Bad Guys, Blaggers And Slaaaaggggs 28Mm 7Tv

A while back I completed my Sweeney stuff so it was time to get some blaggers to add to the collection to act as the other side in the Cops and Robbers mini Project.

All the figures are from Crooked Dice 7tv range and are a large 28mm scale, highly recommended they have great detail and character. The guys above are the Foot soldiers, all wearing balaclavas and ready for the next Blag.

In front of my new O Gauge buildings they look the biz, I certainly wouldn't want to meet any of them in a dark alley !

I've also been adding to the 1:43 scale vehicles, here's a lovely Mk I Transit van as daily transport to and from the bank.

Above are some more vehicles, a Mk III Cortina and two vans, an Ambulance and a Police Van.

A closer shot of the Bad Guy bosses along with a Yarkshire TV camera.

Everyone's down the boozer to plan the next job !

Probably my favourite figure of this batch is this Cameraman and Camera all done up ready to film the next feature documentary for Yarkshire TV.

The one good guy in the batch was this Tough Detective figure that I've painted up to look like Jack Reagan from The Sweeney.

A bit of dodgy dealing going on outside The Red Lion.

Now this is a Crime Fighting duo I'd want to see, Gene Hunt and Jack Reagan, that would clean the streets !

Hopefully you have enjoyed that journey through the bad guys, I hope to have some scenarios worked up some, just waiting on some terrain from Sally Forth that I ordered about 3 weeks ago.

Monumental Heartbreak

I made it through Viridian Forest to Pewter City safely. The Pewter Pokémon Gym was open and available, but Lucky was in no condition to train there. Instead we made daily forays into the forest to train against other Caterpie and Weedle. Eventually Lucky evolved into a Metapod which was amazing to watch. At the time, I was so excited to see an evolution first hand. It was the direct result of our diligent training together and it felt great to see Lucky move into his next life stage, growing stronger before my eyes. This physical manifestation of growth and improvement encouraged me to take our training to the next step. It encouraged me to take my team to the Pewter City Pokémon Gym.
I walked in headstrong and confident that my team was ready to face the challenges ahead. I announced myself as a challenger. I waited for the trainers representing the gym to step forward. I expected to face more than one young man before challenging Gym Leader Brock, but apparently this young trainer was the only one representing Brock that day. He only had two Pokéballs at his side, but he assured me I was no match for Brock. He was about to prove it to me firsthand.
He tossed out a Diglett which popped up out of the dirt floor of the gym. Kiwi took to the air. If the Diglett knew any ground attacks they would be wasted on Kiwi while he remained airborne. Kiwi opened with our classic Sand-Attack gambit to kick as much dust and dirt up into the Diglett's eyes as he could. Kiwi took a few scrapes as he wore down the Diglett's accuracy, but eventually the Diglett was completely ineffective. I switched in Nibbles to tackle the Diglett into submission.
The Junior Trainer revealed his final Pokémon to be a Sandshrew. Its defense was formidable so I used Nibble to distract him with a series of disorienting glares before pulling Nibble out of the battle. Rascal jumped in to eagerly sweep through the defenseless Sandshrew, but I miscalculated. After two vicious slashes from the Sandshrews sharp claws, Rascal was down and out. Rascal slumped to the ground unconscious. My heart sank into my stomach and I felt faint. I failed Rascal.
It was in that moment of horrible defeat that it occurred to me that I should have used a potion on Rascal. I shouldn't have let him suffer those two powerful attacks head on. I should have sent in Kiwi to wear down the Sandshrew's accuracy. Lucky didn't stand a chance against this Pokémon if it took out Rascal so easily. Kiwi was my only chance to get out of this mess. I knew that if I didn't keep my head in the game, I might be saying goodbye to more than one Pokémon that afternoon. I tried to shake off my sorrow and focus on the battle ahead.
Kiwi was much faster than the Sandshrew. He kept firmly out of reach and launched a series of quick attacks on the Sandshrew to finish it off. The Junior Trainer conceded defeat, but it was I who felt defeated that day. This young boy had no idea I'd just recently vowed to never fight my Pokémon to the point of unconsciousness. Now, just days after determining the way I wished to train and respect Pokémon, my resolve was going to be tested. Rascal and I would have to part ways.
I explained this to the trainer who didn't quite understand, but he said the gym would be happy to watch after Rascal for me. Rascal was always enthusiastic about training and living here at the gym would be a fitting end to our relationship, so I agreed.
I took Rascal to the Pokémon Center and waited for him to recover from his injuries. I don't really know if he understood, but I explained to him that in order for us to grow stronger I would need to let him go. We had to follow different paths, now. I had chosen a training style where I would not let my Pokémon fall in battle and even though Rascal was my very first Pokémon companion, I could not go back on my conviction. We said our goodbyes. I released Rascal to the care of the Junior Trainer at the Pewter City Pokémon Gym and withdrew my challenge.

It's an understatement to say that I was devastated. In that moment, I certainly regretted making it my personal goal as a trainer to not push my Pokémon too far. As Wolf had said, it's just part of the training to the average trainer. You win some and you lose some. But that just wasn't my way. I wanted to build a place where I could protect Pokémon and people would come from all around to study and understand them better. I had to be better than the average trainer. I had to hold myself to a higher standard. Pokémon would fight. They would fight to protect me in the wild, and they would fight for my dream in competitive matches. But I had to have limits. I had to take responsibilities for my failures and this was the only way I knew how to do that.
Rascal was the first of many such failures, and saying goodbye to my first Pokémon was certainly one of the most painful experiences as a Pokémon Trainer that I have ever faced. Back in those days in Pewter City, I questioned everything about my journey. I spent a long time just wondering if I should return to Professor Oak and give up. These thoughts just stemmed from the profound sadness and disappointment, though. Ultimately, I would move on. I would grow stronger and persevere.
Beyond the tremendous heartbreak of failing to protect my first Pokémon, I was also terrified of Brock. This failure humbled me tremendously. Everything I did going forward would be taken slowly and with greater attention to strategy. This included returning to challenge Brock. Without Rascal, my team had a gaping hole that needed to be filled. The only one who could fill that hole was Lucky and so we left Pewter temporarily to train like our lives depended on it. I would absolutely not lose another Pokémon in this city.

Current Team:

A LITTLE CATCHING UP MAY BE IN ORDER

I decided that it might be helpful to go over some of what goes on in the background as it may help shed a light on the next post of 'THE STATE OF DFG AS A BUSINESS AND WHERE TO GO', as well as provide some insight on where the hell has Mark been and why I have made some of the decisions I will talk about in the next post, or two or three…..

Some have asked if DFG is still in business, yes we are, and what you see available on the store is in stock and ready to ship. We did pull out of the supply chain late last year, which I will go over in this post and the next couple of posts. 

Some have said, that I should have kept my customers in the loop and posted about the good and the bad.

Yes, he's right... Hopefully the next few posts will help shed some light on that aspect.

What has happened since WGF closed its retail side. The last 2 years have been packed with educational opportunities.

 

Old news with some insight:

WGF shutters it sales end, I take over distribution, while this is in progress there were some talks with a company about taking over the line, this did not come to fruition. We simply ran out of time as the product needed to be in a new home before WGF closed out its US warehouse. There is some time spent setting up the infrastructure, warehouse, etc. Setting up Website interfaces for wholesale ordering, which was pretty much a waste of time as most wholesalers/Retailers would much prefer to send an order in, in whatever format their system kicks out.

Once the dust settled a bit. I started tracking sales closely, place a restock order for some products that are running very low and wait for the restock…and wait…. Eventually they arrive with a couple of new releases that I know will not have much of an effect on the bottom line or excitement. The molds had already been cut and it was a good test for a rather lackluster release to see what that looked like. This was an important test for me, I knew it was going to be a soft release and I knew that I had to plan for such releases to happen now and then. Its not that I wanted them to fail, I just knew they would not be big hits, as did the supply chain. This would give me a base line and let me know what was at risk form an investment standpoint if a release just did not take, I will just say, its not pretty and leave it at that….

Exploring possibilities:

Sufficed to say, there have been a LOT of false starts, exploring possibilities that eventually come to a decision not to peruse the opportunity This is often not anyone's fault, just two parties feeling out the opportunities and seeing if there is a way to make something happen. In the end it comes down to a dollars and cents business decision. Most of the time one party or both is simply not in the position at that moment to monopolize on the opportunity. Some explorations are covered by NDA and even those that are not, I will not be going into details about who and what, etc.

Between the time I took over distribution and now, I have explored with various entities many possible business opportunities, some of these took days, some, months. It just depended on where the conversation took us and what possibilities were on the table.

I am quick to 'pick up the phone' and chat with anyone about possibilities I am also quick to get down to remuneration, although this aspect often takes some time to work out details. End of the day, everyone involved needs to be compensated in one way or another.

Then we come to 2017:

I finalize a few files for production (StuG tank, Shadokesh and Ferals) and start exploring other manufacturing avenues… (more on why later) Finding a proper manufacture takes a great deal of time a load of back and forth and some minor testing to at least make sure each possibility is viable from a cost and quality standpoint.

That damn bottom line:

I had one last the opportunity to explore a partnership possibility with a very nice, energetic and competent individual, that honestly would have been a breath of fresh air. 

Still being in distribution, I had reservations about the profit margins and the ability to provide a fair return to the partner. Entering into that kind of arrangement needs to be good for everyone involved and I could not see a way to guarantee that individual a fair return on investment, so I thought it best not to proceed with that avenue.

I already knew that things had stalled a long time ago but looking at this from strictly a bottom line perspective after exploring the partnership possibility, the margin concerns, now brought into full view, cemented the path forward. I decided late in the year to remove my products form distribution, as I could not see a way to release new products at reasonable price to my customers and still satisfy the supply chain discounts. This was a rather painful decision as it meant leaving behind long standing relationships to try and forge a path forward.

When it comes to many of my retail customers, I have known many of these individuals for quite a while, corresponding with them and sending out marketing packets for releases, teasing products and sending out samples for review, etc. Some of the direct retailer contacts were the best experiences I have had…. They have all been very good to me and if I had the ability to do so and not drop into the red, I would still be selling to them. Having said that, I would not be talking so openly right now either, I understand promises, expectations and statements need to be tethered as you are in a business relationship that is mutually beneficial and that setting them up for failure you are setting yourself up as well.

Add the normal life things, a home remodel performed on the cheap by yours truly and other such things and the year slipped on by before I had a chance to say hello to it.

The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People Part 1: Summary Of The 25Th Anniversary Edition

INTRODUCTION: WHY 7 HABITS?

This will be a long post, as I'll be summarizing Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People through the first 3 Habits. The last 4 Habits will be covered in a separate post to be more "organized".

After using self-compassion, I noticeably felt better. I recall in this past post,

that I tried reading Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but couldn't even do the first exercise due to fatigue. But now that I'm in a much better place, I decided to go through the book again.

I completed the entire book when I had way more energy in College, and really found it eye-opening and helpful. However, the lessons didn't stick, otherwise, I would've remembered and continued with these habits to this day.

These habits can be very difficult to follow as it takes a lot of due diligence, willpower to not do what you want in the moment, but to work on what you find worthy, meaningful and important.

You can feel demoralized as you continue to slide back into bad habits. You may even feel negatively towards yourself, and feeling like a failure for not being an "effective" person.

That's why it's absolutely imperative that you practice self-compassion. There are going to be many days where you'd rather sleep in and not exercise, and you may berate yourself.

However, if you're kind to yourself, you'll validate these universal feelings, indeed, animals tend to use the least amount of energy, evolutionary speaking! We try to conserve energy in the face of scarcity.

Using self-compassion, you will then say, but I'm a truly worthy person, so I'll commit to exercising after work. You can walk up and down the stairs for 10 mins, or walk around the house for 10 mins as alternative. Some movement is better than none!

Therefore, if you didn't do the one habit that would make an enormous difference in your life, with self-compassion on your side, you'll just pick yourself up and do light exercise later on in the day!

Carl Rogers noted that having unconditional positive regard is the key to change, and an important ingredient in making things work for you. 

Additionally, you must have energy. When I was exhausted, I couldn't accomplish anything. So exercise, getting a good night's sleep, eating fruits and vegetables, and so forth can help with energy.

Why follow the 7 Habits in the first place? Because of Covey's work, future self-help books base their principles on his work - namely, one book will be on empathic listening, another on synergy, and so forth.

Further, I found the book not only profound but practical, as it outlines steps that can help you reach your goals, in a principled manner. Covey gives you exercises to act on these positive habits.

Through these exercises, you will find what you value, not what society, family and friends say you should be. Then, the book helps you to live in line with your own truths, again in a principled way.

Again, do these habits with self-compassion, recognizing that it's very hard work. Even Covey mentioned that it's difficult in his Foreword to the 2004 edition. He writes, "I have personally found living the 7 Habits a constant struggle...Because I sincerely work and struggle every day at living these principle-embodied habits, I warmly join you in this adventure" (p. 20). And this is the man who wrote the book!

Because of self-compassion and seeing ourselves as worthy, we want to live with integrity and principle. After all, we don't treat our precious things with contempt and carelessness, but rather with care. Likewise, when we value ourselves, we want to take care of ourselves, we want to be happy and pursue purpose and meaning in our lives, in a principled way.

I'm summarizing the 7 Habits as I find it's in sore need of an update for people of diverse backgrounds. It appears that Covey is writing to the upper white middle class families. Even so, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water", but rather focus on the principles of what Covey is expounding.

FOREWARD TO THE 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

In this Foreword, Covey acknowledges that our problems and pain are universal, and solutions will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles. 

These principled solutions stand in contrast to common thinking of modern society as outlined below.

BODY:
Cultural tendency: continue with unhealthy lifestyle habits; treat health problems with surgery and medication.

Principle: prevent diseases and problems by incorporating healthy life choices. Such as the tried and true sleep hygiene, eating healthy, exercising, meditation, preventive medical checkups, and so forth.

MIND:
Cultural tendency: watch television, "entertain me"

Principle: read broadly and deeply, continuous education

HEART:
Cultural tendency: use relationships with others to advance your personal, selfish interests

Principle: deep, respectful listening, helping and serving others brings greatest fulfillment and joy.

I found the above compelling because when people think about being an "effective" person, they think you need to manipulate and use others to get ahead of the game, seek and gain power and money to abuse others to get what you want and need.

This book proposes the exact opposite, that by following principles of honor and integrity to the best of your abilities, it can help solve painful problems, bringing you joy and contentment, as it aligns with universal truths.

Instead of using and abusing others, Covey calls for having utmost respect, listening and understanding others deeply, without judgment. By doing this, you move toward empowering not just the person, but yourself.

INSIDE-OUT AND OVERVIEW

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People focuses on Character Ethic as a way to be an effective person. You must start first with your self, with your paradigms, your character and your motives.

For Covey, Character Ethic is the foundation of success - you can only experience enduring happiness when you integrate these principles.

The major principles are:

• Fairness
• Integrity and Honesty
• Human Dignity
• Service
• Quality or Excellence
• Potential/Growth
• Patience, Nurturance and Encouragement

By following these principles, you're following the correct roadmap. You may falter, but you can always consult the map and find your way back - there's always opportunities to do so to exercise these principles!

Following is a great description of a person who fell off the map and got lost, not using principles as a guide post, in the words of Erich Fromm:

Today, we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time, it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.

I appreciate this quote, because this is what we all go through, and suffer, being a universal condition. However, we can change course by steering ourselves toward universal principles.

Do these principles make sense? They do, if we look at the negative of these timeless principles.

Being unfair, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative, not wanting to "git gud" (gamer terminology), being nasty and impatient to others - this doesn't lead to success in the truest sense.

Malignant narcissists, who have those negative qualities, can be extremely successful financially, often ending up as CEOs. Because they'd do anything to get ahead, they can cut corners and make quick gains, pushing their way to the glass ceiling. But they're very miserable, having no meaningful, loving relationships or connections with anyone.

Please be advised that human beings and all mammals are hard-wired to have connection with one another. We're social animals. When we're cut off or don't have a sense of belonging, that brings about true suffering.

But being fair, open, honest, improving upon yourself, encouraging and helping others - these things make people happy and able to connect with others in a fulfilling way.

Some of the negative habits to combat:

• procrastination
• impatience
• criticalness
• selfishness

Procrastination definitely makes you less effective. What's interesting is that the last 3 negative habits lead to disconnect from others. What this book is steering us toward is to have positive connections with others to be successful.

The book explains how you can achieve principled habits, but of course, have self-compassion if you go back to bad habits. Covey admits that having good habits involve tremendous process and commitment.

Covey notes that habits are the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire:

Knowledge is the theory and paradigms of what to do.

Skill is how to do it.

Desire is you want to do it.

The 7 Habits are incremental and integrated approach to developing personal and interpersonal effectiveness. As you go through the habits, you move from dependence to independence, and finally to interdependence.

When we reach interdependence, we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together, compared to independently, achieving more success and becoming more effective together. Two heads are better than one.

When you share yourself deeply, meaningfully with others, you may have access to the vast resources and potential of other human beings.

Habits 1 to 3 help you move from dependence to independence. This is your Private Victory.

Habits 4 to 7 help you move from independence to interdependence. This is your Public Victory.

Although you need to achieve independence before you gain interdependence - you have to learn how to crawl before you walk - it may take many years, even a lifetime to "master" habits 1 to 3. However, you can also work on habits 4 to 7 concurrently!

HABIT 1 - BE PRO-ACTIVE

Being proactive means that you take responsibility for your own life. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.

Reactive people are often effected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If the weather is bad, they feel bad.

However, a proactive person carries their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shine, doesn't matter, because proactive people are value driven, and their value is to produce good quality work, being kind to others, and so forth, regardless of what's going on.

Covey mentions the proactivity of Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, who founded Logotherapy, and author of Man's Search For Meaning, which I wrote about here.

Despite the atrocities, Frankl chose how he acts, and found meaning in the suffering, and helped others to find their own meaning.

We all can't be Frankl. Indeed, if one of my hair strands is out of place, I feel that I can't stream as well. However, we can start slowly and have minor victories when we act positively rather than reacting. 

Suppose it's raining outside, and as a result your arthritis is really acting up. You can chose to stay at home and be in pain and miserable. Or you can have compassion and acknowledge your pain. Then you may problem-solve, give a middle finger to the crappy weather, and go out with your friends. 

Covey uses the model of circle of influence - those are the things you have control over, such as being patient, kind and understanding. Around the circle of influence, you have circle of concern, which you don't have control over such as the weather, politics and such. 

When you're proactive, you use your energy in working on your circle of influence, instead of reacting negatively to things you can't control, and then blaming others for your problems.

You have direct control by working on your habits, such as the Private Victories of Habits 1, 2, 3. Indirect control problems are solved by changing our methods of influence - Public Victories of Habits 4, 5, 6. No control problems can be dealt with accepting the way things are, even though we don't like it.

Here's an example on how you can expand your circle of influence, by working on yourself and how you respond.

Your boss tends to be critical of others, but doesn't have a verifiable DSM-V personality disorder, so you can work with her. Instead of complaining about yet another mistake she pointed out, you start trying to understand her and what she's looking for. 

Instead of avoiding her at all costs, or just saying "yes" to whatever she says to "get her off my back", you instead truly listen to what she wants and expects. Actually, she may be taken aback if she sees you actively searching out her advice when you have a question about the project, since she notices that people avoid her like the plague.

Because you truly understand what her vision is and you're able to implement it as a result, she will be impressed, and come to you for more of the "plum" projects.

You're clearly proactive in this situation. Instead of blaming her for being "bitchy" and saying, "if only she were more understanding, my work would be better", you decide to understand exactly what she wants, getting all the specifics so you can easily implement.

However, your other coworkers start getting jealous, one actually calls you a "brown noser" to your face. Instead of reacting, you have the wherewithal to tell him that you're not brown nosing, you're just following these particular steps that she finds useful and that's how you can "get ahead". By giving him these valuable tips, he can take it or leave it.

If he's "not convinced", you continue to make positive overtures toward him. Seeing that you're actually genuine and authentic, he starts using your tips, noticing that they actually work, and you gained an ally. 

The other coworkers eventually follow suit. You turned an unpleasant work experience into a positive one.

Now the issue here is if your boss actually has a verifiable personality disorder. She completely belittles and insults others, lies about her employees to cover herself, fires employees indiscriminately, and creates a truly toxic environment. 

You have a family to feed, so you can't quit your job, even though your wife and children are begging you to leave for your health.

However, even in this dire situation, you can be proactive. Take notes whenever she says something demeaning to you or another person. Make sure you write down the exact day and time this occurs. If you have good reflexes, you can also record the toxicity on your smartphone.

On the weekends, you and your wife scour the internet for job opportunities. If you get fired, you can hire a lawyer, armed with scores of exceptionally detailed notes, which is every lawyer's wet dream for a lawsuit.

If you manage to not get fired, once you find another job, you can put in your 2 weeks notice.

How can you tell if you're proactive or not? If you're reactive you use "have" statements. If you're proactive, you use "be" statements.

Reactive statements examples:

• I'll be happy when I have my house paid off...
• If only had a boss who wasn't such a dictator (use the techniques above instead)...
• If I had more obedient kids...
• If I had my degree...
• If I could just have more time to myself...

Proactive statements examples:

• I can be more patient
• I can be more wise
• I can be more understanding
• I can be more resourceful
• I can be more diligent

The Application Suggestions are:

1. For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you. How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as "If only," "I can't", or "I have to".
2. Identify an experience that have behaved reactively. How could you respond proactively. Create this experience vividly in you mind, picturing yourself responding in a proactive manner. 
3. Select a problem from work or personal life that is frustrating to you. Determine whether it's direct, indirect, or no control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of Influence to solve it and then take that step.
4. Try the 30-day test of proactivity. Be aware of the change in your Circle of Influence.

HABIT 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

The following exercise will help define what you find truly valuable in your life.

Imagine yourself at a funeral, the whole procession. What would you want your loved ones (family and friends) and coworkers to say about you during your eulogy?

Those will be your values and what you consider important.

When I tried that exercise, I wanted people to say some positive things that I'm not. One is "she's someone who honors commitments" but I tend to cancel social engagements.

Therefore, through this funeral exercise, I know I need to work on only making promises that I can truly keep and really following through, as one of my core principles.

The other interesting thing is that nowhere in the eulogy did I want someone to say that "she valued her freedom" because that sounds "bad". However, when I really looked deep into myself, choosing only three things I value most, they are: 

1. Freedom
2. Love
3. Growth

The last two showed up in the eulogy, but my most valued, Freedom, did not. Even so, I find that I can't be authentic if I don't have freedom.

Therefore, do the eulogy, which is crucial, but in a separate list, find three things that make you happy.

A lot of us, in the happiness list, would put down being wealthy. As studies show, materialism doesn't lead to happiness, so being wealthy isn't your value.

Instead, write down why you want to be wealthy. What comes up mostly is you want money so you can travel, eat amazing foods, go to concerts and experience other unique activities and events.

Therefore, I would say that you value rich experiences, and that could be something you can work toward. 

It's important to come up with your unique mission statement. It will change as you consider things more, as you get older, as you go through different milestones in life, and such. But at least you have a blue print as to what you're aiming for.

Do the funeral exercise - it can be rather eye-opening to see where your values really lie.

Next, with this "End in Mind", you want to focus on what you want to be (character), and to do (contributions and achievements), and put that in your life mission statement.

Since this funeral exercise is so open-ended, as well as mission statements being equally open-ended, and I struggle in pinning things down, the Franklin Covey mission statement builder was quite helpful. 

I would do the funeral exercise, and then the mission statement builder.

Once armed with this knowledge, you have your own blueprint as to how you want to live your life, not how others perceive you.

You want to make sure that you follow your vision and values, which is your Circle of Influence, and the more you work, the more your Circle of Influence expands. That's where you want to focus your attention on.

You want a Principled Center. By focusing our lives on correct principles, we create a solid foundation, that doesn't fluctuate based on people or things that constantly change, and are quite fickle. 

Alternative Centers

Covey next lists alternative centers that we tend to have, rather than a Principled Center. These are spouse, family, money, work, possession, pleasure, friend/enemy, church/institution and self-centeredness.

Let's take work-centeredness as an example of why not having a Principled Center is problematic. When you're work-centered, your personal worth is determined by your occupation. You're only comfortable when you're working. You make your decisions based on the needs and expectations of work. You tend to be limited by your work role. You see your work as your life. 

The other alternative centers are equally problematic. But having a principled center, you aren't being acted upon by other people or circumstances, rather you make your decision based on looking at the whole picture, factoring in work, family and other needs to come up with the best solution.

Covey gives a good example of an alternative center versus principled center approach. Your husband was looking forward to this concert for the past month or so. But at the night of the concert, your employer calls you to do some prep work for tomorrow's 9 AM meeting.

If you're spouse-centered, you go to the concert with your husband. Or you may feel you have to work instead, but very anxious about his response, justifying your decision and protecting yourself from his disappointment,

If you're money-centered, you'd call your husband to cancel the concert b/c this could lead to a potential raise. 

Covey goes down the other alternative-centered options which we won't outline here, but the principled-centered option makes the most sense.

A possible outcome using the principle-centered approach is to communicate to your husband and boss, whom you both have a strong connection. You genuinely want to prepare for this meeting because you value your boss's effectiveness and you want to contribute to the team (proactive) rather than staying at work to get the edge on someone else (reactive).

You want to go to the concert with your husband because you both were committed to this for the past month or so, and this is your husband's favorite band growing up. 

You chose what is ultimately most valuable to you in your mission statement, which happens to be your relationship with your husband, when you did your eulogy.

Therefore, you tell your boss that you'll come in early in the morning to prepare for the meeting because you care about the welfare of the team, and go to the concert with hubby.

Application suggestions:

1. Record funeral impressions.
2. Write down your roles.
3. Begin work on your personal statement, this tool can help.
4. Circle all the alternate centers that you tend to follow
5. Start a collection of notes, quotes and ideas you may want to use as resource material for your mission statement
6. Identify a project you'll face, and envision how to solve this using a principled center approach.
7. Share the principles of Habit 2 to loved ones and/or work group, and suggest that together, being the process of a family and/or group mission statement.

HABIT 3: PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

The answers to these questions will direct you during Habit 3.

Question 1: What one thing could you do (something you aren't doing now) that, if you did it regularly, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?

Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

For the first question, I came up with 3: going to bed and getting up at the same time, exercising, and eating more fruits and vegetables. For the second question, being more organized by using to-do lists.

Covey poses that Habit 3 is the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2.

Habit 1 says, "You're in charge". It challenges you to realize, "that's an unhealthy program I've been given from my childhood, from my social mirror. I don't like that wrong script, I can change it".

Habit 2 shows us what's most important to us.

Habit 3 is the exercise that you do to become principle-centered, and how you carry out what's most important to you. Covey describes a time management matrix.

Quadrant 1 are important and urgent such as crises, pressing problems, deadlines.

Quadrant 2 is important but not urgent.

Quadrant 3 are non-important but urgent such as interruptions, some calls, some mail, some meetings.

Quadrant 4 are not important and not urgent such as trivia, time-wasters.

Write down all of your roles, such as personal, parent, spouse, employee and for each one, write down the essentials such for each of these roles - that will most likely be Quadrant 1, 2 and 3 concerns. Exercise would fall under your personal role, Quadrant 2.

If you, like most families, work multiple jobs, and you find that you don't have time to have dinner with your children (I would say this is a very basic Quadrant 2 issue), look again at your roles list. Delegate any Quadrant 3. 

If still pinched for time, look at your roles again, weeding out the unimportant positions. If you see one as being PTA member, then I'd quit, since your values are with your children (Habit 2).

If work is getting in the way, then cut unnecessary expenses to reduce work hours. I often see families struggling to make ends meet (leading to multiple jobs). Come to find out I see their children (as young as 5-years old) with the latest, largest iPhone ($1,500), when all they really need is clamshell for emergencies ($30). 

In other words, resist the urge to keep up with the Joneses. It's not worth working multiple jobs for all these unnecessary luxury items.

Here's an example that often comes up:

A mother brings in her daughter ("Jill") as she's severely depressed. Jill is concerned about her mother because she works too many hours, and her health is declining as a result. Further, they can't spend time together, which Jill says also makes her depressed. She spends her time alone in her room while her mother works. If that's not depressing, I don't know what is.

It was obvious that their relationship is their most-valued principle (Habit 2), so Quadrant II is working on their relationship.

When I asked the mother why she's working full-time and then Uber after work and on weekends, she reports that she has to pay bills (Quadrant 1 Urgent) and buy things for Jill to make her happy (allegedly Quadrant 2).

Jill then mentions that she doesn't even want these things, which include the mother paying for Jill and her friends to go out to eat, hair extensions, fancy manicures, smartphones, and so forth. We calculated that it comes to $1000/month. Uber = $8/hr, so that's 31.5 hours/week.

Since Jill convinced the mother that she'd rather spend the time with her, foregoing the luxuries, the mother agreed to quit Uber altogether and keep the full-time job. 

Jill went even further and agreed to do almost all the chores (Quadrant III), so that they both can spend even more time together, which is their Quadrant II, most important values.

I saw them 2 weeks later and Jill was beaming with joy - so not only did her depression go away completely, but she's very happy having all these special moments with her mother.

In other words, cut out the crap and focus on what's meaningful to you.

Click here for Part II - Public Victories.

The How of Happiness Review