The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: 30th Anniversary Edition (The Covey Habits Series)

Arrived in perfect condition. No tears or rips. No defects whatsoever that I can see. I have been searching for self-development books to dive into, ones which are actually helpful AND enjoyable to read. Truthfully, it’s a rather challenging task these days. This is one of those books I had seen on numerous occasions and heard about in passing over the years, but I never actually read it. It was originally published in 1989, and it is still a self-help staple in 2025. Knowing this, I decided to buy it. I immediately began reading it upon receiving it; I am on page 75. So far, so good. Though the author does speak in circles at times (overly wordy as is the way of self-help gurus), it is still very informative and enjoyable to read. I am reading this along with The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (a more recent entry into the genre). I tried reading The 5AM Club, but it was far too cheesy and essentially just a bunch of quotes squeezed into a dumb, fictional story line for whatever reason. I much prefer this format; it’s professional, to the point, and elaborates on actual techniques (principles) for improving your life with examples. There’s a reason this is still popular more than 30 years later. Great for revisiting as you try to master each habit; it can be used as a kind of reference book. This is the main reason I purchased a physical copy. It’s on par with Dale Carnegie’s classic imo. Writing simple, yet helpful, self-development books is becoming a lost art. Honestly, for the most part, new releases in this genre truly just revisit concepts which were originally introduced decades, or even centuries, ago with different wording. I’m noticing this more and more. I mean, there is kind of a finite number of ways to effectively improve your life, a set of tried and true principles if you will, and most, if not all, were discussed by the 90s or way before then (many stoics and philosophers were masters of this). Even The Let Them Theory isn’t exactly revolutionary. It’s just gained popularity now because of Mel Robbins’ writing style and overall reach; she didn’t really discover the idea. While different wording is used, the basic idea is actually even discussed in the 7 Habits book. I’ve come to realize the point of the modern self-help book is not to necessarily introduce new ideas, but to elaborate on older, yet still relevant, content and ideas and make them more accessible and digestible for everyday people. These types of books introduce different interpretations and angles of those ideas to help us find the verbiage which most resonates with us as individuals. Stephen Covey does a fine job of this for me personally, and I’ve found myself nodding along while reading. His book is one of the few truly relatable AND helpful books I’ve come across in the genre, and it is a great one to add to your self-help library.

Absolutely love this book! I decided to start off the new year with the 75 hard challenge and chose this book as my first read of the challenge. It is definitely a game changer in terms of maintaining a strong mindset, not just for the challenge, but in multiple areas of my life. This edition specifically has an extra couple of pages with insight from Stephen Covey's son, Sean Covey, where he gives his take on the chapter written by his late father. Again, amazing book and I'm only 100 pages in, but plan to implement all of these values into the foundation of my adulthood and even plan on raising my future children using the 7 habits! :)

This was given as a gift for someone who took a class with this book as the subject. They said the book is great and helped them immensely. It is recommended to everyone to read. Will foster goodness within one's life.

Excellent book which should be used in families, schools, as couples' therapy manual and in businesses! It teaches all about actions based on emotions or values, win-win situations and why we waste so much time running after the wrong type of success. Stephen Covey was an LDS author, Harvard grad and great dad. He was hilarious, helpful, loving and incredibly smart. I am pretty sure that if everyone applied the principles contained here, the world would be a better place! He gives so many examples on how the win-win solution works at home and at work. I mention this book so often in my podcast that people might think I am affiliated! Buy a copy for all your friends! Take notes!

This book was recommended to me by Tai Lopez and I can see why. It's a solid self development read I would also recommend. It took me a couple of days to finish it, as it is quite long. One golden nugget concept I stole from this book is "Begin with the end in mind" this is very wise, and I would agree. When you put this at the core of your decision making, everything else would flawlessly fall into place with clarity, decisions will be made quicker, your purpose reignited, and you'll find it easier to say no when you need to. There are a lot more golden nuggets you can find from this book especially in the first half. I think the second half feels a bit too long and not as impactful as the first but still it is a solid book overall.

I read this recently for a Personal Leadership graduate course in Management that I am taking. It is a wonderful book with lots of practical insights about the importance of principles and implementing them in one's life. What makes this book so impactful is that Covey is very determined to illustrate ideas and concepts with practical guidance and illuminating stories. Everything is very logically organized and builds on the preceding material--and you can very easily begin incorporating insights in your day-to-day affairs without a total upheaval. A couple of examples for me: 1) the notion of time management on the week vs. the day - this is such a better way of trying to make sure you work on the more important and less urgent projects one has in multiple areas of one's life; 2) the second is the mechanism of apportioning time in personal and professional setting, of thinking of things as fitting a 2x2 grid of importance and urgency and trying to minimize as much as possible the things that don't fit into the important/not urgent category. This simple way of analyzing the things one perceives as important vs. what is actually important is critically amazing for shedding tasks and errands that aren't really very important at all and embracing delegation and management of tasks that are impeding upon important/non-urgent activities where you're going to be much more effective and impactful.

This book has been so applicable to my personal quest to become a better person.

A very good book! It’s full of practical wisdom and timeless lessons for both personal and professional growth. Definitely worth reading more than once!