Habit 4 Think Lose Book Report

Covey completely shocked me early on in the book, when he went over the 7 habits of highly defective teens, when he stated, “Habit 4: Think Win- Lose. See life as a vicious competition. Your classmate is out to get you, so you’d better get him or her first. Don’t let anyone else succeed at anything, because, remember, if they win, you lose. If it looks like you’re going to lose, however, make sure you drag that sucker down with you.” (page 7). This statement mortified me. Half of my life I have been racing to be better than others because the best at anything get the prize. The best students go to ivy-league schools. The best athletes go to the pros. I even thought that all grading was grading on a curve for a couple years, where only a few
students got A’s and B’s, and everyone else got a C or D. Reading this initially so early in the book I instantly thought, “Man. This is stupid. I’ve worked forever to beat others, because I want to go to a great school and live a happy, simple life. What is the point of this nonsense?”. However, as I read the book, one glorious idea emerged: the concept of win win. I’ve used this concept a lot before without realizing it, but I realized I could apply the idea in many different areas. Covey’s explanation of win win was, “Win Win is abundant. It is the belief that there’s plenty of success to go around. It’s not either me or you. It’s both of us. It’s not a matter of who gets the biggest slice of pie. There’s more than enough for everyone. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.” (page 152). This explanation opened my eyes, and let me understand the idea that not everything is win- lose. If I help my friend in math, they’ll help me in french, and we can both improve on our grades. We can continue to help each other to get into better colleges, and better jobs. I still believe that the world has a ton of win- lose inside of it, but Covey opened my eyes to help make life better for everyone, including myself.