At the age of 24, I was working for MCI as a customer support representative in New York City. This was an exciting time for me. I was assigned the garment district. Imagine having Donna Karan, Nautica, Jordache and other high-end designers as your clients…at least their businesses. I reveled in the ability to buy designer clothes at 33 percent off the retail price, or getting them for free at Christmas time. I wasn’t thinking about time management, understanding my core values or what my inner circle of influence is! I was thinking about how to convince my brother to build me a bigger walk-in closet.
One day my manager told me that she signed some of us up for a workshop called “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” She said it will help you determine your priorities, your schedule and what tasks are most important, I thought I was doing a great job of that already, i.e. shopping! Reluctantly, I went to the workshop. I can tell you today that was one of the best workshops I have ever participated in. It is still impacting me today. The instructor did a wonderful job of explaining Steven Covey’s principles to the participants in the course. He also played the video of Mr. Covey explaining his rules of Seven Habits.
When I walked out that three-day workshop: I learned about setting priorities; understanding my core values; and working within my inner circles,–the places where I could have the most positive impact. I learned from Steven Covey’s course that your core values are things you will absolutely not comprise. This past week, I had to exercise one of my core values, integrity. My business partner and I had to walk away from a deal that would have resulted in our earning quite a bit money for our business. Our client was not being above board with us, or with our Alliance partner. This caused us to question his honesty.
He wanted us to compromise our integrity and also our pricing. Thanks to the fact that we know the value of our products, service and most importantly working with integrity, we let the deal go. Now I know how attorneys feel when they know their clients are guilty as sin! You do your best, but you hope they are found guilty! We are comfortable knowing that we did not compromise our beliefs for money and we gained more respect for our Alliance partner and ourselves. Thank you, Steven Covey for leaving us a legacy that lives beyond your life here on earth!
Live a Diamond Life, A Life of Purpose.
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