Learning Together Ask family members: How do we learn and share together as a family? Responses might include: reading stories together, sharing music, taking trips, enjoying new experiences together, gathering family photos, sharing family stories. Ask: How important is this to our family?

Discuss how you can make reading and discussing this book together a commitment.

It's Never Too Late Consider the miracle of the Chinese bamboo tree. Review the story "Momma, always come after me." Ask family members: How does this impact the way we think about our family and the struggles we face? Are there any specific areas or relationships in which we need to allow time for growth?

SHARING THIS CHAPTER WITH CHILDREN.

Play the Game Blindfold a family member. Lead him or her to a place in the house, the yard or a nearby park, where returning to the starting point without sight will be a little difficult. Make sure the return path is safe, with no stairs or other obstacles in the way.

Turn the person around a few times and explain that it will be his or her job to find the way back to the designated starting point.

Let the person try to return. After a moment ask if he or she would like some help or clues.

Let family members direct the person back with instructions such as "turn left, go straight, turn right."

When safely back, ask the person if it was hard to find the way when he or she couldn't see it and had no instructions. Give each child a chance to be blindfolded and try to find the way back.

Summarize the Game Help the children understand that you are all going through life together, but none of you can see the future. Often you will need instructions or clues and some assistance from your family to get to your destination.

Talk about how wonderful it is to have a family to rely on.

Help the children see that a family "flight plan" with some "help" to become a strong and happy family is just as valuable as the help and assistance they received when they were blindfolded and tried to find their way back to the designated starting point.

Action Decide to meet weekly as a family and talk about your family flight plan. Discuss what you can do to help one another, support one other, have fun together, and stay close all your lives.

During the week, post little reminders here and there about the next family meeting.

Plan fun bonding activities such as a visit to family member not living in your home, a trip to the ice cream store, a sports day, or sharing a great lesson or story that clearly shows how much you value the family and how committed you are as a parent to making it a priority.

HABIT 1.

BE PROACTIVE.

As I mentioned in the original 7 Habits book, many years ago when I was in Hawaii on a sabbatical, I was wandering through some stacks of books in the back of a college library. A particular book drew my interest, and as I flipped through the pages, my eyes fell on a single paragraph that was so compelling, so memorable, so staggering that it has profoundly influenced the rest of my life.

In that paragraph were three sentences that contained a single powerful idea: Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our happiness.

I cannot begin to describe the effect that idea had on me. I was overwhelmed by it. I reflected on it again and again. I reveled in the freedom of it. I personalized it. Between whatever happened to me and my response to it was a space. In that space was my freedom and power to choose my response. And in my response lay my growth and happiness.

The more I pondered it, the more I realized that I could choose responses that would affect the stimulus itself. I could become a force of nature in my own right.

This experience was forcibly brought to my mind again when I was in the middle of a taping session one evening and received a note saying that Sandra was on the phone and needed to speak to me.

"What are you doing?" she asked with impatience in her tone. "You knew we were having guests for dinner tonight. Where are you?"

I could tell she was upset, but as it happened, I had been involved all day in taping a video in a mountain setting. When we got to the final scene, the director insisted that it be done with the sun setting in the West, so we had to wait for nearly an hour to achieve this special effect.

In the midst of my own pent-up frustration over all these delays, I replied curtly, "Look, Sandra, it's not my fault that you scheduled the dinner. And I can't help it that things are running behind here. You'll have to figure out how to handle things at home, but I can't leave. And the longer we talk now, the later I'll be. I have work to do. I'll come when I can."

As I hung up the phone and started walking back to the shoot, I suddenly realized that my response to Sandra had been completely reactive. Her question had been reasonable. She was in a tough social situation. Expectations had been created, and I wasn't there to help fulfill them. But instead of understanding, I had been so filled with my own situation that I had responded abruptly-and that response had undoubtedly made things even worse.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my actions had really been off track. This was not the way I wanted to behave toward my wife. These were not the feelings I wanted in our relationship. If I had only acted differently, if I had been more patient, more understanding, more considerate-if I had acted out of my love for her instead of reacting to the pressures of the moment, the results would have been completely different.

But the problem was that I didn't think about it at the time. Instead of acting based on the principles I knew would bring positive results, I reacted based on the feeling of the moment. I got sucked into the emotion of the situation, which seemed so overpowering, so consuming at the time that it completely blinded me to what I really felt deep inside and what I really wanted to do.

Fortunately, we were able to complete the taping quickly. As I drove home, it was Sandra-and not the taping-that was on my mind. My irritation was gone. Feelings of understanding and love for her filled my heart. I prepared to apologize. She ended up apologizing to me as well. Things worked out, and the warmth and closeness of our relationship were restored.

Creating a "Pause Button"

It is so easy to be reactive! Don't you find this to be the case in your own life? You get caught up in the moment. You say things you don't mean. You do things you later regret. And you think, "Oh, if only I had stopped to think about it, I never would have reacted that way!"

Obviously, family life would be a whole lot better if people acted based on their deepest values instead of reacting to the emotion or circumstance of the moment. What we all need is a "pause button"-something that enables us to stop between what happens to us and our response to it, and to choose our own response.

It's possible for us as individuals to develop this capacity to pause. And it's also possible to develop a habit right at the center of a family culture of learning to pause and give wiser responses. How to create that pause button in the family-how to cultivate the spirit of acting based on principle-centered values instead of reacting based on feelings or circumstance-is the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3.

Your Four Unique Human Gifts

Habit 1-Be proactive-is the ability to act based on principles and values rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance. The ability to do that comes from the development and use of four unique human gifts that animals do not have.

To help you understand what those gifts are, let me share with you how a single mother used them to become an agent of change in her family. She said: For years I fought with my children and they fought with each other. I constantly judged, criticized, and scolded. Our home was filled with contention, and I knew my constant nagging was hurting my children's self-esteem.

Again and again I resolved to try to change, but each time I would fall back into negative habit patterns. The whole situation caused me to hate myself and take my anger out on my children, and that made me feel even more guilty. I felt that I was caught in a downward spiral which started in my childhood and which I was helpless to do anything about it. I knew something had to be done, but I didn't know what.

Eventually, I decided to make my problems a matter of sustained thought, meditation, and specific and earnest prayer. I gradually came to two insights about the real motives for my negative, critical behavior.

First, I came to see more clearly the impact my own childhood experiences had on my attitude and behavior. I began to see the psychological scarring of my own upbringing. My childhood home was broken in almost every way. I can't remember ever seeing my parents talk through their problems and differences. They would either argue and fight, or they'd angrily go their separate ways and use the silent treatment. Sometimes that would last for days. My parents' marriage eventually ended in divorce.

So when I had to deal with these same issues and problems with my own family, I didn't know what to do. I had no model, no example to follow. Instead of finding a model or working it through within myself, I would take out my frustration and my confusion on the kids. And as much as I didn't like it, I found myself dealing with my children exactly as my parents had dealt with me.

The second insight I gained was that I was trying to win social approval for myself through my children's behavior. I wanted to get other people to like me because of their good behavior. I constantly feared that instead of winning approval, my children's behavior would embarrass me. Because of that lack of faith in them, I instructed, threatened, bribed, and manipulated my kids into behaving the way I wanted them to behave. I began to see that my own hunger for approval was keeping my children from growth and responsibility. My actions were actually helping to create the very thing I feared: irresponsible behavior.

Those two insights helped me realize that I needed to conquer my own problems instead of trying to find solutions by getting others to change. My unhappy, confused childhood inclined me to be negative, but it didn't force me to be that way. I could choose to respond differently. It was futile to blame my parents or my circumstances for my painful situation.

I had a very hard time admitting this to myself. I had to struggle with years of accumulated pride. But as I gradually swallowed the bitter pill, I discovered a marvelously free feeling. I was in control. I could choose a better way. I was responsible for myself.

Now when I get into a frustrating situation, I pause. I examine my tendencies. I compare them against my vision. I back away from speaking impulsively or striking out. I constantly strive for perspective and control.

Because the struggle continues, I retire frequently to the solitude of my own inner self to recommit to win my battles privately, to get my motives straight.

This woman was able to create a pause button or a space between what happened to her and her response to it. And in that space she was able to act instead of react. Now how did she do that?

Notice how she was able to step back and almost observe herself-to become aware of her own behavior. This is the first unique human gift: self-awareness. As humans we can stand apart from our own life and observe it. We can even observe our thoughts. We can then step in to make changes and improvements. Animals cannot do this, but we can. This mother did. And it led her to important insights.

The second gift she used was her conscience. Notice how her conscience-her moral or ethical sense or "inner voice"-let her know deep inside that the way she was treating her children was harmful, that it was taking her and her children down the same heartbreaking path that she had walked as a child. Conscience is another unique human gift. It enables you to evaluate what you observe about your own life. To use a computer metaphor, we could say that this moral sense of what is right and wrong is embedded in our "hardware." But because of all of the cultural "software" we pick up and because we misuse, disregard, and neglect this special gift of conscience, we can lose contact with this moral nature within us. Conscience gives us not only a moral sense but a moral power. It represents an energy source that aligns us with the deepest and finest principles contained in our highest nature. All six of the major religions of the world-in one way or another and using different language-teach this basic idea.

Now notice the third gift she used: imagination. This is her ability to envision something entirely different from her past experience. She could envision or imagine a far better response, one that would work in both the short and the long term. She recognized this capacity when she said, "I was in control. I could choose a better way." And because she was self-aware, she could examine her tendencies and compare them against her vision of that better way.

And what is the fourth gift? It's independent will-the power to take action. Listen to her language again: "I back away from speaking impulsively or striking out. I constantly strive for perspective and control" and "Because the struggle continues, I retire frequently to the solitude of my own inner self to recommit, to win my battles privately, to get my motives straight." Just look at her tremendous intention and the willpower she's exercising! She's swimming upstream-even against deeply embedded tendencies. She's getting a grip on her life. She's willing it. She's making it happen. Of course it's hard. But that's the essence of what true happiness is: subordinating what we want now for what we want eventually. This woman has subordinated her impulse to get back, to justify herself, to win, to satisfy her ego-all in the name of the wisdom that her awareness, conscience, and imagination have given her-because what she wants eventually is something far greater, far more powerful in the spirit of the family than the short-term ego gratification she had before.

These four gifts-self-awareness, conscience, creative imagination, and independent will-reside in the space we humans have between what happens to us and our response to it.

Animals have no such space between stimulus and response. They are totally a product of their natural instincts and training. Although they also possess unique gifts we don't have, they basically live for survival and procreation.

But because of this space in human beings, there is more-infinitely more. And this "more" is the life force, the propensity that keeps us ever becoming. In fact, "grow or die" is the moral imperative of all existence.

Since the cloning in Scotland of a sheep named Dolly, there has been renewed interest in the possibility of cloning people and the question of whether it is ethical. So far, much of the discussion is based on the assumption that people are simply more advanced animals-that there is no space between stimulus and response and that we are fundamentally a product of nature (our genes) and nurture (our training, upbringing, culture, and present environment).

But this assumption does not begin to explain the magnificent heights that people such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Mother Teresa have climbed, or as many of the great mothers and fathers in the stories in this book have achieved. That is because deep in the DNA-in the chromosomal structure of the nucleus of every cell of our body-is the possibility of more development and growth and higher achievements and contribution because of the development and use of these unique human gifts.

Now as this woman learns how to develop and use her pause button, she is becoming proactive. She's also becoming a "transition person" in her family-that is, she's stopping the transmission of tendencies from one generation to another. She's stopping it with herself. She's stopping it in herself. She's suffering, if you will, to some degree, which helps burn out the intergenerational dross-this inherited tendency, this well-developed habit to get back, to get even, to be right. Her example is like wildfire to the seedbed of the family culture, to everyone who had entered into this retaliating, contentious, fighting spirit.

Can you imagine the good this woman is doing, the change she's bringing about, the modeling she's providing, the example she's giving? Slowly, subtly, perhaps almost imperceptibly she is bringing about a profound change in the family culture. She's writing a new script. She has become an agent of change.

We all have the ability to do this, and nothing is more exciting. Nothing is more ennobling, more motivating, more affirming, more empowering than the awareness of these four gifts and how they can combine together to bring about fundamental personal and family change. Throughout this book we will explore these gifts in depth through the experiences of people who have developed and used them.

The fact that we have these four unique gifts means no one has to be a victim. Even if you came from a dysfunctional or abusive family, you can choose to pass on a legacy of kindness and love. Even if you just want to be kinder and more patient and respectful than some of the models you've had in your life, cultivating these four gifts can nourish that seed of desire and explode it, enabling you to become the kind of person, the kind of family member you really want to be.

A "Fifth" Human Gift

As Sandra and I have looked back at our family life over the years, we've come to the conclusion that, in one sense, we could say there is a fifth human gift: a sense of humor. We could easily place humor along with self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will, but it is really more of a second order human gift because it emerges from the blending of the other four. Gaining a humorous perspective requires self-awareness, the ability to see the irony and paradox in things and to reassert what is truly important. Humor draws upon creative imagination, the ability to put things together in ways that are truly new and funny. True humor also draws on conscience so that it is genuinely uplifting and doesn't fall into the counterfeit of cynicism or putting people down. It also involves willpower in making the choice to develop a humorous mind-set-to not be reactive, to not be overwhelmed.

Although it is a second order human gift, it is vitally important to the development of a beautiful family culture. In fact, I would say that in our own family the central element that has preserved the sanity, fun, unity, togetherness, and magnetic attraction of our family culture is laughter-telling jokes, seeing the "funny" side of life, poking holes at stuffed shirts, and simply having fun together.

I remember one day when our son Stephen was very young, we stopped at the dairy to get some ice cream. A woman came rushing in, zooming past us in a big hurry. She grabbed two bottles of milk and hurried to the cash register. In the rush, the momentum caused the heavy bottles to bang together, exploding and causing glass and milk to fly all over the floor. The whole place became totally silent. All eyes were on her in her drenched and embarrassed state. No one knew what to do or say.

Suddenly, little Stephen piped up: "Have a laugh, lady! Have a laugh!"

She and everyone else instantly broke out laughing, putting the incident into perspective. Thereafter, when any of us overreacted to a minor situation, someone would say, "Have a laugh!"

We enjoy humor even around our tendency to be reactive. For example, we once saw a Tarzan film together, and we decided to learn a little of the repertoire of the monkeys. So now when we realize we're beginning to get a little reactive, we act out this repertoire. Someone will start, and we'll all join in. We scratch our sides and shout, "Ooo! ooo! ooo! ah! ah! ah!" For us this clearly communicates "Hold it! There's no space here between stimulus and response. We've become animals."

Laughter is a great tension releaser. It's a producer of endorphins and other mood-altering chemicals in the brain that give a sense of pleasure and relief from pain. Humor is also the humanizer and equalizer in relationships. It's all of these things-but it's also much, much more! A sense of humor reflects the very essence of "We're off track-but so what?" It puts things in proper perspective so that we don't "sweat the small stuff." It enables us to realize that, in a sense, all stuff is small. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously and being constantly uptight, constricted, demanding, overexacting, disproportionate, imbalanced, and perfectionistic. It enables us to avoid the hazard of being so immersed in moral values or so wrapped up in moral rigidity that we're blind to our own humanness and the realities of our situation.

People who can laugh at their mistakes, stupidities, and rough edges can get back on track much faster than those perfectionistic souls who place themselves on guilt trips. A sense of humor is often the third alternative to guilt tripping, perfectionistic expectations, and an undisciplined, loosey-goosey, "anything goes" lifestyle.

As with anything else, humor can be carried to excess. It can result in a culture of sarcasm and cutting humor, and it can even produce light-mindedness where nothing is taken seriously.

But true humor is not light-mindedness; it's lightheartedness. And it is one of the fundamental elements of a beautiful family culture. Being around merry, cheerful people who are upbeat and full of good stories and good humor is the very thing that makes people want to be with others. It's also a key to proactivity because it gives you a positive, uplifting, nonreactive way to respond to the ups and downs of daily life.

Love Is a Verb

At one seminar where I was speaking on the concept of proactivity, a man came up and said, "Stephen, I like what you're saying, but every situation is different. Look at my marriage. I'm really worried. My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other that we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore, and she doesn't love me. What can I do?"

"The feeling isn't there anymore?" I inquired.

"That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?"

"Love her," I replied.

"I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore."

"Love her."

"You don't understand. The feeling of love just isn't there."

"Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."

"But how do you love when you don't love?"

"My friend, love is a verb. Love-the feeling-is a fruit of love the verb. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

Hollywood has scripted us to believe that love is a feeling. Relationships are disposable. Marriage and family are matters of contract and convenience rather than commitment and integrity. But these messages give a highly distorted picture of reality. If we return to our metaphor of the airplane flight, these messages are like static that garbles the clear direction from the radio control tower. And they get many, many people off track.

Just look around you-maybe even in your own family. Anyone who has been through a divorce, an estrangement from a companion, a child, or a parent, or a broken relationship of any kind can tell you that there is deep pain, deep scarring. And there are long-lasting consequences that Hollywood usually doesn't tell you about. So while it may seem "easier" in the short run, it is often far more difficult and more painful in the long run to break up a relationship than to heal it-particularly when children are involved.

As M. Scott Peck has said: The desire to love is not itself love. . . . Love is an act of will-namely an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving, if we are in fact not loving, it is because we have chosen not to love and therefore do not love despite our good intentions. On the other hand, whenever we do actually exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth, it is because we have chosen to do so. The choice to love has been made.1 I have one friend who uses his gifts to make a powerful proactive choice every day. When he comes home from work, he sits in his car in the driveway and pushes his pause button. He literally puts his life on pause. He gets perspective. He thinks about the members of his family and what they are doing inside the walls of his house. He considers what kind of environment and feeling he wants to help create when he goes inside. He says to himself, "My family is the most enjoyable, the most pleasant, the most important part of my life. I'm going to go into my home and feel and communicate my love for them."

When he walks through the door, instead of finding fault and becoming critical or simply going off by himself to relax and take care of his own needs, he might dramatically shout, "I'm home! Please try to restrain yourselves from hugging and kissing me!" Then he might go around the house and interact in positive ways with every family member-kissing his wife, rolling around on the floor with the kids, or doing whatever it takes to create pleasantness and happiness, whether it's taking out the garbage or helping with a project or just listening. In doing these things he rises above his fatigue, his challenges or setbacks at work, his tendencies to find fault or be disappointed in what he may find at home. He becomes a conscious, positive creative force in the family culture.