Quotes about Empowerment

Leadership is communicating others' worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.

As long as we are working in our Circle of Concern, we empower the things within it to control us. We aren't taking the proactive initiative necessary to effect positive change.

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control—myself.

Proactive people have a Circle of Concern that is at least as big as their Circle of Influence, accepting the responsibility to use their influence effectively.

In the final analysis, effective delegation takes the emotional courage to allow, to one degree or another, others to make some mistakes on our own time, money, and good name. This courage consists of patience, self-control, faith in others and in their potential, and respect for individual differences.

But much of our current emphasis on independence is a reaction to dependence—to having others control us, define us, use us, and manipulate us.

While we can't always control what happens to us, we can always choose how we react to life's challenges.

In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

As an interdependent person, I have the opportunity to share myself deeply, meaningfully, with others, and I have access to the vast resources and potential of other human beings. Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.

But we are responsible—"response-able"—to control our lives and to powerfully influence our circumstances by working on be, on what we are.

Habit 1 says, "You are the programmer." Habit 2, then, says, "Write the program." Until you accept the idea that you are responsible, that you are the programmer, you won't really invest in writing the program.

We choose—either to live our lives or to let others live them for us. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and to others, little by little we increase our strength until our ability to act is more powerful than any of the forces that act upon us.