DESCRIPTION

Find the answers to the challenges of family life.

My Summary

Main Ideas, Takeaways & Similarities

Questions

I. What is the problem?
A. How is this problem formulated?
B. Why is this problem important?
C. What is the history of this problem?
D. Which prominent personalities have been interested in this problem?

II. What solutions to the problem are there?
A. What are the conclusions reached?
B. By what argument(s) is the conclusion reached?
C. What facts or assumptions serve as premises?
D. When a prominent personality offers a solution, does he also argue for or against other prominent personalities? Does he raise objections to alternative solutions? Does he consider objections to his own solutions?

III. Evaluation
A. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative formulations to the problem?
B. Has the importance or history of the problem ever been misrepresented?
C. Are the solutions logically related to the premises?
D. Are the facts true? Are the assumptions acceptable? Are the objections answerable?

AI Summary

Highlights

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Introduction: Creating a Nurturing Family Culture

FAMILIES ARE “OFF TRACK” MUCH OF THE TIME

PURPOSES OF THIS BOOK

A NURTURING FAMILY CULTURE

HOW TO CHANGE A FAMILY CULTURE

FAMILY IS NO TIME FOR GIVING UP EASILY

REFLECTIONS AND APPLICATIONS

Habit 1: Be Proactive. Influencing Your Family from the Inside Out

THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

USE PROACTIVE LANGUAGE

PAUSE, THINK, AND CHOOSE

BECOME A TRANSITION PERSON

DEVELOP THE GIFT OF HUMOR

INSPIRE PROACTIVITY IN OTHERS

HABIT 1: THE KEY TO ALL THE OTHER HABITS

Reflections and Applications

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Bringing Purpose and Vision to Your Family

YOUR FAMILY’S MENTAL CREATION

GETTING AT THE ROOTS

WHO’S RAISING OUR CHILDREN?

THE POWER OF A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

STEPS TO CREATING A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

Step Two: Write Your Family Mission Statement

Step Three: Use the Mission Statement to Stay on Track

SHARING FAMILY VALUES THROUGH STORYTELLING

COMMUNICATING WORTH AND POTENTIAL

AND THEN LIFE HAPPENS!

Habit 3: Put First Things First. Making Time for Family Time

KEEPING YOUR MAIN THINGS YOUR MAIN THINGS

OUTSIDE FORCES THAT DETOUR FAMILIES

INSIDE FORCES THAT EMPOWER FAMILIES

“Big Rock” Family Systems

Habit 4: Think Win-Win. Making Deposits in Your Family Relationships

PARADIGMS OF HUMAN INTERACTION

COURAGE AND CONSIDERATION

BUILDING THE EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT

DOING LITTLE KINDNESSES

GIVING SINCERE APOLOGIES

BEING LOYAL TO THE ABSENT

KEEPING PROMISES

FORGIVING

DEPOSIT OR WITHDRAWAL?

WIN-WIN AGREEMENTS

THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF A WIN-WIN AGREEMENT

LET THE AGREEMENT GOVERN

CULTIVATING THE SPIRIT OF WIN-WIN

THE KEY TO THINKING WIN-WIN

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Getting to the Heart of Family Communication

GETTING TO THE HEART

LEVELS OF LISTENING

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DOOR SLAMMERS

STEPS TO EMPATHIC LISTENING

LET’S GIVE IT A TRY TOGETHER

ZIP THE ZIPPER

WHEN IS EMPATHIC LISTENING NOT NEEDED?

THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD

SHARING CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK

“I” MESSAGES

TIMING IT RIGHT

MAKING DIGITAL DEVICES A FAMILY FRIEND

SKILL AND INTENT

Habit 6: Synergize. Uniting the Strengths of Everyone

CHOOSE HUMILITY OVER PRIDE

MAXIMIZE STRENGTHS, MINIMIZE WEAKNESSES

DISCOVER UNITY AMIDST DIVERSITY

GO FOR THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE

LET CHILDREN LEAD

SURROUND YOUR FAMILY WITH GREATNESS

THE FRUITS OF SYNERGY

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. Renewing the Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit

SHARPENING THE SAW

WINNING THE DAILY PRIVATE VICTORY

SHARPENING THE SAW TOGETHER

THE PHYSICAL SAW (TO LIVE)

THE SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL SAW (TO LOVE)

THE MENTAL SAW (TO LEARN)

THE SPIRITUAL SAW (TO LEAVE A LEGACY)

FAMILY VACATIONS

EXTENDED FAMILY ACTIVITIES

SHARPENING THE SAW BRINGS HEALING

GIVING THE 7 HABITS A CHALLENGE TO SOLVE

CHOOSE ONE APPROACH AND ONE CHALLENGE

Approach 1: Start with Yourself

Approach 2: Strengthen a Family Relationship

Approach 3: Engage the Entire Family

Approach 4: Contribute to Your Community

LET GO AND GET STARTED

Introduction: Creating a Nurturing Family Culture

FAMILIES ARE “OFF TRACK” MUCH OF THE TIME

• All families—even great families—are “off track” much of the time. And that’s okay! The important thing is that they have a sense of purpose and destination, and that they keep trying.

PURPOSES OF THIS BOOK

The importance of the family.

• family is the most important organization in the world.

Your role as a leader in your family.

• establish a clear destination for where they want to go as an organization and a plan for how to get there.
• “What is the purpose of your company?” “Where do you want it to be in five years?” “Do you have a company mission statement?” “What are your top three goals?”

A NURTURING FAMILY CULTURE

• A family’s culture grows out of the collective behaviors, habits, and beliefs of each family member.

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HOW TO CHANGE A FAMILY CULTURE

Start with Yourself

• Highly effective families are made up of highly effective individuals. So to improve a family culture requires the individuals within the family to improve.
• Leadership—including parenting—is an inside-out process.

Work from a Strengths-Based Paradigm

• In that example, can you see how the way we see things (our paradigms, our thoughts) drives what we do (our behaviors, our habits), which in turn influences what we get in life (our results, our outcomes)?
• Two of the most important paradigms are the paradigms we have of ourselves and our families. Unfortunately, many people view themselves and their family through weakness-based paradigms. No matter how well things are going in life, they focus on their weaknesses. Weakness-based paradigms have never been a reliable source for positive change in individuals or families.

Live by Principles of Human Effectiveness

• Each of the 7 Habits is based on a principle of effectiveness.

Involve Your Family in Your Learning

Be Patient and Realistic

• The moral of the story is that whenever you are pursuing your desired outcomes in life—whether as an individual or family—be careful not to become impatient and kill your goose.
• If a family tries to implement too much change or goes at it too fast, they may burn out and ultimately kill their goose.

FAMILY IS NO TIME FOR GIVING UP EASILY

• The key to creating a nurturing family culture is in how you treat the one who tests you the most.
• There is no real test of leadership with a child or partner who is always cooperative, pleasant, and helpful. Rather, the real test of leadership and love comes when you’re dealing with someone who feels unlovable, who is rebellious and ungrateful after all you have done. That’s the time for true leadership—true love.

REFLECTIONS AND APPLICATIONS

• Ask each family member: How would you define our family? Invite them to argue in favor of the principle that family is the most important organization in the world.
• Invite family members to describe a nurturing family culture. Capture their thoughts and post them in a place where they can be seen.
• Talk about why it is important to always look out for one another.
• Share the story of the grizzly bear here. Discuss what “grizzly bears” might be harmful for your family. How can you avoid them?
• Blindfold a family member.

Habit 1: Be Proactive. Influencing Your Family from the Inside Out

THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

• “Between what happens to us in life (a stimulus) and our reaction (our response) is a space. In that space lies our power and freedom to choose our responses. In our responses lie our growth and happiness.”

UNIQUE HUMAN GIFTS

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• Self-awareness is our ability to stand apart from ourselves and examine our behaviors.
• Conscience is our ethical or moral sense, and is often referred to as our “inner voice.”
• Imagination is our ability as humans to envision a future entirely different from our past experiences.
• Independent will is what enables us to respond to our genetics and environment.

FOCUS ON YOUR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE

• Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
• Imagine your life as two circles. A larger, outer circle—your Circle of Concern—represents all the things that are of concern to you in life. Everything. In examining what’s in that circle, you will recognize that many of the things that are of concern to you are beyond your influence or control. Meanwhile, inside the bigger outer circle is a smaller inner circle—your Circle of Influence. It contains the things that you do have influence or control over.
• when people proactively focus their energy and time on their inner Circle of Influence, and do their best to control their own behaviors, attitudes, and choices instead of trying to control the behaviors, attitudes, and choices of others, that’s when their relationships start to improve. Trust increases and their influence grows

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USE PROACTIVE LANGUAGE

• When you use reactive language, you give away control of your choices and actions to other people or to circumstances—things outside your control. You feel helpless and hopeless. You deny your fundamental power to choose. In contrast, when you live inside your Circle of Influence, your language is proactive.
  • “I chose to allow my kids to make me mad!”
  • “I will model the kind of loving interaction I want to see in my marriage.”
  • “I can learn more about my father and his addiction, and work to forgive.”
  • “I apologize. I take responsibility for my actions. It was my mistake.”
  • “My father was that way but I choose not to be that way.”

PAUSE, THINK, AND CHOOSE

• When we act reactively in anger with family members, we risk destroying the trust that exists within our most important relationships. We rupture—not nurture—our family culture.
• What people need is a “pause button.” Something that reminds us all to pause between what happens to us and our response to it.
• I have a friend who, when he feels tempers rising between him and his wife, literally steps outdoors.
• Other people count to ten before opening their mouths.
• someone can raise their hand at any time and call out, “Can we start over?” These too are pause buttons.
• When he arrives home from his stressful job, he pauses and stays in his car for a few minutes. He imagines the feeling he wants to create when he goes inside. He says to himself, “My family is the most important and enjoyable part of my life and so I’m going to go inside and communicate my love for them.”
• three proactive steps to consider taking when you sense a reactive response coming on during an emotional family situation.
  • Pause
  • Think
    • Forcing yourself to think of more than one proactive response and the natural consequences of each will often eliminate your first knee-jerk responses, which are frequently reactive responses that you may regret.
  • Choose Image (image unavailable)

BECOME A TRANSITION PERSON

• Transition people stop the negative transmission of dysfunctional habits from one generation to the next.

DEVELOP THE GIFT OF HUMOR

• Humor reminds us that it is okay to be human. It helps us not to sweat the small stuff. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously and from being constantly uptight or battling perfectionism.

INSPIRE PROACTIVITY IN OTHERS

• There is no better way to inspire proactivity in others than to be a model of proactivity.
• Many parents—with very good intentions—get in the way of their children learning how to expand their freedom to choose. They try to make all the right choices for their children rather than empowering their children to make their own choices. They think they are doing something for their children when in reality they are doing something to them.
• By trying to “control” their children, parents often end up losing what little control they ever thought they had. That’s one reason why it is just as important to study what effective parents don’t do for their children.
• better way is for parents to help a child grow their self-awareness, tune their conscience, expand their imagination, and strengthen their independent will by giving them opportunities to make proactive choices.
• I have seen numerous parents take the opposite approach. They try to force a child to do the “right” thing, to believe a certain way, or to make a certain choice. And how often have I seen that approach work? Rarely. Teens in particular want to exercise their freedom to choose, even if it means making a reasonable mistake and then learning from the natural consequences.
• goal of highly effective parents has never been to control their children. Rather, their goal is to teach children principles of effectiveness and how to control themselves, to make decisions on their own, and to become responsibly independent.

HABIT 1: THE KEY TO ALL THE OTHER HABITS

• Be Proactive is the key to the remaining six habits. The remaining six habits would be powerless without Habit 1.
• This is why the decision to be the proactive force of our life is the most fundamental choice we make every day and the key to all other habits. It is the starting place for becoming an agent for positive change in our families.
• To summarize Habit 1, being proactive is the opposite of being reactive.
• Proactive paradigms are centered around the principles of choice, responsibility, initiative, and resourcefulness.

Reflections and Applications

• Develop a Conscience Treasure Hunt.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Bringing Purpose and Vision to Your Family

YOUR FAMILY’S MENTAL CREATION

• Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind is based on the concept that all meaningful things are created twice. First there’s the mental creation—the plan or vision. Second there is the physical creation—the actual doing of the work, the carrying out of the plan. Habit 2 is the mental creation.
• A family’s mental creation answers the question of why: Why is our family important? Why do we do what we do? It also answers the question of what: What do we want our family to stand for? What are our goals? What do we want our family culture to feel like, sound like, and look like?
• Henry David Thoreau’s thought-provoking statement and question: “It’s not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”

GETTING AT THE ROOTS

A Lack of Identity

• When young people’s identities are not secure, are not supported by a strong family identity, or are not founded on principles of effectiveness, they become prime targets to have their homegrown identities stolen away from them.

A Lack of Connectedness

• young people’s brains are literally “hardwired” to be connected in two important ways: 1) a connectedness to other people, and 2) a connectedness to moral meaning.
• When young people do not feel connected to others—lacking feelings of belonging—or do not feel connected to a moral compass, they struggle to move forward in life.

A Lack of Hope

• Like connectedness, hope also comes in at least two forms. One is the hope for a brighter future—a vision of something to look forward to in days ahead. The second is the hope to be able to contribute something of worth to that better future—to feel needed and appreciated, to feel meaning in one’s life.

WHO’S RAISING OUR CHILDREN?

• Who’s raising our children? Where do young people go to find identity, connectedness, and hope? Where do they find a positive vision of the future? That answer is simple. They either find it in their family or they go elsewhere. And if they can’t find it elsewhere, they feel desperate and may do desperate things.
• Parents who stand for nothing raise children who fall for anything.
• The life lessons and values taught in the family are the lessons that last the longest and should not be left to happenchance.

CREATING A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

• What kind of family do we want to be?
• What kind of home do we want to invite our friends into?
• What makes us feel comfortable or uncomfortable in our home?
• What do we as a family most want to be remembered by?
• Our family is not perfect in living our mission statement. Yet over the years our family has felt in general that: “Our home is a place of faith, order, truth, love, happiness, and relaxation. We try to act in ways that are responsibly independent and effectively interdependent. We attempt to serve worthy purposes in society.” Those words come from our family mission statement, and now our children have their own families and their own family mission statements.

THE POWER OF A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

STEPS TO CREATING A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

• Step One: Brainstorm What Your Family Stands For—Your Purposes, Values, and Dreams
  • Start your family’s mission statement by setting the right tone and timing for talking freely.
  • What are the three main purposes of our family?
  • What do we value most?
  • What are our family’s highest priority goals?
  • How do we want other people to feel when they are with us?
  • What are the unique talents, gifts, and abilities of our family members?
  • What other families inspire us, and why do we admire them?
  • How will we handle conflicts?
  • How will we lift each other when we are down?
  • How will we contribute to our extended family? Our community?
  • The important thing to emphasize is that everyone in the family is involved. No involvement, no commitment.

Step Two: Write Your Family Mission Statement

• Once everyone’s ideas are captured, you are ready to evaluate and combine the ideas into a single, simple expression that reflects the collective hearts and minds of all who have contributed. The important thing is to eventually get it into a written format—even if it is an early draft.
• What gets written is meant to prioritize all the ideas that have been brainstormed to make them simple and understandable to every person and age level within the family. Prioritizing forces families to think deeply about what truly matters most and what will bring the most bonding.
• Family members will need to look at it, think about it, tweak it, live it, revisit it, and make changes until everyone comes to the agreement that: “This is what our family is about. We are ready to fully commit to living by it.”
• Our family mission is to:
  • Value honesty with ourselves and others.
  • Honor the cultures and creeds of all.
  • Respect and accept each person’s unique talents.
  • Promote a kind and happy atmosphere.
  • Resolve conflicts with each other rather than harbor anger.
  • Always be loyal to each other.
• Our family mission:
  • To love each other
  • To help each other
  • To believe in each other
  • To use our time and talents to bless others
  • Forever.

Step Three: Use the Mission Statement to Stay on Track

• A family mission statement is more than a piece of art to hang on a wall to impress your friends. It’s meant to be the literal constitution of your family life.
• It can help you make important decisions. It can help you know what to say “no” to. You can come back to it for guidance, time and time again, especially when you get off track and need to course correct.
• I recommend placing your family mission statement in a location where family members will see it and discuss it regularly. That way, in all your family’s daily comings and goings, they will see it and be reminded of the kind of family they are striving to become.
• How well you live the mission statement will set a precedent for years to come. For when you raise your children, you’re also raising your grandchildren. Patterns tend to persist to the next generation.

SHARING FAMILY VALUES THROUGH STORYTELLING

• Young people forget lectures; they remember stories. Stories have stickiness, especially when they have a meaningful life lesson attached to them—a moral meaning.

COMMUNICATING WORTH AND POTENTIAL

• Family mission statements and family stories provide a vision for what a family is all about and what it can become. It is also important to give each individual family member a vision of who they are as unique individuals and who they have the potential to become.
• Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.
• When you communicate a family member’s worth—including the strengths you see in them and the value you place in them today—aren’t you strengthening their sense of identity and connecting with them? And when you communicate their potential—your confidence in their ability to do well in the days ahead—aren’t you giving them a vision of who they can become? Aren’t you building their confidence and hope?
• Communicating worth says, “I accept and unconditionally love you for who you are today.” Communicating potential says, “I believe that you will make meaningful contributions in the future.” These types of affirming words can impact a family member for a lifetime.
• Goethe said, “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is. If you treat him as he ought to be and could be, he will become what he can and should be.”
• express gratitude.
• Words of gratitude are filled with identity, connectedness, and hope.
• compliments.
• one of the best parts of being a family is that you can affirm and encourage one another.

AND THEN LIFE HAPPENS!

• Vision is what helps a family over the hurdles of the past and provides them with a view of a brighter future.

Habit 3: Put First Things First. Making Time for Family Time

KEEPING YOUR MAIN THINGS YOUR MAIN THINGS

OUTSIDE FORCES THAT DETOUR FAMILIES

• “outside forces” that commonly deter families,
• Media
• Employment
• Economy
• Education
• Laws and Mores

INSIDE FORCES THAT EMPOWER FAMILIES

Relationships Before Schedules

• making schedules and keeping tight calendars. But it’s our relationships that drive our schedules, not our schedules that drive our relationships. It’s an important distinction.
• your “ladder” is leaning against the wrong wall, every step you take only gets you to the wrong place faster. Think relationships first, then schedules.

Effectiveness Before Efficiency

• Both effectiveness and efficiency are of great value, but one comes first. There’s no need to do something efficiently that is not effective in the long run.
• When dealing with family relationships, first ask, “What is the most effective thing to do here?” and then consider how to address it efficiently. Think effectiveness first, efficiency second.

Importance Before Urgency

• But just because something feels urgent does not mean it is important.
• some of the most important things in life are not urgent at all.
• “If you were to do one thing that you know would make a tremendous difference for good in your personal or professional life, what would that one thing be?”
• “tyranny of the urgent.”
• If you think about it, there are very few true emergencies in a person’s life. So don’t allow every little thing that appears urgent to fool you into thinking it is important, or that it needs to be handled immediately.

“Big Rock” Family Systems

• Winston Churchill declared: “For the first twenty-five years of my life I wanted freedom. For the next twenty-five years I wanted order. For the next twenty-five years I realized that order is freedom.”
• “Big Rock” family systems. They are:
  • Regular family mealtimes
  • Weekly family time
  • Family traditions
  • One-on-one bonding times
• Big Rock 1: Regular Family Mealtimes
  • “What is my purpose at this meal?”
  • Children do like to talk, but they like to talk about what they want to talk about, and that may not be what you want to talk about. The key is to find out what’s in their hearts and minds. What is it that they do want to talk about?
  • They ask such research-based questions as, “What went well today?” or “Why did it go well?” or “What is one thing that you are grateful for today?” Some parents start out by sharing a success that they had that day, and then emphasize the principle that made their success a success. Then they ask their children if they have ever experienced something like that or can think of someone with a similar experience. It gets the minds spinning and conversations going.
  • effective parents do best is to listen.
  • “Catch people doing things right,” and then let them know you appreciate and admire them for those things.
  • Mealtime is best used as a time to nourish children with an occasional bite of wisdom and a steady diet of hope.
• Big Rock 2: Weekly Family Time
  • strongly suggest at least one hour per week, and preferably at a consistent day and time.
  • solely focused on strengthening the family.
  • We viewed family time as a time to plan, a time to teach, a time to solve problems, and a time to have fun.
  • Planning: A big part of our family time each week is planning. We go over each person’s goals and activities, and put them on a magnetic chart that hangs on a door. This enables us to know what others in the family are doing during the week so that we can support them. It gives us the information we need to arrange transportation and babysitting, and to prevent scheduling conflicts. We also used the time to plan an upcoming activity or vacation.
  • Teaching: One of the family times our children remember most was when we played a game to teach them some principles of financial management. We set up signs in different places in the room that said such things as “Bank,” “Store,” “Credit Card Company,” and “Charity.” We then gave each child an object to represent work they could do to earn money. Our eight-year-old, for example, had some hand towels to fold. Our ten-year-old had a broom to sweep the floor. Everyone had work to do so that they could earn some money. When the game began, everyone went right to work. After a few minutes we rang a bell, and everyone got “paid.” We gave them each ten dimes for their labor. They then had to decide what to do with their money. They could put it in the bank. They could donate some to charity. They could buy something at the “store” where we had bright-colored balloons with the names of different toys written on them along with a price. If they really wanted something from the store but didn’t have enough money to buy it, they could go to the credit card company and borrow enough to get it. We went through the sequence several times: work, earn, spend; work, earn, spend. And then we blew a whistle. “Interest time!” we said. Those who had put money in the bank got money added. Those who had “borrowed” from the credit card company had to pay interest. After several rounds they quickly became convinced that it was much smarter to earn interest than to pay it. When we’ve asked our children to tell us about family times they remember, this one was at the top of the list.
  • best family times are spontaneous. If your children are mature enough, let them plan the family time or lead the activities.
• Big Rock 3: Family Traditions
  • Traditions also do not need to be large, expensive, or complicated to be effective. They may be as simple as getting the family together to enjoy a sporting event, to attend an annual concert together, or to share a holiday treat.
  • Thanksgiving holiday
• Big Rock 4: One-on-One Bonding Times
  • One-on-one time is when most of the deepest nurturing of the heart and soul occurs in family relationships. It’s when the most profound teaching and bonding take place.
  • One of the ground rules Sandra and I had for our one-on-ones with our children was that we let them talk about whatever they wanted to talk about.
    That’s why many of our one-on-ones with our children were a matter of just being there, having fun, and building the relationship so that if a son or daughter ever did want to open up or ask for advice, the trust was already established.

PUT THE BIG ROCKS IN FIRST

• At the beginning of each new year, we figuratively start out with an empty bucket—a clean calendar. We first insert into it our Family Big Rocks. This includes our mealtimes, weekly family times, traditions, regular one-on-one times, and any other major family events, like our extended holiday meals and family summer vacation. By doing so, we are scheduling our priorities, not just prioritizing our schedules. There is a big difference. Our key relationships are driving our schedules instead of our schedules driving our relationships.

PLAN WEEKLY, ADAPT DAILY

• So in short, we start out with a yearlong view, knowing that things will change and need updating as we go. Then we plan again weekly and adapt daily.

INTEGRITY IN THE MOMENT OF CHOICE

• When you do not have a proactive relationship-based calendar, the temptation will be to reactively say “yes” to anything.
  So decide what your highest priorities are and then have the courage and discipline to pleasantly, smilingly, and non-apologetically say “no” to less important things. It’s easier to say no when there is a deeper yes burning within.

WHEN FAMILY COMES FIRST

• Goethe said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Habit 4: Think Win-Win. Making Deposits in Your Family Relationships

PARADIGMS OF HUMAN INTERACTION

• “scarcity mentality.”
• “abundance mentality”

COURAGE AND CONSIDERATION

• We do live in a competitive world and there are competitive situations in business and sports where winning is a priority. It’s also true that friendly competition can make people stronger and more productive, and can even be the source of a lot of fun. But remember, we are talking about our closest relationships—our family relationships.
• In many cases, you teach family members how to treat you by what you allow them to do to you. And that’s why in some situations, it really does take a lot of courage and independent will to stand up for yourself and refuse to go for lose-win.

BUILDING THE EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT

• build mutual trust.

DOING LITTLE KINDNESSES

• One-time big gifts or single grandiose deeds seldom result in high trust. More often it’s the little kindnesses that are woven into the daily fabric of family life that build the most lasting trust.

GIVING SINCERE APOLOGIES

• Saying “I’m sorry” is a small, proactive way to take responsibility for your mistakes and offenses. It is also a grand deposit. In contrast, making lame excuses or blaming others for your mistakes is a trust-busting withdrawal.

BEING LOYAL TO THE ABSENT

• Loyalty is an important principle of human effectiveness in families.
• Always talk about others as if they are present. The way you treat any family relationship will eventually affect every relationship in the family.

KEEPING PROMISES

• If an entire family would cultivate the spirit of making and keeping promises to one another, it would lead to a multitude of good outcomes.
• Few, if any, deposits have more impact on a family than making and keeping commitments. The most foundational promise we ever make to another human being is the vow of marriage. And equal to it is the promise we implicitly make to our children—particularly when they’re little—that we will take care of them and nurture them.

FORGIVING

• Refusing to forgive is a stubborn roadblock to change, and, in the end, the one you harm the most is yourself.

DEPOSIT OR WITHDRAWAL?

• The key to making deposits is to listen and come to an understanding of what is a win for the other person at any particular moment in time.

WIN-WIN AGREEMENTS

THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF A WIN-WIN AGREEMENT

• Win-win agreements take into consideration five elements: 1.  Desired results: What are the wins for you and for me? 2.  Guidelines: Who will do what? Are there specific rules or guidelines that need to be followed? 3.  Resources: Who can help? What budget or resources are available? 4.  Accountability: Are there timelines to be met? How will progress be measured? 5.  Consequences: What will happen if we meet or do not meet the expectations? What are the natural consequences?

LET THE AGREEMENT GOVERN

• You cannot hold people responsible for results if you micromanage either them or their methods. When you are constantly nagging and telling people what to do and how to do it, you remain responsible for the results, not the other person. So what I suggest is that you let the agreement do the governing.

CULTIVATING THE SPIRIT OF WIN-WIN

Parents Don’t Always Have to Win

• every minor issue or activity they wanted to do. For example, if our children wanted to build a fort in the middle of the house and leave it up for a few weeks, Sandra and I generally let them do it, even if it looked messy or caused inconveniences. We would let them win those kinds of battles instead of asserting our authority by insisting, “We don’t want the mess.” It was a win for the children and since it built our relationships it turned out to be a win for us also. It let the children know that Sandra and I were not focused solely on our wins, but that we were happy for their wins. When it came to larger matters, especially matters of principle, the children were far more likely to allow us our wins. So there was give and take on all sides, and that in the long run turned out to be a win for everyone.

Don’t Overdo Competition

• Not everything has to be a big competition that ends with a bunch of losers.

Avoid Comparisons

• All a parent needs to do to put a dagger in the heart of a family relationship is to constantly compare one sibling to another.

Be Happy for the Successes of Others

• A quick way to assess whether you are naturally inclined to think win-win as a family is to examine whether family members are truly happy for the successes of others. If the successes of others make family members feel jealous or like they are somehow less of a person because another family member did something they didn’t, then your family will struggle to think win-win as a whole. People with jealousies tend to pull others down, not build them up.

THE KEY TO THINKING WIN-WIN

• Wise parents put a lot of emphasis on teaching children to become independent. But an equal focus needs to be placed on teaching children to become interdependent. As Gandhi once said, “Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency.”
• Family is a “we” experience, not an “all about me” experience. When family members have an abundance mentality instead of a scarcity mentality, great things happen and a spirit of “we” results.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Getting to the Heart of Family Communication

• There are two parts to the habit: 1) seeking first to understand, then 2) seeking to be understood. There is wisdom and logic to that order.

GETTING TO THE HEART

• Seeking to understand a family member’s heartfelt feelings is one of the most fundamental deposits we can make into their Emotional Bank Account. Not seeking to understand is one of the greatest withdrawals.

LEVELS OF LISTENING

• Helping someone to feel understood does takes time. Trying to be fast when listening to a person—especially in an emotional moment—is putting efficiency ahead of effectiveness. People don’t typically let their feelings out all at once.
• It is not until we get to the level of attentive listening before we show our full willingness to give a person the time they deserve—to hear them out. At this level, we pause whatever we are doing and give the person our undivided attention. We focus our ears and eyes on every word the person says. We pay close attention to their body language to make sure we capture the full content of their message.
• But certain conversations require an even higher level of listening. The conversations I am referring to are when things get emotional. It’s when someone is hurting emotionally or when trust has been broken in a relationship. It’s when people are angry or anxious. It’s when not just facts but also feelings are being communicated—deep feelings.
• This higher level of listening is called “empathic listening,” or listening with empathy. Empathy is not to be confused with sympathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is understanding a person from their point of view. Empathic listening requires us to lay aside our viewpoints in an attempt to see the world from the other person’s viewpoint. It requires us to pause, set aside any distractions, and use our ears, our eyes, and our heart to listen—with an emphasis on the heart.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DOOR SLAMMERS

• People try to listen to others—not through the other person’s eyes—but through their own autobiographies. They aren’t willing or patient enough to set aside their own autobiographies and biases long enough to get into another person’s world and see things from the other person’s viewpoints.
• four autobiographical “door slammers” that people commonly use when listening. They are evaluating, advising, probing, and interpreting. See if you use one or more of them.

Evaluating

• When listening to another person, it is tempting to begin evaluating what the person is saying even before they finish their sentence or thought.
• Evaluating people, prejudging, or critiquing people slams the door shut on communication. When you truly come to understand another person, you judge them less.

Advising

• Well-intended advice is of little worth and may even be harmful if it is not dealing with the correct issue. Many people are so eager to give advice that they do not take the time to diagnose the real problem.
• People who are overly eager to advise often listen with the intent to reply, not with the intent to understand. They interrupt before the person is finished speaking because they are so eager to share their advice. In contrast, effective listeners diagnose before they prescribe; they seek first to understand before they attempt to advise.

Probing

• most probing questions are actually “leading” questions. The listener is attempting to lead the person toward a particular solution or trying to get to the root cause before they have identified the real concern. This too slams the door on communication.

Interpreting

• Perhaps you know someone who is always trying to “figure you out.” They’re forever playing psychologist.
• Once people know you truly understand their true feelings and concerns, that is when they become open to evaluation, advice, probing, and interpretation.

STEPS TO EMPATHIC LISTENING

Step 1: Be a Faithful Translator of the Content

• most effective ways to listen empathically is to see yourself as a faithful translator.
• main job as being to communicate accurately back to the other person the very same content of the message that they are communicating to you. Do it until they feel fully understood. Don’t change the message. Don’t insert your interpretation. Don’t evaluate. Simply restate the message in your own words, trying to be as faithful as possible to the content the person is speaking.

Step 2: Reflect the Speaker’s Feelings

• listening for feelings.
• When conversations turn emotional, there is a high need to make sure you identify the correct emotions.
• step 2 has you reflect back the feelings associated with the content.

Step 3: Ask Clarifying Questions

• Clarifying questions simply confirm the accuracy of what you believe was said.
• Until you feel you truly understand and until the other person feels truly understood, feel free to ask clarifying questions. When the speaker and the listener are at one with both the content and feelings of what was said, that is when you have reached empathy.
• Clarifying questions demonstrate your sincere desire to achieve full understanding—full empathy.

LET’S GIVE IT A TRY TOGETHER

• The goal is to be able to restate the other person’s content and feelings as well as, if not better than, they can state them.
• It requires you to leave your world—your autobiography—and to get into the other person’s world. You don’t have to agree with them, just understand them.

ZIP THE ZIPPER

WHEN IS EMPATHIC LISTENING NOT NEEDED?

• As noted earlier, most conversations involve nothing more than passing on information—content. For that, attentive listening is adequate. It’s only when things turn emotional—when heartfelt feelings are being shared—that it’s time to open up the ears, eyes, and heart to listen for both content and feelings.

THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD

• Once you truly understand a person, you are in a better position to influence them. Why? Because when you truly understand their points of view, you can then share your feelings within their frame of reference. You can teach them, inspire them, confront them with love, give them feedback, and share your thoughts through the lens of their autobiography, not yours.

SHARING CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK

• feedback is not communicated with respect, it can be the source of much contention and hard feelings.
• When you really love someone, you care enough about them to approach them with constructive feedback—and you do it in ways that show respect.

“I” MESSAGES

1.  Seek first to understand.

• First seek to know what is important to the other person and how your feedback will connect to their goals, abilities, and interests.

  2.  Check your ego and motives.

• Ask yourself, “Will this feedback truly be helpful to this family member, or does it just fulfill my self-serving need to set this person straight?”

  3.  Be sensitive to blind spots.
  4.  Use “I” messages.

• So instead of attacking or describing a person by saying something like, “You are lazy and selfish for not helping me,” describe your feelings: “When I don’t get help with cleaning the dishes after I have already cooked the entire meal, I feel like I am being treated as an unpaid, non-valued servant.” This is referred to as giving “I” messages rather than “you” messages. “I” messages come from your point of view: “This is how I see it.”

TIMING IT RIGHT

• Constructive feedback is at its best when it is timed correctly.
• When people have done their best, then whether their work meets your standards or not is irrelevant. It is the time to express appreciation and praise. Praise the heart that went into the work. Praise the worth of the person. You are not compromising your integrity when you take such an encouraging, appreciating, affirming approach. You are simply focusing on the person, who is more important than the task or project. But in that moment, never give negative feedback—even though it may be deserved. Wait for a better time.

MAKING DIGITAL DEVICES A FAMILY FRIEND

• Yet the more a parent tries to control a child’s digital device usage, the greater the probability is for tensions and contentions to arise.
• there is a lot that families can do to make digital devices a family friend.
• In addition to the standard benefits of digital devices—being able to contact children for safety purposes, having quick access to valuable information, calendaring, and resourcing online learning tools—digital devices can be a great way to communicate and stay in contact with children and a wide range of family members.
• Each day, she texts short inspirational messages and expressions of love to her children—small, daily Emotional Bank Account deposits.
• virtual group calls to connect with family members
• Cousins play virtual games with cousins, even when on the opposite sides of a country.
• I honestly believe that if parents spent as much energy using digital devices in proactive ways to communicate with their children as they do in trying to control their children’s device usage, they might have more success in helping their children monitor themselves. For the best censors are not the software type but what goes on in a child’s mind and the choices they make.

SKILL AND INTENT

• While the above-the-surface communication skills are important—including skills for attentive and empathic listening—if people lack the beneath-the-surface character and have less than honorable intentions, people will not trust what they say and will not open their hearts to them. If a family member does not trust your intent, it will not matter how great your skills are for listening empathically or giving “I” feedback. Your attempts will be rejected. If, on the other hand, you are a highly trusted family member—you have strong character and pure intentions—then your skills for listening can be relatively poor and yet there will still be a good chance that the family member will open up to you.
• trust is one of the most essential ingredients in effective family communication.

Habit 6: Synergize. Uniting the Strengths of Everyone

• Synergizing is interdependence at its best. Synergizing occurs in a family when each person brings their best ideas, talents, and efforts together, and then uses them to solve a problem, create something new, or resolve a disagreement.
• Living opposite to any one of the habits presents a barrier to synergy, and will likely lead to chaos.
• Habit 6 will now add principles and skills that can drive a family toward getting to synergy. They include:
  • Choosing humility over pride
  • Maximizing strengths, minimizing weaknesses
  • Discovering unity amidst diversity
  • Going for the third alternative
  • Letting children lead
  • Surrounding your family with greatness

CHOOSE HUMILITY OVER PRIDE

• our temper can keep us from getting to synergy and our pride can keep us there.

MAXIMIZE STRENGTHS, MINIMIZE WEAKNESSES

• Never define a person by their weaknesses; always define them by their strengths.
• To get to synergy you must be able to say sincerely to others, “The fact that you and I see things differently is a strength, not a weakness, in our relationship.”

DISCOVER UNITY AMIDST DIVERSITY

• When family members are united in pursuing common goals and purposes, diversity is a strength.

GO FOR THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE

• It’s not “my way” (first alternative); it’s not “your way” (second alternative); it’s “our way” (third alternative).
• process of seeking the third alternative can work in your family, try the following activity. Identify an issue that needs to be resolved—an issue where family members have different points of view—then work together to answer the following questions: 1.  What is the problem or issue from everyone’s point of view? Really listen to one another with the intent to understand. Work at it until everyone involved can express each person’s point of view to that person’s satisfaction. A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved. 2.  What are the key issues involved? Once all viewpoints are expressed and everyone feels thoroughly understood, the next step is to break the problem down into logical chunks. People will often agree on more issues, or chunks, than they disagree on. This will help you to identify and focus on the parts, if any, that are in question. 3.  What would constitute a potentially acceptable solution? Brainstorm possible solutions. Remember that brainstorming means that no one judges or evaluates other people’s ideas until everyone feels understood. However, they can ask clarifying questions or offer spin-off ideas. Keep listening and bouncing ideas off of each other. Use your imagination. Stay open to others’ ideas. Write down the ideas or solutions that are most feasible so that everyone can remember them and see all of them together. 4.  What option will be the best option? This is the time when ideas get evaluated. So once you have all the ideas gathered, begin settling on a single solution while ensuring that it is a win for everyone. Remember that synergy takes time and might even involve going through some strong disagreements before you arrive at synergy. Don’t give up. Eliminate ideas that are clearly not win-win, then prioritize the remaining ideas until there is a clear winner.

LET CHILDREN LEAD

• dealing with matters that impact everyone in the family, leaving children—even young children—out of decisions is a mistake.

SURROUND YOUR FAMILY WITH GREATNESS

• We came to realize that we do not need to be the experts on every topic or to have all the solutions ourselves. There are other people who can help, such as a neighbor, extended family member, work colleague, friend, or professional counselor.
• At times, children go through a stage in which they will listen to anyone on the planet before they will listen to or confide in a parent. They will trust a neighbor or a schoolteacher or a religious mentor or a sports coach or a relative or some other individual before they will go to Mom or Dad. It’s just a stage. How grateful we are for those individuals who have offered their strengths and stepped into our children’s lives at critical crossroads and helped us in ways we couldn’t help ourselves.

THE FRUITS OF SYNERGY

• Synergizing at its highest level is about truly celebrating people’s differences.
• when challenges grow emotional, when commitment is needed, or when solutions need a lot of creativity, then go for a third alternative. Go for synergy.
• Break the problem apart and work on the easier portions first. Small victories lead to larger victories. Enjoy the fruits of synergy.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. Renewing the Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit

• The irony is that if we would pause long enough to make investments in ourselves and in our relationships, we would be better able to balance the many other things that keep us busy in life.

SHARPENING THE SAW

• The saws I am referring to, of course, are not real saws, but represent four basic human needs—the physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. These needs represent a person’s body, heart, mind, and spirit, and I sometimes refer to them as the needs to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.
• Neglect your body, it will deteriorate. Neglect your mind, it will deteriorate. Neglect your house, it will deteriorate. Neglect the family, it will deteriorate. Anything that is not consciously attended to and renewed will eventually deteriorate. Image (image unavailable)
• To avoid family entropy, family members must renew themselves in all four areas of life—as individuals and as a family.

WINNING THE DAILY PRIVATE VICTORY

• As with every other habit, Sharpen the Saw works best when started from the inside out.
• Daily Private Victory.
• Personally, I like to sharpen my four saws first thing each day.
• If I wait until later in my day, it greatly increases the likelihood that I will skip it when my afternoon gets busy or I become tired in the evening.
• Physical saw: Exercising, eating healthy foods, cleaning the house, or getting more sleep
• Social-emotional saw: Building friendships, being empathic, reducing stress, or having fun
• Mental saw: Reading, writing, starting a new hobby, developing a talent, or gaining new knowledge
• Spiritual saw: Meditating, serving others, reading inspirational literature, or renewing your commitment to principles

SHARPENING THE SAW TOGETHER

• Regular family mealtimes, weekly family time, family traditions, and one-on-one bonding times—all four systems, or Family Big Rocks—are excellent times to sharpen the saw together on a weekly basis.

THE PHYSICAL SAW (TO LIVE)

• together, whether it be in their apartment, at a park, or in a gym. Getting out into nature is a way some families like to sharpen the physical saw together. Nature has a way of rewarding even the idle adventurer, providing a source of rest and stress reduction. I know several families who like to camp, bike, fish, hike, bird-watch, or play favorite sports together as their way of enjoying the benefits of physical renewal.
• “ten-minute program.”
• “work parties.”

THE SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL SAW (TO LOVE)

• taking children to school
• Story: I remember when it would be Dad’s turn to drive the car pool to school. We’d have this whole car full of kids, and Dad would do the funniest, craziest things. He’d tell jokes. He’d get people to recite a poem or sing a song. He had everyone laughing. As we got older, we would sometimes feel embarrassed by Dad’s behavior. But he’d always say, “Okay. Crazy or boring—take your choice.” “Boring!” we’d say. “Don’t embarrass us, Dad.” So he would just sit there stiff and silent. But then our friends would yell, “Crazy! We want crazy!” And off he’d go again being funny. The kids in the car pool just loved it. It was fun.

THE MENTAL SAW (TO LEARN)

• More important than children memorizing a bunch of random facts is children learning to love learning. Once they find that learning can be exciting and that the adults in their life love to learn, children themselves become enthusiastic learners.
• Reading books, watching documentaries, and visiting museums or historical sites are just a few. As Cynthia recalls, Sandra liked to use her captive audience of hungry children at dinnertime as opportunities to sharpen the mental saw together.

THE SPIRITUAL SAW (TO LEAVE A LEGACY)

• sense of purpose. People want to feel of worth, to contribute, and to leave a legacy.
• I’m convinced that if you organize your family to spend ten minutes a day reading or listening to something that connects you with timeless principles or some type of moral meaning, you will make better choices during the day in every dimension of life. You will be more principle-centered and connected to what really matters most as a family.
• doing service in their neighborhood, community, or extended family.

Albert Schweitzer said: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

Hans Selye, the father of modern stress research, taught that the best way to stay strong, healthy, and alive is to follow the credo “Earn thy neighbor’s love.”

• By becoming involved in meaningful service-oriented projects as a family, you and your family members will end up the greatest benefactors.

FAMILY VACATIONS

• All four saws can be sharpened during one vacation.
• insert something physical, something emotional, something mental, and something spiritual into all of our family vacations.
• Finding the right work-life balance in a family may not be easy, but have you ever heard of someone on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at the office? Or at the shopping mall?

EXTENDED FAMILY ACTIVITIES

• Story: When I was young, we didn’t have much money. We couldn’t go on vacation to any place that cost a lot. So every year Mom and Dad would pack all kinds of food, we’d tie the old canvas tent to the top of the car, all the children would pile in like sardines in a can, and off we would go to the mountains of Kennally Creek. We did that every year. Then one by one, all of us children got married and moved to different locations. The one way we stayed connected was that every summer we would all meet up at Kennally Creek campground. The year after Dad died, we wondered if we should continue the tradition. Mom said that Dad would want us to do it, so we all went. This continued as the years passed, and each of us had children. We still gathered each year at Kennally Creek. Each night under the moonlight sky, my brother would play his accordion and all the kids would dance. After Mom died, it seemed in our minds as if she and Dad came back every year and sat by the campfire with all of us at Kennally Creek. We could see them smile as they watched the grandkids dance and eat the watermelon that had been cooled in the stream.

SHARPENING THE SAW BRINGS HEALING

GIVING THE 7 HABITS A CHALLENGE TO SOLVE

• If there is any one thing we have done really well, it is that we have never given up. The family is too important not to keep trying.
• view living the 7 Habits as an ongoing process of progress. I compare it to climbing a spiral staircase. Imagine a spiral staircase where each step represents one of the 7 Habits. Step 1 is Habit 1. Step 2 is Habit 2. And so forth. When you get to step 7—or Habit 7—you discover that the next step turns out to be Habit 1 again. Only this time, you are seeing Habit 1 at a whole new level because living Habits 2 through 7 has taken you to a higher level. At this new and higher level, you are in a position to become even more proactive, and to apply Habit 1 to more areas of your life.

CHOOSE ONE APPROACH AND ONE CHALLENGE

Approach 1: Start with Yourself

Approach 2: Strengthen a Family Relationship

Dag Hammarskjöld, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, said, “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”

• Once you have identified the specific relationship, then go back through the pages of this book looking for suggestions of what you can do to strengthen that one relationship.

Approach 3: Engage the Entire Family

• A second way to engage the entire family is to go through the book one habit at a time. As a family, identify for each habit the one most important thing you can do to apply that habit better as a family. Make a plan for doing that one thing for thirty days and commit each other to following the plan.
• Take them one habit and one commitment at a time. Consider working on one a month. Make them positive experiences and celebrate any milestones—small victories—along the way.

1. Model. Model. Model.
   The best way to teach the 7 Habits is to model them. There is no better way to teach. A child’s first and foremost teacher is a parent.

   Albert Einstein wrote, “Our death is not an end if we live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us.”

2. Digest the habits in bite sizes.

   • Small bite-sized lessons during meals, family times, or one-on-one conversations are excellent opportunities to teach and discuss short insights. Don’t attempt to teach too much about the 7 Habits at any given time.

3. Use the 7 Habits language in positive ways.

   • Any person—but especially teens—will fall out of love quickly with the 7 Habits if they are used against them in such a way. Parents are better rewarded when they use the 7 Habits language to compliment children:

4. Focus on the principles.

   • talk about the principles associated with the habits rather than the habit titles themselves. For example, instead of saying, “You were very proactive,” say something like, “You are becoming more and more responsible,” or “You showed a lot of courage by standing up for yourself.” The principles I’ve highlighted throughout the book are captured in the following table:

5. Choose a good time to teach.

6. Use family stories.

7. Empower others to teach the habits.

8. Use the end-of-chapter activities.

9. Be patient.

Approach 4: Contribute to Your Community

• Select a service you can do as a family for one individual, family, or organization, then ask such questions as:
  • What can we do to help that is within our Circle of Influence (Habit 1)?
  • What purposes do we want to achieve (Habit 2)?
  • What are the first and highest priorities (Habit 3)?
  • What is a win for them? What is a win for our family (Habit 4)?
  • What will we do to seek first to understand their needs (Habit 5)?
  • How will we communicate our desires to them without offending (Habit 5)?
  • How can we combine our strengths with their strengths to create synergy (Habit 6)?
  • What four needs—physical, social-emotional, mental, and spiritual—can be addressed (Habit 7)?
• I approach tender family challenges using a “Crock-Pot” mindset. Because for me, slow and steady still produces the best results.

LET GO AND GET STARTED

• that of being a leader within our family. As my grandfather Stephen L. Richards once said, “Of all the vocations that men and women may pursue in this life, no vocation is fraught with as much responsibility and attended with as much boundless opportunity as the great calling of father and mother.”

George Bernard Shaw.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.