“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi[1]
In the face of today’s national turmoil and worldwide geopolitical upheaval, how can and should individuals seek to make a positive difference? Lament, in the form of news pieces and op-eds, has been in ample supply, and largely on point. But those people who have been directly impacted by the institutional wrecking balls need real help. Here in the United States, that may eventually come from the courts, the Congress, and the agency heads who find their mandates compromised.
Meanwhile, there’s a lack of on-the-ground assistance to the impacted individuals and institutions who most need it. How can they remain effective under current realities?
There are books about that! One stands out. Those of a certain age will remember it. In 1989, Stephen Covey published to much acclaim The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Over the next three decades, his book would sell over 20 million copies, be translated into 40 languages, and be acknowledged as one of the top 25 most influential management books of all time.
So far, so good! But how effective do these habits look when stress-tested by the often-brutal events and trends of today’s world? Here’s the surprising thing. In some ways, they seem prescient, on point: possibly even more relevant and useful today than they were during the calmer times of decades past. Perhaps we should double down.
But you be the judge. This and the six following LOTRW posts[2] will look at each in turn.
Start with be proactive. Mr. Covey argues that our lives don’t just happen to us so much as we design them. In the face of real-world circumstances, we can choose happiness. We can choose sadness. We choose success. We choose failure. We choose fear. We choose courage. (Recall these are our labels for what’s happening versus what’s actually going on.) Positive choices give us the ability to do things differently and work for more satisfying outcomes.
He argues that we need to take responsibility for these choices/master them. Interestingly, he talks about the importance of what we say as well as what we do. Proactive people choose phrases like I can, I will, I prefer, while reactive people use the opposite: I can’t, I have to, if only. Reactive people fail to see they have positive choices.
Mr. Covey encourages us to be proactive within our circle of influence – those things we can actually do something about: health; family, day-to-day problems at work. He advises against the tendency of reactive people to spend too much effort on the much broader circle of concern: things that matter, but over which we have no control. Worldwide war, convulsions in the economy, political turmoil, the national debt, and much else fall into this latter category.
Most of us would agree that over recent years and especially the past few months, that circle of concern has expanded while at the same time it is also hitting closer to home. Technology has aggravated this. Today, in 2025, internet-based social media continually bombard us with new reasons for anxiety moment by moment – with immediacy and gut-wrenching detail that wasn’t so pervasive in 1989. We’re being carried along, up to our necks, by a violent flood of sad, even heartbreaking news from our hometowns, our nation, and the world as a whole. Brokenness and dysfunction are rampant, and that news is delivered to our smartphones and other devices in real-time. Worse, the actual news is aggravated by social media’s attendant misinformation and lies
Amidst that tumult, it’s not getting any easier to follow Gandhi’s advice – or Mr. Covey’s related version of it. That’s especially so if we merely approach the task in the abstract. However, the stakes are higher and the rewards for even partial success can be correspondingly great.
To succeed, we need to make that circle of influence more tangible, more concrete. Perhaps that’s where Mr. Covey’s second habit comes in: begin with the end in mind. More on that next time.
[1]Some say that what Gandhi actually said was less concise (but possibly more illuminating): “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
[2]This isn’t the first time I’ve written on Mr. Covey’s book. You can find the first of a series of seven LOTRW posts that ran in 2012 here.