ERP121 - The Timeless Wisdom of Seven Habits

One of the things Dr. Covey used to say is if you want to make simple changes, you know, you can work on your behaviors, but if you want to make quantum leaps or what have you, work on your paradigms. There is a model that we share, I have have had the opportunity to facilitate our course quite a few times, and we share what we call the C do get model. And just in summary, it just basically means that what you see or how you view something or your paradigms will influence your behaviors or your practices or what you do, which ultimately then influences what you get or the results, and it's a cycle. Welcome to Evolved Radio, where we explore the evolution of business and technology. I'm your host Todd Kane. This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management training courses. A whole series of courses built specifically for your MSP training needs. There's a project management for MSP's course, an MSP service manager boot camp. MSP security fundamentals and an IT documentation done right course. Check out the full suite of courses at training.evolvedmgmt.com or look for a link in the show notes. Check out the full suite of courses at training.evolvedmgmt.com or look for a link in the show notes. Welcome to another insightful episode of the Evolved Radio podcast. Today we dig into the timeless wisdom of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People with Andrea Caldwell. VP of coaching and consulting at Franklin Covey. Celebrating the book's 35th anniversary, Andrea sheds light on why Stephen Covey's principles have stood the test of time. Attributing the longevity to the foundational truths they encapsulate. We explore how these habits have shaped our personal and professional lives, emphasizing the significance of paradigms, proactive behavior and continuous self-renewal. Whether you're familiar with Covey's work or you're new to the concepts, this episode promises to offer valuable insights into creating a more intentional and effective life. So let's go. Andrea, welcome to the Evolved Radio podcast. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah, this is going to be great. There's a bit of a throwback story here. Uh so obviously we're going to be chatting about uh the seven habits of highly effective people. This from Stephen Covey and uh uh sharing with you before we started here that the seven habits of highly effective people and getting things done, the GTD methodology were really certain my gateway entry for productivity. Uh anyone who knows me, I am a productivity nut. And the sort of effectiveness of communication and working with people and how to go about your personal and professional life was uh really eye opening for me very early on, I got sent on uh Stephen Covey course, I guess it was a Franklin Covey course at the time. And that really got me started down this road and and opened my eyes to sort of how to view the world differently and understanding how things go on around you. And how you can participate more effectively in in life and in work. So I I really want to touch on the fact that you're now celebrating the 35-year anniversary of seven habits of highly effective people, which is incredible. And it's really stood the test of time, like this is still a book that people commonly recommend. So what do you attribute that to that it it's had such staying power over the over this period? Yeah, I think. And if I could just say before I answer that question that you were so much smarter than I was. Because I was given this book back in the nineties and I glanced at it, kind of put it aside and wow, if I had read it then, the difference I believe it would have made in my life because it made such a difference when I actually did read it a few years after that. But it really has stood the test of time. Dr. Covey used to always say that he did not invent these habits or these principles, he really is the culmination of him studying over 200 years worth of information. And pulling it together and synthesizing and making it easier for, you know, the average person to to be able to understand. So because it really is founded on principles that we say principles that endure. That's what allows it to have the staying power that it does. And it's interesting because whether somebody agrees with the principles or not. Doesn't make them any less true or valid. It's almost like the law of gravity. Somebody can say, well, I don't believe in gravity. But guess what, if I drop a, you know, pick up a pencil, let it go, it's going to drop. So it it it exists regardless of whether we necessarily want to accept it or not. So because it is rooted in foundational principles, it it endures. Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay. So, um, like maybe some you you mentioned sort of the personal aspect of this. Like like now that you understand these systems and and sort of see the the world through a different lens. Can you maybe share an experience of sort of how this has made a practical difference in your life personally or professionally? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is really understanding the power of paradigms. You know, one of the things Dr. Covey used to say is if you want to make simple changes, you know, you can work on your behaviors. But if you want to make quantum leaps or what have you, work on your paradigms. There is a model that we share, I have have had the opportunity to facilitate our course quite a few times. And we share what we call the C do get model. And just in summary, it just basically means that what you see or how you view something or your paradigms. Will influence your behaviors or your practices or what you do, which ultimately then influences what you get or the results, and it's a cycle. So what you see influences your behavior. So that's one of the reasons that the whole idea of paradigms, you'll see as we if you read the seven habits or go through the course, you'll see that that paradigms, idea of paradigms and paradigm shift is that thread that goes through the whole thing. And so when I discuss paradigms and and and people think about maybe paradigm shifts they've had in their life. They get the opportunity to understand how paradigms are so powerful. You know, I share a a funny little story. It's more about my husband than it is about me, but you know, and he always wants me to pay him when I use stories about him. But he won't hear this. So he won't get paid for this. But I remember years ago after we had our first child. Before that, when we would drive and somebody in front of him would be going slow, he'd be that impatient person of, why are they going slow and, ah, you know, why are they in my way? And then we had our first kid. And he drove home from the hospital like two miles an hour. And after that, whenever anybody in front of him was going slow, it was like, you know, I don't know, maybe they have their new baby in the car, maybe it's a new driver or whatever. And I'm like, you know, who are you? And where did you gain this patience? But he his paradigm shifted. It his his view, his perspective on why somebody might be driving slow, shifted it from they're just trying to annoy me or they just don't know what they're doing to there could be other circumstances. So it it drives different behavior. So it's definitely powerful. Yeah, it definitely aligns with certainly how I I see the world. Uh I'm by core an operator and business consulting on the operation side. And so much of what I do is hinged on behavior. And I think it's really true what you say, like the quantum leap is is changing your paradigms. Because behavioral changes are massive. But I think it's no mistake that a lot of courses and education and things like that really start with mindset first. Because like you say, it's a certain lens that you view the world on. And my interpretation of this is is sort of a. A lot of people uh will attach to ideas like the secret and if you put those things out there, then you can influence your world and and bring the things that you want and bring abundance and things like that. And a lot of other people will sort of like uh kind of crap on that idea and say, oh, it's just woo woo garbage. And the world doesn't work that way. But I see sort of a middle ground. Where it's not that you can necessarily dream of a Ferrari and have it show up in your driveway, but you know, to believe that that's possible, definitely sets a mindset and a set of behaviors and activities that will set you on the course to getting closer to those things. So I I don't feel like it's the idea that you can imagine these things to be true and affect reality. But you're having that different paradigm of the view of what's possible and what you can have and what you deserve and what what things should be around you, what's possible. I think that absolutely changes your belief system and therefore your behaviors downstream. Would you agree with that? 100%. You're you're speaking the language. What you described there is is pretty much habit two and habit three. So habit two being begin with the end in mind. That would be the I want a Ferrari, you know, and kind of mentally mapping how do I get to having that Ferrari and then habit three put first things first. Is the actions that you're going to take towards, you know, that that plan that you've put in place. So, yeah, I absolutely understand it and agree and track with what you're saying. Right on. Okay. So you you mentioned two and three like for anyone who's not read the book or, you know, somehow not familiar. It has not heard of the the seven habits. Uh what are those seven habits, can we can we run through them in a in a rapid fashion here? Yeah, absolutely. So habit one is uh be proactive. And that is really the habit, the practice there is of choice and we obviously can go in more detail at some point if you'd like. Habit two is uh begin with the end in mind. Habit three is to put first things first. Habit four is think win-win. So now we're moving in from the more private victory on dealing with ourselves to now how do we interact with others. So that starts with habit four, think win-win. Habit five is seek first to understand, then to be understood. And then habit six is synergize. Or how we can, you know, work together synergistically. And then habit seven is sharpen the saw. And that's really all about renewal. Right, okay. So first off, like synergize is one of those words that gets a bit of a bad rap. It does. I I don't imagine this is where that word came from. But do you have any sense of whether or not like this book and these systems popularized that word in business vernacular? I think that it really has. Once they understand synergy and what synergize means. It really does give them a language to use in terms of how they work together and the power of it. So I really do think that it really this this teaching, the seven habits, really has taken that word. And made it a little bit more mainstream. And just for your listening audience, when we talk about synergy because, you know, people do cringe, they hear that word and like, okay, what does that mean? In some, it's really that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So basically, the ideas that we can come up with together can far exceed the ideas that we can come up with alone. And when we can work together and value differences, which is really the foundation of synergy, that we value differences of opinion and thought and and the way that people do things. If we can value those differences instead of running from those differences or being frustrated by those differences, we can leverage that to come up with ways to work together that might even be better than where we started. Yeah, I think that's huge. Um, I I do a lot of behavioral profiling with teams and this is one of the the sort of the fundamental reasons as to why. It's to really help them understand the differences between them. And I often say like there's a lot of preconceived notions and internal narratives that tend to get built up about, you know, uh Sarah on the team does X, Y and Z because and the because after that is usually wrong, right? But that's that narrative that gets built up. And if you understand the person better, understands where they're coming from, I guess that goes to the number five. Seek first to understand is like, do I really understand why Sarah does those things and why they don't think this is important? They think that's important. I think that that's really, really important because it allows you to sort of work better together. And instead of having this defensive narrative of thinking that the person is bad or or they don't get it or whatever that case is. Just understanding they see things differently, how can I understand that and learn from that? And that I think it lends to you're talking about of that that synergy of I say, it takes a village, right? Like no, there's no good or bad behavior uh profiles in a in an organization, you need everyone's perspective to be successful. Yeah, and what's really interesting too is that when we think about valuing differences. People might tend to go to bigger things like maybe ethnic or gender or things like that. But where we tend to struggle are the differences that are a little bit more simple than that. Maybe I'm really organized and that person's really messy or I'm a planner and they're more spontaneous. That's where we tend to have a lot more more friction. So when we can value those things and figure out how to leverage those things, we can work together more effectively. Yeah, I totally agree. Because that's where things uh really start to show up and and they're more evident uh within that team. And where those sort of value judgments can be made. And in fact, I find one of the problems that that organizations often have, especially when they're small and starting to grow and starting to hire a lot of people, there's this idea out there of the beer test, right? Like if you're interviewing someone, you're like, oh, I'd like to take this person out for a beer. I think we'd we'd get along. So therefore they must be a culture fit. But what that ends up happening is everyone hires like for like. And all the behavioral profiles tend to be the same. And you end up with everyone sort of like biased toward one side of action and the way that you view things and then you're limiting this diversity of of views and opinion, right? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we talk about in our unconscious bias course is just that. You know, and that. That natural pull towards people who are similar to us or who are like us. You know, we don't tend to realize sometimes that we're even doing that. But the brain likes similarity and it'll look for it even in basic things. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So. Uh what are some other ways that you feel like. Like obviously this has been timeless. Uh are there any things that have started to change, uh have there been any any edits to the book or adaptations that have happened over the past 35 years because of the changes that either through technology or the way that business functions? How is the sort of the knowledge of that book adapted into the future? Yeah. So I would say not so much edits to the book, but more in the way that we we share and deliver the content. So we recently went through a major refresh for many reasons. And one was to really make it a little bit more interactive, the course itself. And really meet the needs of today's learner. You know, we have multiple generations in the workplace. Um how do we communicate? We have a lot more sensitivity to neuro differences. And really understanding, you know, sometimes you may be dealing working with somebody that maybe is on the spectrum and and how do these apply to that? So it's not necessarily that the principles or anything like that changed, but the application of it is a little bit different. We have a lot more people working remotely. So how do we relate and continue to build relationships when you have people that are remote or maybe only seeing each other on, you know, a virtual platform? So more the adaptation of it is what has really evolved. Okay, great. There's a ton of stuff that I want to dig into there. I know this is debatable, but you know, I'm I'm always curious of people's opinions. Do you think that there is actually differences between generations? Like we hear about all these things like the boomers, the Gen X's, the Gen Z's. And every generation likes to dismiss sort of the work ethic and other attributes of of the youngest generation. But if you look at the data, like that sentiment has always been true through history. Uh do you feel like there's a sort of a need for any type of adaptation or viewing the generational differences in in a business workplace? 100%. 100%. Because leadership has completely changed. We're no longer in that command and control type generation. Yeah. And the way that different generations prefer to be communicated with. Whether or not we do employ that habit five, seek first to understand, then to be understood is influenced by generations as well. You know, folks that choose not to seek first to understand might default to their own preferences. Which then will lead them to communicate in a certain way, which then will lead them to butt heads. That's the biggest thing that I experience when I'm talking to participants is just the differences in communication style and preferences. Or how somebody perceives a communication preference. So if somebody was like, you know, doesn't want to talk on the phone, they'd rather have you message them and you pick up the phone and call them and they're like, wait a minute, this is a withdrawal. Why are you calling? You know. Or versus you only text me. Why didn't you call me? And just misinterpreting what those things mean and not understanding some of the differences. And also like you said too, the misunderstanding of intent. Having maybe a certain perception of a generation and what you think their intentions are with certain behaviors. Yeah. So. So true. You know, like uh um sort of our parents generation. Like they will phone you. And and a younger generation, like kind of maybe our kids or slightly older than that. If you phone someone without texting them first, it'll be like, well, like what is this? Like, why are you calling me, right? I have friends like that, younger friends who are like, uh, why are you calling me? Or is everything okay? It must be an urgent. It must be an emergency. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So the other one I wanted to hit on. Remote work. I mean, this like this is everywhere and absolutely changes the dynamic of interaction. And the communication style, so like what are you guys suggesting? Or seeing as far as like how you should be adapting to that so that communication. I I suppose like validate my my sort of my assumptions here based on what you believe, but I I feel like it has to be a lot more intentional at the very least. What else would you say beyond that around how that has changed our communication and interaction? Yeah, that's funny because that's exactly what I was going to say. Because of the remote work, we're not in a situation where we're going to have the ability to have those casual. You know, water cooler conversations or I stop by your desk or I saw you in the hall. So it does take a little bit more uh intentionality as it relates to forming relationships with others. It does take you having that desire to really understand how to communicate with people. What that looks like. Scheduling maybe more time to have conversations. So I have some co-workers that are really good about scheduling virtual coffee talk. And they'll like, you know, they I have no agenda, Andrea. Let's just spend 30 minutes, have coffee together. And just chat. Those are the types of things that you have to do in a virtual environment to be able to connect. And we get on and we don't necessarily talk business. We get on and we talk about family or whatever we're both comfortable with. But we have to put things in place in this virtual work environment or virtual work world to help us better relate to each other. Yeah. Okay, fantastic. Maybe some of the other points in here like uh coming through the seven habits. One that stands out to me because for whatever reason, I think it's because I went to a course. That was maybe specifically around sharpen the saw. But this is one that I'm certainly passionate about. Because I came to sort of Kaizen culture and and lean focuses much later in life after I sort of learned these systems. And maybe it was the beginning with sharpening the saw. But this is something that I feel is really fundamental that often doesn't get as much attention as it probably should in most organizations. Uh we talk a lot about, you know, building processes, you know, sometimes we're talking about continuous improvement. But I I feel like this is an area of business and personal aspects of people's lives that just there's not enough. Again, intentionality around how can I make things better, how can I improve whatever we have? We're always so focused on what's next, getting bigger. Some new opportunity that we we often don't go back and think about what are the things that we do all day that we should just be better at. Yeah. A couple of things in what you've just mentioned, some habit three and a lot of habit seven. Habit seven being sharpen the saw as you mentioned. The principle here is renewal. And the thought that going from that paradigm of I'm too busy to take care of myself. Versus shifting to the paradigm of I invest in myself. So that I can be my best. And one of the things that we say within Franklin Covey is that habit seven. Is the one habit really that makes all of the other habits possible. Because you can't pour from an empty cup. So if you don't take that time to renew yourself and invest in yourself, mind, heart, body, spirit. And invest in those different areas and aspects and dimensions of self. It's really hard to do any of the other things that you mentioned. And I talked about a little bit of habit three because in habit three, we talk about the time matrix. And in the time matrix, we talk about the four quadrants that you can spend any moment of your day in. And quadrant two is the quadrant of effectiveness. This is where you have planning, this is where you do renewal, this is where you set the time to act on things. As opposed to having things act on you. And so you kind of described that quadrant two time of being proactive and and really um being effective. It's interesting. Because like I don't remember sharpen the saw being, I guess to some extent. My my memory is fuzzy on this. But I I remember this more around sort of improvement of the business. But you're like the things that you're talking about are a lot more around self-care and optimization of of sort of the person. Is there an element of both or is this more focused on sort of the the personal optimization element? Yeah, habit seven really more is about the person. Really about. Um your self-renewal there and as I mentioned in those four dimensions, mind, heart, body, spirit. And how you really renew in that so that then you can pour yourself into those other aspects that you mentioned. But habit seven really is more about self. And renewal. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, because that that's another area that I'm I'm I'm certainly passionate about. I've done some talks on. Mental health, which is, you know, certainly become a major focus post pandemic. Uh got some play before that, but really, really came to the to focus in in the pandemic times. Again, I think it's something that we should talk more about. Because as you say, you can't pour from an empty cup. And I think a lot of people certainly in their 20s and 30s are pushing pretty hard and don't necessarily recognize the limits until they hit the wall and then have to do a lot of recovery rather than sort of setting up systems and habits that help them cope and, you know, uh manage those those stressors differently through the course of action, right? Yeah. And you mentioned mental health, that's another aspect. That when I mentioned how we've adapted the the content. That's another area that was in our mind as well is mental health. So we talk about things like box breathing and and, you know, how you can pause. Awesome. We talk about, you know, being proactive and in ways that we can pause. In habit seven, we do have a a self-check that people can do to assess, you know, how well are they taking care of themselves and what areas do they need to strengthen or improve to take care of self in mental health? But that is also something else that we were thinking about. As we kind of revised how we deliver this content. That's very cool. Yeah, because uh uh breath work is is one of the aspects that I I walk through people through is a breath exercise in in this talk that I give I give on mental health. Because for me, you know, breath work has been absolutely transformational. And like I I don't say that hyperbolically, like in some ways it is remarkably changed my life. And it's funny too because I was listening to a podcast the other day. And people were talking about breath work. And sort of writing it off. I was like, hey, I can teach you how to breathe and breathe in, breathe out. There you go, right? And there's absolutely more to it than that. And it's the sort of the one part of the regulation of the body that you can physically control. So it is pretty pretty incredible what you can do with breath work. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm not going to lie to you, I was doing some breath work before I joined this session today. You know. But it really does help you center yourself, calm yourself and be able to focus. And when we talk about it within seven habits, we're talking about it as part of one of the tools that we have to kind of make that break between stimulus and response. Um and how we respond to things and we it's one of the tools in our tool chest is, you know, being able to to pause and to breathe and to and to really focus and think about what we want the results to be. What we want to happen as a result of whatever we get ready to do next. What do we want the result to be? So. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe related to that, the um uh number two, begin with the end in mind. Is there any focus on like visualization either like through breath work? Because I know like this is big in performance communities like athletes and things like that. And there's actually been significant studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of it. Is that uh is that a part of beginning with the end in mind? I feel like you kind of mentioned that in like doing breath work. And focusing on what outcomes you want, right? Yeah. I just to be fair, in our session, the breath work is a little bit separate from that. But we do in begin with the end in mind, we do talk about that whole visualization. What do we want for our lives? And we take participants through a series of steps to be able then to build a mission statement. So they're doing everything from thinking about the roles that they play in life. Which is really important. We all play multiple roles, whether we stop and think about it or not. You know, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a, you know, I lead a team of consultants and coaches, I have many different roles that I play professionally and personally. And taking the time to think about what do I want, what are my goals for these relationships? What do I want to have happen down the road? And so we take the time to really start to build and think about in these roles, what can I do that's going to lead me towards whatever goals? I have for that role and then ultimately leading up to building a mission statement. So. Part of that is pausing and being mindful and even if we need to pause. You know, and and take a break to really have the time to think about it. That's kind of built into this. How do you create that mental space to really think about what you want for your future? Yeah. I think it's so important. I think it's undervalued in a lot of organizations. Um especially at the leadership level, like often leaders will know have a very loose idea of what they want. You know. We're going to get more money, we're going to grow bigger, we're going to grow 50% next year. And hey, they often don't communicate that with the team. And they're not really that intentional about the goal setting around that. It's more the sort of ethereal idea. And I'm sure you've seen this, but in the practice that I do, there is a absolute material difference in the outcomes for people that do set goals. And are intentional about thinking about them. Versus an organization that could be like if you took the same organization that was just as uh high performance, had the same composition of a team and sort of let them loose. They like without those goals, there's sort of the shotgun approach with the energy and just doesn't give that same level of focus and detail. In order to create the outcomes that they want, would you agree? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you don't have goals and you don't have a vision for whether it's your life or for a project or whatever it is. What are you driving towards? You know, again, you know, the probably overused analogy of of a road trip. You know, if I'm going to drive from point A to point B, most people, I'm not going to be absolute. Because there are probably some folks that will just jump in the car and start driving. But most of us will have an idea of how we plan to get there. The path that we're going to take. Now, along the way, there could be construction, there could be accidents, we may have to deviate, but with the goal of getting back on the path that's going to lead us where we're trying to go. And it's the same thing as you mentioned with planning and and having a goal and creating that path to get there. And then following that path. Otherwise, you're kind of just going with the flow, you know, and I if I get there, I get there. If I don't, I don't, you know. So. Yeah, I think it's important. Yeah, the uh the directional energy like maybe sticking with the car analogy, if you get in the car and drive for eight hours a day. Like you're going to end up somewhere. But if you get in the car, drive with a map with a specific direction in mind. You're probably going to end up in that place. Versus just driving. Absolutely. And if you do the first one that you mentioned and just drive for eight hours and end up somewhere. You can't then turn around and be frustrated that your life isn't what you want because you took no time to plan when you had the opportunity to. And it's not that things don't happen, you know, even when we talk about our the seven habits, it's not that we're saying that things won't happen in your life. But it's how you respond to those things and having that that foundation to to work through it. Well, I suppose maybe that lends to number one and being proactive, right? Like one of the the expressions that I really like is an effective day starts last night. Right. Or or starts the day before. Right, like that that ability to be cognizant and to plan for what those outcomes are. And as you say, like like another one of my favorite expressions. Uh a quote from Patton is uh. Planning is everything and plans are nothing, right? Because like look. Like whatever your plan is, it's probably not going to go according to plan. But having a plan in order to direct your day and kick you off in the right direction. I think is is really, really foundational. Yeah. And you mentioned habit one. Habit one is kind of that foundational habit that really helps set you up for everything else. Um because it really starts with self. And how we operate. It really talks about being that your life is more a product of your values than it is your feelings. And so really getting in touch with who you are as a person, what you value. And I don't know if you said you've read the book, you might know the concept of curing your own weather. So. How are you able to not be controlled by external forces? So how other people are treating you, your moods, feelings, things like that. How are you then able to to adjust and be in control of how you feel in any given situation or circumstance? I remember years ago before I was even really. Practicing the seven habits or really, you know, living by them. I remember being really frustrated with somebody. And I can still remember, I can see visually like where I was, I was in the car and I was driving and I had my mom on the speaker phone and I was talking to her. And I was just fessing about this person and what they did and how they made me feel. And they made me la la la. And um she just she stopped me cold. She was like, um. Why are you allowing them to control your emotions? And I chewed on that and chewed on that and when I learned the seven habits and learned the idea of being proactive and curing my own weather. I always think back on that because that's exactly what I was not doing. I was allowing how I felt and how I responded to the tide to go up and down based on other people. And just giving them the power and the control over me as opposed to me choosing how I wanted to respond in any given situation or circumstance. Yeah. I I agree. Like this is such a foundational element for kind of an effective and a happy life, right? Like a couple of expressions, the one that I I really love and say a lot is uh do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? Yeah. Is is super great sort of way to to judge your actions. And whether or not things are important. And the other is um I'm really fascinated with stoic philosophy as well. Which I think has a lot of similarities in in this. And one of the ones that I'm really trying to teach my kids is exactly this. That the only thing that you can control is how you react to things. Like you are not in control of the world. And really being honest with them that like, look, life can be unfair and you can't just complain about it and be mad. Because that doesn't change anything. It just like uh what's the expression, anger is like uh drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, right? Yeah. So I I think this is such a such an important uh life philosophy for people to to internalize. That uh you are in control of your reactions and that's it, right? Yeah. That's so circle of concern, circle of influence. Which is part of habit one. And you know, for your listeners who may not be familiar with circle of concern, circle of influence, just imagine two circles. A bigger circle with the circle of concern and then within that another circle that says circle of influence. And that circle of concern are all those things that you worry about, think about, complain about or upset about. But over which you have no control. Versus that circle of influence, which is thinking about what do I have influence over? In some cases, it's just what you said, you only have control over yourself or your response. A very simple example, circle of concern might be traffic and traffic being backed up. Well, when you think about traffic, you have no control over traffic. Even though when I'm out there, I'm like, where are all of you people going? And my husband's like, well, where are you going? But anyway, that's beside the point. But what I do have influence over is how early I leave. Exactly. Did I leave last minute, do I, you know, all of those things, my planning and preparation. I could look at my app and see what's traffic looking like. All of those things. That would fall in my circle of concern. And so when you, when you live in that circle of influence, then you're really flexing that proactive muscle. Versus being more reactive and living in that circle of concern. And it really does make a difference when we think about working relationships. It makes a difference in how people see you. If you live in that circle of concern, meaning that you are always complaining. Never have a solution to offer. People tend to then you're you're building a brand that you may not want to actually build. Uh when you're doing that. And the other thing I tend to say when people live in that circle of concern. That's where a lot of anxiousness lives. How could you not be anxious, you know, you're you're focusing on everything you have no control over. Of course you're going to feel anxious and helpless. So you uh. One of my I I pull up quotes all the time, obviously, I can rattle off a ton here. There's this one that I I found this week that I absolutely love. Uh every time I hear a quote from Maya Angelo, I know it's going to be great. Uh and this one goes exactly this point. It's uh. If you don't like something, change it, if you can't change it, change your attitude. Yes, 100%. That's that's it. That's it in a nutshell. Yeah. Love my Angela. Yes, for sure. Fantastic. Well, this has been helpful. Uh I really appreciate your insights. Um, you know, as I've said, uh absolutely timeless book. And if for anyone who does not have a history with seven habits. Uh and even if you do. Definitely pick up the book, uh if you like it, uh attend your courses. We'll put a link in the show notes for that. Uh I think it's fantastic stuff for anyone uh at any level of their career. So, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. And I agree every time I look at this. Read it, experience it, I learn something new. So, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it and enjoyed the conversation. Thanks, Andrea. Take care.