Chapter 4: Discover Your Voice (Part 1)

There's a quote Covey uses to start the chapter... the same quote I have on a poster on my wall.  It's from Marianne Williamson (not Nelson Mandela) and it goes like this:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The title of the fourth chapter in Stephen R. Covey's The 8th Habit is "Discover Your Voice." Discover, as in find, unbury, locate.  These are the verbs one uses to describe the way to something that already exists.  All of us have a unique voice, an inner light, a special contribution we make. Mine has been layered over with 52 years of muck, but it is there.  Dr. Phil used to say things like "the only thing worse than staying in a bad relationship for ten years is staying in it for ten years and one day." Looks like the same can be said for continually choosing to keep our voice silent, or doing anything that goes against our best interests. Letting one more day go by without making the choice to accept our natural birth gifts is a tragedy. It's like saying "No thanks, God. I'd rather not be fully human."

Covey describes the epiphany he had when he learned about the space between stimulus and response, and this became the predicate for all of his writings. It works like this: something happens - and before we respond there is a moment when we decide what to say or do. Someone says "that dress looks pretty on you" and then there is a moment when we choose whether to say "thank you" or roll our eyes and say "this old thing?"  Covey says our freedom to create our lives lives in that space, which is larger for some than for others. The whole ball game is in how we respond...

I will never forget the overwhelming sense of relief I felt when I first learned through the work of Dr. Edward Hallowell (see blog post dated 2/22/15) that having an ADD brain meant that I did not have much of a space between stimulus and response. My fly-off-the-handle, bite-your-head-off ways were not as much a moral failing as they were bio-based. Because there is so much to embrace about ADD, so much good to roll with when you give up trying (and failing) to be more like others, it's been fairly productive to stop beating myself up about that. Plus, it feels better.

So now comes Covey to say that even a small space can be grown. That would be good. In fact, I have read that elsewhere as well. That feels like a pretty productive place to begin this month's journey to Discover My Voice. 

More about the chapter: The freedom to choose is one of three natural "birth gifts" Covey describes.  The second is natural laws or principles, something he talks about throughout all of his works. I have decided to keep a master list of these as I go.  So far, I have fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service, contribution, responsibility, purpose. He also says the seven habits are natural laws.  More on that later.  

Principles are universal, inarguable, like gravity. Values, on the other hand, are personal and subjective. People who align their personal values with universal principles are said to have a strong moral compass. This shows up in their behavior and they develop moral authority. 

The third birth gift is being endowed with the four dimensions of being human... Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit. Covey guarantees that if we focus on developing ourselves in all four arenas "you will find great peace, and power will come in to your life." I'll have more on all of this in coming weeks, but for now, here is the basic breakdown: 

• Mental Intelligence (IQ): Our ability to think, analyze, comprehend. Long since debunked as the most important predictor of likely success.
• Physical Intelligence (PQ):  Being of sound body, maximum health and fitness.
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Having a strong sense of self-knowledge, self-awareness, empathy with others, social sensitivity and ability to successfully communicate with others. 
• Spiritual Intelligence (SQ): Our conscience and our drive to have meaning in our lives, being connected to That Which is Bigger than Ourselves. Covey says this one drives and guides the others.

The book has a 20 page appendix called "Developing the Four Intelligences/Capacities - A Practical Guide to Action." I will be working my way through that over the next few weeks, as well as through some of the books Covey refers to in this chapter, mostly having to do with EQ.  This is all part of my commitment to spend a year with The 8th Habit.  Do let me know if you are following along.