Sean Covey Quotes

#1. We become what we repeatedly do.

Sean Covey

#2. It's all about how you feel, not how you look

Sean Covey

#3. Abraham Lincoln was often criticized for trying to make friends with his enemies instead of trying to get rid of them. He replied, Isn't that what I'm doing when I make an enemy a friend?

Sean Covey

#4. Now think deeply.
What have you done with your life over the past year?
How do you feel inside?

Sean Covey

#5. Having the courage to say no when all your friends are saying yes is one of the most difficult things you'll ever have to do. Doing it, however, is one of the biggest charges you can ever make to your personal battery. I call this 'won't power.'

Sean Covey

#6. Whenever you have a job to do ask yourself two questions. If not now, when? If not by me, by whom?

Sean Covey

#7. My dad is a good role model for me, and then I had a high school coach that really helped me out when I was struggling and made a big difference in my life.

Sean Covey

#8. You shouldn't feel guilty about taking time for yourself. Every so often, everyone needs to give themselves a big ol' bear hug and treat themselves to some TLC.

Sean Covey

#9. Life is a mission, not a career. A career is a profession, a mission is a cause. A career asks, What's in it for me? A mission asks, How can I make a difference?

Sean Covey

#10. It's especially hard to admit that you made a mistake to your parents, because, of course, you know so much more than they do.

Sean Covey

#11. If you could envision the type of person God intended you to be, you would rise up and never be the same again.

Sean Covey

#12. Strong minds talk about ideas; weak minds talk about people.

Sean Covey

#13. Make as many friends as you can, but don't build your life on them alone. It's an unstable foundation.

Sean Covey

#14. Ultimately, you choose to be happy or miserable. The reality is that although you are free to choose, you can't choose the consequences of your choices. They're preloaded. It's a package deal.

Sean Covey

#15. Don't wait until people are dead to give them flowers.

Sean Covey

#16. One 2 x 4 beam can support 607 pounds, but two 2 x 4s nailed together can support not just 1,214 pounds (which is what you'd expect), but a whopping 4,878 pounds! So it is with us. We can do so much more together than we can alone.

Sean Covey

#17. My focus has kind of been on teenagers, you know, and I think we've got a huge crisis right now in America, among our teens.

Sean Covey

#18. Ask any successful person, and most will tell you that they had a person who believed in them ... a teacher, a friend, a parent, a guardian, a sister, a grandmother. It only takes one person, and it doesn't really matter who it is.

Sean Covey

#19. Isn't it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?

Sean Covey

#20. We see them come. We see them go. Some are fast. And some are slow. Some are high. And some are slow. Not one of them is like another. Don't ask us why. Go ask your mother.

Sean Covey

#21. A fruit salad is delicious precisely because each fruit maintains its own flavor.

Sean Covey

#22. Don't let your pride or a lack of courage stand in the way of saying you're sorry to people you may have offended.

Sean Covey

#23. The world is a book and those who stay at home read only a page.

Sean Covey

#24. These problems are real, and you can't turn off real life. So I won't try. Instead, I'll give you a set of tools to help you deal with real life.

Sean Covey

#25. One of the few things that can't be recycled is wasted time.

Sean Covey

#26. It's hard, but sometimes it is better to have no friends for a time than to have the wrong friends. The wrong group can lead you down all kinds of paths you really don't want to be on. And retracing your steps can be a long and hard journey

Sean Covey

#27. Paradigms are like glasses. When you have incomplete paradigms about yourself or life in general, it's like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. That lens affects how you see everything else.

Sean Covey

#28. Although I'm a retired teenager, I remember what it was like to be one. I could have sworn I was riding an emotional roller coaster most of the time. Looking back, I'm actually amazed that I survived. Barely.

Sean Covey

#29. Our confidence needs to come from within, not without. From the quality of our hearts, not the quantity of things we own. After all, he who dies with the most toys ... still dies.

Sean Covey

#30. That's important, apologizing, listening, you know, I think the teens I speak with, most of them don't feel understood. They feel like they're being lectured to all the time.

Sean Covey

#31. My dad told me that when I was born my cheeks were so fat the doctors didn't know which end to spank.

Sean Covey

#32. Depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we repeatedly do.

Sean Covey

#33. Some of the more popular life-centers for teens include Friends, Stuff, Enemies, Self, and Work. They each have their good points, but they are all incomplete in one way or another, and they'll mess you up if you center your life on any one of them to the exclusion of the others.

Sean Covey

#34. The average teen today spends about 35 hours a week in front of a screen of some kind: iPod, movie, TV, video. And a lot of it is good, but a lot of it's not. And so I think you've got that five hours a day of media coming into your kid's head that's creating a lot of havoc out there.

Sean Covey

#35. You should see my baby pictures. My cheeks hung off my face like water balloons. You can imagine how often I was teased.

Sean Covey

#36. Small changes can make huge destination differences.

Sean Covey

#37. Seeing things from a different point of view can help us understand why other people act the way they do. We too often judge people without having all the facts.

Sean Covey

#38. The primary purpose of going to college isn't to get a great job. The primary purpose of college is to build a strong mind, which leads to greater self-awareness, capability, fulfillment, and service opportunities, which, incidentally, should lead to a better job.

Sean Covey

#39. I think the greatest challenge between child and parent is communication.

Sean Covey

#40. You can usually tell when a couple becomes centered on each other because they are forever breaking up and getting back together.

Sean Covey

#41. The following is a list of statements made many years ago by experts in their fields. At the time they were said they sounded intelligent. With the passing of time, they sound idiotic.

Sean Covey

#42. If you decide to just go with the flow, you'll end up where the flow goes, which is usually downhill, often leading to a big pile of sludge and a life of unhappiness. You'll end up doing what everyone else is doing.

Sean Covey

#43. Education must be a lifelong pursuit. The person who doesn't read is not better off than the person who can't.

Sean Covey

#44. Listening can heal wounds.

Sean Covey

#45. Don't struggle about the struggle. In other words, life's full of ups and downs. So if you're struggling, don't worry, everyone else has or will at some point.

Sean Covey

#46. If we are what we have, and we have nothinh, thenwho are we? Are we nothing?

Sean Covey

#47. If you're planning on dropping out of high school, prepare yourself for the future by repeating aloud each day: I'm looking forward to low-paying jobs for the rest of my life.

Sean Covey

#48. Honesty is always the best policy, even when it's not the trend.

Sean Covey

#49. You are free to choose what you want to make of your life. It's called free agency or free will, and it's your birthright.

Sean Covey

#50. One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is to help them find their talents.

Sean Covey

#51. Saying 'yes' to one thing means saying 'no' to another. That's why decisions can be hard sometimes.

Sean Covey

#52. Instead of playing to win, I was playing not to lose. It reminds me of the story I once heard about two friends being chased by a bear, when one turned to the other and said, I just realized that I don't need to outrun the bear; I only need to outrun you.

Sean Covey

#53. We are free to choose our paths, but we can't choose the consequences that come with them.

Sean Covey

#54. All the events of your past have formed a lens, or paradigm, through which you see the world. And since no one's past is exactly like anyone else's, no two people see alike.

Sean Covey

#55. If you base your identity on having friends, being accepted, and being popular, you may find yourself compromising your standards or changing them every weekend to accommodate your friends.

Sean Covey