Skip to content

ALISON KIRKPATRICK

  • HOME
  • Spiritual Direction
  • About My Team
  • Blog
  • Podcast: Practice without Preaching
  • #SignsofLove Gallery

Obituary

A Man Inspired: Steven Covey

By Alison Bush Kirkpatrick | July 17, 2012

Steven Covey, business leader, speaker and author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and several other books, died yesterday at 79, surrounded by his family, which I’m sure is how he hoped to go.

Personally my family owes a debt of gratitude to this man. Covey came into our lives at a critical juncture and transformed our family culture. Tim and I actually spent a lot of time this past week, praising this man’s ideas, and sharing the impact he had on our lives, with no idea that this week would be his last.

When Tim and I had two children in quick succession in the late 1990s, we were in a world of hurt. We had gone from being two people deeply in love to a family of four in less than two years. After six years of romantic hand-holding, we were thrust into an endless game of ring-around-the-rosy, where we both fell down at the end of the day, feeling exhausted and underappreciated. Though we were still in love and had the family we always wanted, our way of relating to each other was unsustainable. Something had to change.

Enter Steven Covey and his Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. After finding it, we declared Tuesday ‘book club’ night. We would take a week to read 10 or 20 pages and after the kids went to bed, we would discuss what we learned. We learned A LOT, from the “Emotional Bank Account” to “thinking win-win.” What we most appreciated was Covey’s focus on “the who you want to be,” from which all real change flows.

Tim and I didn’t need the quick-fix parenting tips we found in Parenting magazine, or god-forbid, the Growing Kids God’s Way that was popular at the time. Those publications told us how to deal with a toddler’s temper tantrums, or a lack of sleep, but they left us essentially unchanged as humans, as adults responsible for these youngsters, as a couple in a life-long relationship. Covey shook us up right away with his trademark admonishment to “put first things first.” We learned quickly that the first thing any of us have to deal with is ourselves. Only when we begin there can we actually make changes, which become habits which last a lifetime.

Over the last few days, at a family retreat in the hills of Montecito, CA, Tim and I had the opportunity to share many stories of how our Tuesday nights with Steven Covey altered the course of our family life. Tim learned how to not be the “fixer” in the family, forever thinking of new and improved ways to “improve” the children and me. I learned that hogging the role of the “fun” parent robbed Tim of the ability to make deposits in his kids’ emotional bank accounts.  How could he spoil them with a trip to the ice cream store after dinner if I had already taken them after breakfast? (That is not a joke. I did things like that. Still do sometimes, but I’ve learned to cut waaay back.)

Tim spoke about the power of Covey’s proverbial “pause button,” which was inspired by this quote

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.

When he first heard about the space between stimulus and response, I think he laughed out loud, or maybe wanted to set the book on fire. The “freedom to choose” sounded like something out of a science fiction novel to my young husband. But with Covey’s mix of humor, humility, and real life stories, Tim began to believe in the power of our “unique human gifts of self-awareness, conscience, imagination and independent will.”

While I spoke about the importance and power of loyalty and love within our families and world beyond, I had to keep my comments brief. We weren’t the only ones there to share our stories, but if given the chance, I could have told story after story of how Covey’s work has altered me and the way I choose to be in the world.

Today, I honor Steven Covey, the man, with my thoughts and words and prayers, but every day for the past 13 years, we’ve tried to honor his work and mission with the way live our lives. By “putting first things first,” and “beginning with the end in mind,” we’ve managed to stay on course. By remembering that our kids “won’t care how much we know until they know how much we care,” we’ve been able to put Love before the Law.

It may not sound like much, but Tim and I want to have a “highly effective family.” It isn’t glamorous, like the Kardashians, or even sweet like The Waltons. It’s real and messy and we fail in a dozen ways each and every day, but we believe what Covey taught us  –  that “the hope lies in the vision and in the plan and in the courage to keep coming back time and time again.”

If you’ve never had the pleasure, or privilege of reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, you can pick up a copy here.

If you have read it, please take the time to share a story of your experience with his wisdom, humor, and grace in the comments section below.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
Posted in Family life, Kids, Parenting, Self-awareness and tagged as Covey, emotional bank account, family retreat, First Things First, Montecito, Obituary, Seven Habits, Steven. 3 Comments

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 454 other followers

Instagram

Sandy, salty, sun-kissed, satisfied. Driving south on Highway 1 brings me a visceral sense of contentment and homecoming. I remember driving along the coast as a child with my dad. He’d roll down the windows and open the sunroof. we’d blast the local oldies station K-Earth 101. He called it “vicarious beach.” If we couldn’t be there, we could at least feel it on our face. Thanks for the memories that go soul and bone deep Dad. And thanks for being my favorite beach companion @timkirks No one else I’d rather spend the day with.
When everything is closing for weeks and weeks, including the entire library system, you wash your hands, keep your distance, and check out novels, self help, politics, and psychology, not to mention the two books you bought in the last week to help you feel just a little better. You read about better times and worse times, modern problems and near ancient ones. You check out and you check back in when you can - with yourself, your people, your body and heart, their needs and fears. It’s all sucks but the written word makes it just a bit better.
Earring doodle #signoflove❤ #soberhappyhour
Saturday #signoflove❤ courtesy of the lad and his sweet girlfriend @julieannepaz found on a Valentine’s beach day. I’m so grateful my kids are always on the lookout for ❤️ just like their mama.
Some of the most Important #signsoflove I find are in parking lots. Strange but true. I am walking in or walking out of a store or business. I’ve found what I wanted or didn’t. I probably feel like I spent too much money or am about to. Since I live in Southern California, I either just got out of traffic or am heading back in to it. There are so many moments of potential irritation, disappointment or not-quite-rightness. But ❤️ comes along and reminds me what is important. I take a moment to breathe, to smile to myself, to remember who I am and What I’m here for - which is basically to Love as best as I can in any given moment. Sometimes I do that well; sometimes I do it poorly, but being reminded in a Lowe’s parking lot is as good a place as any to get the message.
The day is finally here!!! It’s embarrassing how long I’ve been on countdown to see her in person, to have her in my arms and under my roof, to hear her laugh at something her brother says and clap back at her dad with a line from some sick show the two of them love and I refuse to watch, to see her stand next to her sister and see how they’ve changed and grown over the last 6 months and look more alike and yet even more distinctly like themselves. One morning earlier this week, I thought of her coming home and some thing deep within my belly LEAPT FOR JOY. It was the strangest sensation but I immediately thought of the story from the gospel where Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth and the baby in her womb leaps in recognition at the Christ’s presence in utero. Before consciousness, they knew each other. Let me tell you - I dont think that’s an exaggeration. I get it. Like knows like. Love knows love. Heart knows heart. My Christmas wish for you is a LEAP OF JOY, the heart lift that comes when you are surprised by Love and reminded of the goodness of your life and the people who are in it. We have her with us for 7 days and it will go by way too fast and we’ll have to share her with other friends and family and it may be another 6 months before we see her again - though I hope not - so I am going to soak up every minute of it - and remind myself not to hover or parent too much or dread her departure two days after her arrival. No foreboding joy. Just present moment awareness. Just gratitude for the gift of her in my life. @kearakirks

Topics

Doubt Ego Faith Family life Fear Grace Gratitude Kids Life Philosophies Literature Love Media Movies Parenting Philosophy Poetry Politics practice Prayer Psychology Religion Self-awareness Walking Worry Writing

Archives

  • Day 24: "Mindful"
    Day 24: "Mindful"
  • Just a Few Things...
    Just a Few Things...
  • Day 26: "On the Death of the Beloved" for Fr. Christian
    Day 26: "On the Death of the Beloved" for Fr. Christian

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 454 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.
Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    <span>%d</span> bloggers like this: