I woke up dosing and reflecting on The 7 habits of highly effective people. I read this when I was about 30. It really helped open my eyes. Almost like my first coaching experience.
Then I started thinking about the Bushido code, Karate lessons started at 11 years old.
Holding the horse stance for what seemed like eternity. The lessons were free for school members, day 1 about 80 pupils turned up. 2 weeks later 8 of us were left.
I probably would have benefited from a life coach growing up and early in my career. Instead, I learnt the harder way. Making mistakes at times, doing lots of good work too.
However, a direction and ability to work on strengths, and limit limiting character strengths would have been handy. Somehow, I feel like it would have been a great help.
Or would it? I supposed without this experience, I might not have been drawn to coaching myself or to positive psychology, so it's all panned out well in the end.
Other early self helps was from books mostly to do with eastern philosophy, Buddhism, Bushido code, and the Tao of jeet Kun do (Bruce lee) which is packed full of really excellent knowledge he derived from reading widely.
It’s also a very good martial art guide book. There was another book called Affirmations too which was really good. The guy that wrote that made his first $10,000 dollar selling T-shirts.
Thinking back on it; I didn’t just read Covey — I actually lived my way into the lessons, which is probably why it stuck. A lot of people skim that book; I’ve tried to absorb it through experience, which is a very different thing.
Here’s a walk-through of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I’ve tried to frame it more like how it lands in real life than how it’s written on the page. I've tried to tie it back to personal experiences. The last part of the article, I've made a Covey / Bushido infographic.
It’s worth a read, or a listen, it’s dense. But worth it. The Core Idea First Covey’s big point is simple but quite deep: Real effectiveness isn’t about hacks or tricks — it’s about character, identity, and how you see the world. He calls this a shift from personality ethics (quick wins, tactics) to character ethics (who you are underneath). Of course, and this is one of the most important factors in life.
Being proactive requires energy. Good luck with that if you don't eat, sleep and train well.
Alongside cultivating strong interactive, compassionate relationships across all spheres.
Habit 1: Be Proactive, be reflective, be mindful (I added those bits on)! This is where it all starts.
I wrote about this recently in an article called “Being First” or being proactive. There's a phrase in the article. Man who stands on hill will wait a long time before a roasted duck flies into his mouth.
Not “be busy” or “be productive” — but take responsibility for your responses. Life throws things at you. You don’t control that.
There’s one truth in life = it’s never a straight line. But you do control your reaction. This is the basis for most mindfulness. In practice, it’s the shift from:
• “This situation made me feel…” to
• “I chose how to respond to this situation.”
Rather than saying I’m feeling depressed. You can say I’m experiencing feelings of depression.
That is a helpful, rephrasing technique.
Focusing on "experiencing feelings of" rather than "I am" can help create distance between a person's identity and their emotions. It frames the depression as a temporary, passing experience rather than a permanent state of being, which can be a useful tool for mental health management and self-compassion.
For someone like me, this probably showed up over time — learning from mistakes, adjusting, refining.
It funny but now, I can see these traits in folks I’m mentoring. I tell all of them the same thing, read or listen to the 7 habits then let’s move on from there. Proactivity and reflection need to have action associated with it, not theory. Knowing it and doing it are two entirely different things.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind This is about direction. It’s about goal setting, motivation and behaviour change. If you don’t decide where you’re going, you drift — even if you’re working hard. Covey pushes you to think:
• What kind of person do I want to be?
• What actually matters when it all plays out?
It’s less about goal-setting spreadsheets and more about identity and values. Roles and goals are important in the Covey framework though. Once you've identified your drivers.
Habit 3: Put First Things First Now we get into execution. This is where most people fall apart — not because they don’t know what matters, but because they get pulled into urgency.
This is a very handy way to know how you are spending your time. Especially with modern tech. Scrolling = gets you sacked.
It’s also a way not to be optimising yourself. Covey’s idea:
• Important vs urgent are not the same thing.
• Most real growth happens in the important but not urgent space.
That’s things like: • Health • Relationships • Long-term thinking • Skill development It’s also where coaching often lives — helping someone stay aligned with what matters, not just what’s shouting loudest.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win This is a mindset shift. It requires amongst other things empathy. Instead of:
• Win/lose (competition)
• Lose/win (people-pleasing)
You aim for: • Win/win — outcomes where both sides benefit. This simply requires 2 things:
• Confidence (to stand your ground)
• Empathy (to understand others)
This is very aligned with good coaching and leadership — especially in performance environments.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
This one is deceptively powerful. It’s possibly the main key to influence. Most people listen to reply. Very few listen to understand. Covey’s idea:
• Slow down
• Actually hear the other person
• Reflect it back Only then do you speak. If you think about coaching, this is basically foundational.
Without this, it’s just advice-giving.
Habit 6: Synergize This is about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. When people genuinely collaborate — not compete, not compromise — something better emerges.
It requires: • Trust • Openness • Willingness to be wrong In your world, this is team dynamics, interdisciplinary work, and even blending ideas from different philosophies — which I've been doing across the years (Eastern philosophy, sport, psychology, etc).
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
This is the maintenance habit. When I was younger, I just pushed harder. This resulted in tiredness at work and injury in training. It made me better at understand fatigue and overtraining.
Now I try renew myself regularly across:
• Physical • Mental • Emotional • Spiritual It’s about sustainability. The long game. I’m 55 now. I want to have at least 30 more quality years. What I do now will dictate this.
If I spoke to my 35 year old self. There’s quire a few things I’d say. But one of them would be = take more collagen sunshine.
Without this, everything else eventually breaks down. Collagen and renewal that is.
How It Connects to My Journey Thinking through this it actually fits Covey’s framework quite closely:
I didn’t have structured coaching early on I learned through trial, error, and reflection.
I explored philosophy (Buddhism, Taoism, Bushido) I gradually built my internal framework
That’s essentially:
• Habit 1 (ownership through experience)
• Habit 2 (developing direction later)
• Habit 7 (self-renewal through philosophy and learning)
And the interesting bit: The lack of early guidance may have been the thing that pushed me toward becoming a coach myself.
Speaking to people in my field, that’s a common pattern. People who had to figure things out deeply often become better at guiding others — because they understand both the theory and the friction.
Morning bedtime pondering often brings up some interesting insights. You might like my bridging this into a Bushido Covey cross over….
If I reflect on this journey:
A coach earlier might have accelerated things — but it also might have reduced the depth of learning I gained through experience.
There’s a difference between:
• Knowing something works
And
• Knowing why it works because you’ve lived the alternative
Give me a shout if you need a pep talk or some collagen X