This is a classic book in the realm of personal development. Listening to it, it's like it was the first audiobook ever made. Books in this area have come a long way. This book talks around a lot of non-concrete concepts ("paradigm shift", "interdependence", "principles", and "synergy") and only occasionally dives into practical advice. Still, it is a worthwhile read and I pulled a lot from it.
Core themes of this book are to seek a deep understanding of why you do things, why other people feel the way they feel, and to highly the effectiveness of groups of independent people working together synergistically.
Lasting change and effectivity comes from the inside out. Most of our reality is based off our perceptions. We may not be able to control everything, but we can control our perceptions of it.
Balance Production (P) and Production Capability (PC). If you never run, you die early. If you run 10 miles a day, you add 10 years onto your life, but you spend all of your time running. Long-term effectiveness comes from P/PC balance.
There’s a effectiveness hierarchy: Dependent < Independent < Interdependent.
Humanity exists between stimulus and response. Reacting without thinking is being reactive. If you have the ability to respond how you like to the external stimuli, you can rise above it. Cutely, Stephen calls the ability to respond your “responsibility”.
Each of us has a circle of influence - those things which we can impact, and a circle of concern - those things which we care about. Learn which is which, and focus more on your circle of influence. In doing so, it will grow.
This has to do with many things. Mostly it boils down to "why". Know why you are doing what you are doing. This chapter meandered a bit. talked through the issues with being self-centered, family-centered, money-centered, friend-centered, and a number of others. The text advocates for being principle centered, and having the right principles. The author suggests coming up with your own personal mission statement.
The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.
There’s a difference between important and urgent. Avoid the unimportant. And don’t neglect that which is important but not urgent. Stephen breaks urgency and importance down into a matrix of 4 quadrants. Quadrant two is the important, but not urgent quadrant. Most of this book is centered on quadrant two.
This section also briefly covered the...
This is basically what it sounds like. If you want to be interdependent (which this book advocates) you can't have transactions in which one party feels as though they lost. Transactions are win-win, win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose. The recommended approach is always, when possible, go into a transaction with a "win-win or no deal" agreement. Keep in mind, you losing does not mean a win-win transaction has occurred.