask for little tips and tricks on how to be effective. It’s

  • like telling your engineer, “Don’t worry about the foundation, where can we get the

  • magic bricks that float in the air?”

  • Habit number 7 is: sharpen the saw.

  • And these are the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey.

My grandma’s favorite story was about how everything cost two cents when she was young.

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