It’s Never Too Late to Change

Observe in this story the basic elements of the change process: self-awareness, taking responsibility, authentic expression, group support, and accountability.

I am a teacher of adults. During the introductions of one of the seminars I was leading, when everyone was talking about why they were there, one gentleman stood up and said, “My name is Harry. I am seventy-six years old, and I am here because my wife sent me.” Everyone stated laughing, but he was very serious. He continued, “My wife told me that this is my last chance. If I don’t straighten up, I am out of my rear. Your see, I’ve been a rascal all my life. Do you think it’s too late for me?”

I answered, “It’s only too late if you don’t start now.”

Well, as the workshop progressed, the group took him on as a personal project. Harry is a person that you hated to love, but you loved him anyway. He was just so cute, but he had this little impish way about him. You could see how his wife might have come to the end of her rope with him. The group could see that his wife’s Emotional Bank Account was empty. He had made very few deposits and numerous withdrawals over many years. In fact, her Emotional Bank Account was so overdrawn it was close to bankruptcy. Through modeling and mentoring and teaching, he soon began to make deposits. At first his wife didn’t believe he was sincere, and that was very frustrating for him. He was just so disappointed that she didn’t automatically think, “Well look how this guy has changed!” He wanted to give up, but the group would not let him. The group said, “Your wife’s bank account is so overdrawn, you have got to be consistently doing things.”

So Harry started doing little household chores that he had never done before. He took out the rash, cleaned up after himself, took his dishes to the sink, and began to offer to help around the house. And that was a first for him. His wife apparently was so angry that she was thing, “This is great, but it won’t last. “So he continued doing little things for her like making sure when she took the car out that he had it washed and filled with gas. If he come home and she was busy, he would ask, “Can I run to the store for you? Can I do errands for you?” and he consistently did this. He started taking her out to lunch, and doing all kinds of things. You could just see that love was being rekindled. 

Our group was together two hours a week over an eleven-week period, so we would get a progress report each week. As the weeks went by, she began to trust him and feel like maybe he really was making a change. At the last session Harry walked into the room with a big smile on his face. He come to the front of the room and gave me a great big hug. Well, I kind of held him off at arm’s length and I said, “Now Harry, this isn’t some of your rascally behavior is it? “and he said, “Oh no, that hug is from my wife, and she baked cookies for the whole class. She wanted me to tell everyone that I could stay-she said I could stay!”

        True group support, a lot of genuine expression, and a sense of accountability not only gave this seventy-six year-old man the power to transform his life, they are elements common to most successful change efforts. One-shot events may begin a change process, but they are usually insufficient. Both a process and systemic reinforcement based on self-evident, universal, timeless principles are needed. 

Many years a go, at the end of one of my semester courses in college, I remember asking a speech professor, “If you were to do your career all over again, what would you do differently?” In addition to teaching, he was also a speaker of international renown. His response to my question was both interesting and instructive, and I am convinced that, among other things, It unconsciously had a marked influence on my life. He said, “I would build an organization.” I asked him why. He said, “So there would be follow-through and lasting influence-a process, not just an event.” That very principle it what let me to leave a university many years later to start my own organization.

Story from: Living The 7 Habits

Moving Out to the Country

Many of us feel utterly trapped in our present circumstance. We not only fail to see a way out, we often don’t even ask the question, “What else can I do?” This is a story of a valiant couple who chose to do whatever was necessary to fulfill their mission statement to not only keep the family first, but also to secure more enjoyable employees. 

I used to work for the federal government in Washington, D.C. I thought my family was happy and just as excited as I was about our situation. I was wrong, but too wrapped up in the urgent, important things at work to notice. My wife and family have followed me all around the world moving from place to place. Finally my wife said, Can you make a move this time to somewhere we’ll be happy? 

I loved the job, but inner-city D.C. wasn’t the best place for my family. In the past, it would have been easy to say, Honey, come on, be reasonable. I can’t just move like that! You know they always control where I go. I just go where they say to go. But when I saw her eyes, I realized this was not just a little request for her. This was, in a way, life or death. She’d had enough. Using my mission statement as a reminder of what I valued [Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind\, I told her, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

The next day, I went to my boss and said, “Look, I love working here. I am happy doing the job, but I need to get a balanced between work and my family. My wife wants to move out of the city. I think she’ll move whether I do or not. If I don’t have my family living here with me, I am not going to be effective for you. I am not going to be able to do the things you want me to, because I’ll always be worried about my family.”

He didn’t want to let me go, but he could see I was serious. During our conversation, he mentioned an opening in an agency outside the city for which I was qualified. He helped me get the job. When people heard I was moving to the country they couldn’t believe it. “Stan, are you nuts? You’re throwing away your chance for senior management. What are you doing?” They were really concerned I was suffering from temporary insanity.

“I don’t think I am throwing it all a way,”I’d reply. “I’m actually picking something else that is better.” Most of them just shook their heads and gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder.

I moved my family out of Washington to a small town. I stayed with the agency doing a job I enjoy. I still see my old friends and have opportunities to travel. My children are blossoming and are attending a school where they are able to excel and get the attention they need. My wife is overjoyed with owning our first home We set aside two nights a week as family nights. We have more time together and love gardening as a family. I never realized how much fun it could be to get dirty in the yard.

- There is one sure thing that we directly control our own behavior. As for the behavior of others, we have only indirect control, which is based upon what method of influence we use. Here are also many things over which we have no control things such as the weather, the economy, our in-laws, our genes. The key to all three challenges (direct control, indirect control, and no control) is always the same begin by hanging yourself your habits, your methods of influence, or your attitudes. The couple in this story literally picked up and changed their circumstances, which resulted in a more balanced, peaceful, happy personal and family life. They changed their methods of influence with each other by practicing Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. They changed their method of influence with the husband’s boss by courageously seeking to be understood (the last half of Habit 5) and by coming up with a win-win synergistic arrangement (Habits 4 and 6: Think Win-Win and synergize). It is absolutely marvelous to see the freedom people really have when they take responsible and initiative. 

True Story from: Living the 7 Habits

How Could I waste My Life?

This grief-filled women used all four unique human gifts to literally reinvent her life. Notice how she grew in self-awareness, how she consulted her imagination and conscience, and how she exercised tremendous willpower to rediscover and renew her life. What a truly great contribution she is making! What peace of mind resulted.

I was forty-six year old when my husband, Gordon, was diagnosed with cancer. Without hesitation, I took early retirement to be with him. Although his death eighteen months later was expected, my grief consumed me. My first Christmas without him I didn’t even decorate the house. I sorrowed over our dreams unfulfilled, over the grandchildren he would never get to hold or touch. I would turn to speak to him, only to be reminded that he wasn’t there. Grief filled every corner of my soul. I was only forty-eight and had no reason to live. 

My overarching question through my sorrow was “Why did God take Gordon and not me?” I felt Gordon had so much more to offer the world than I did. At this low point in my life, with my body, mind, and spirit fatigued beyond measure, I encountered the 7 Habits. I was led to ask myself, “If I am here for some reason, what is it supposed to be?” I was motivated to find new meaning in my life.

“Begin with the End in Mind” suggests breaking out the roles of your life. So, I drew a pie chart with my “used to be” roles as they were before Gordeon’s death. On a second pie chart I left a huge blank where work and wife used to be. That large, blank piece of pie drove home to me that my life was irrevocably difference. I drew a big question mark in the slice. It sat there looking at me, asking, “What are your ‘going to be’ roles?”

I grabbed ahold of the idea that all things are created twice-first mentally, and then physically. I had to write a new script. I had to ask myself, “What talents do I have? “So I took an aptitude test, which gave me some clarity on my top three abilities. To create a scenes of balance in my life, I focused on the four dimension: on an intellectual level I realized that I loved to teach; spiritually and socially, I wanted to continue to support the racial harmony we had endeavored to live through our biracial marriage; emotionally, I knew I needed to give love. When my mother was alive she rocked critically ill babies in the hospital. I wanted to give comfort as she had, continuing here legacy of unconditional love. 

I was afraid to fail. I had never done anything in my adult life except work for the veterans Association. But I told myself it would be okay to try difference things, like trying on hats. If I didn’t like teaching after a semester, I didn’t have to go back. If the racial relations hat didn’t fit, it would be okay to take it off and try on something different. I began again by going to graduate school so I could teach a t the college level. Graduate school  is hard, period, but age forty eight, it was really touch. I was so used to passing document off to my secretary to type that I had to take a semester just to learn how to type my own papers on the computer. 

My concentration was still somewhat impaired from the aftermath of Gordon; it was difficult to discipline myself to read what someone else wanted me to read. Turning off the TV and returning the cable box where acts of sheer will. But I knew that I needed to gibe those things up if I wanted to get where I planned to go [“Habit 3: Put First Things Firs”].

I completed graduate school with a 4.0 GPA, and began teaching at a historically black college in Little Rock. I was appointed by the governor to serve on the Martin Luther King Commission to improve racial relations in Arkansas. I rock the crack babies and infants with AIDS who are hooked up to ventilator tubes. However short my time with them is, I know that I am giving comfort, and I am getting their love in return. It gives me a sense of peace.

Now my life is very good. I can feel my man Gordon smiling at me He told me time and time again before he died that he wanted me to have a life full of laughter, happy memories, and good things. How could I waste my life, with his directive on my conscience? I don’t think I could. I have an obligation to live my life the best I can for the people I love the most-where they are on this earth or on the other side. 

- This amazing woman not only got ahold of her life, she had the wisdom to mentally create an entirely new one (Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind). Her inspiring example illustrates the importance of balancing the four dimension of life embodied in Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw- the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual. She faced fear straight on and left here deeply scripted comfort zone of fearing failure. This is no quick fix story. She was patients, persistent, and paid the price. 

Story from: Living the 7 Habits