Episode 90
What Covey’s 7 Habits Teach Us About Modern Leadership (Part 1 of 4)
We’re kicking off a brand-new series revisiting Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — through the lens of modern leadership. In this episode, Josh and Bob unpack the first two habits:
- Be Proactive – Don’t wait for permission. Great leaders anticipate, act, and build ahead of the curve. From hiring talent before you need it to proactively managing your own growth, proactivity isn’t about flailing — it’s about intentional, forward-looking leadership.
- Begin with the End in Mind – Leadership starts with clarity. Whether it’s building a product, scaling a team, or shaping a career, vision matters. But so does flexibility. Josh and Bob share stories about startups, strategy shifts, and why leaders must balance end goals with the twists and turns of the real world.
The conversation is unfiltered, practical, and rooted in decades of lived experience — showing how these timeless habits still hold power today.
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Transcript
Maybe a metaphor, metacastas is you're surfing and you're on that you're on that edge of
the wave.
2
:Right.
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:And you're you're successfully balancing the wave in everything you do.
4
:You're not paddling from behind.
5
:And maybe an interesting part of that metaphor is you're not so proactive or so ahead of
the curve that you're crashing, you're crashing into the ocean, right?
6
:But it's that balancing act of the metaphor.
7
:Whether I had a role or not, I was always looking for people because I realized the
difficulty in finding good people.
8
:And if I waited until I was given the green light to go hire, then I was scrambling to
make this thing happen.
9
:So I just decided I'm gonna be always looking for really good, good people.
10
:Because at the end of the day, Josh, my goal on this earth is to make your life better.
11
:It's all that I care about.
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:Would you like some feedback on how you're progressing towards your goal?
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:uh
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:we have a new series kicking off today.
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:This is a brainchild from the beloved Bob Galen.
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:We are visiting the seven habits of highly effective people as authored by one Stephen
Covey.
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:So Bob, as the brainchild of this series, tell us how you feel about this.
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:Metacasters.
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:Boo-yah!
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:That's how I feel about it.
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:No, I'll tell a story to kick this off, Josh, maybe a little bit.
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:uh In the 80s, probably around, I think the book was published in 85 to 87, and I was made
a manager around that time.
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:And I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
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:And then this Stephen Cubby, it burst onto the scene.
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:was a management leadership book.
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:It was incredibly popular at the time.
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:And then a company was doing binders like you were talking about in our prep work, you
know, like planners, daily planners and things.
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:So there was there was almost a whole there was a whole brand of stuff around it.
29
:And I remember it came out and I read the book and I thought it was it was great.
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:was thought provoking and it was on point.
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:And then someone gave me a gift of cassettes and that gives you like a cassette, like all
of the like like reading.
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:the book through cassettes ah and I was in my car and I was cubying it, you know,
continuously for a couple years.
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:ah And so it really and then I lost it and not lost it, but I just didn't think about
occasionally I brought up references in the medicast.
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:I think you may have to.
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:ah But in this thing, this series, I wanted to go back and revisit the habits.
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:So it's been, MediCast just 30, I think they celebrated the 35th year of the book's
publication.
37
:Stephen Covey is no longer with us.
38
:He passed away over a decade ago, I believe.
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:ah 35th, probably 38th year since publication.
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:ah And I'm wondering if they still live and they still breathe and if they're still
relevant and if we can still learn from them, ah if we can bring it under this MediCast
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:leadership context.
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:And we can weave in agileness to it as well, like we always do.
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:So bring in that.
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:And I won't be offended if we vote one down, Josh, and say that's no longer relevant ah
and we learn from it.
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:But I think my gut is telling me these things are still, they've stood the test of time.
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:Just like, remember we talked about Colin Powell and his leader?
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:I think they may have, but we'll see.
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:So, Medicasters, we're going to do two habits each week.
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:And then we'll land on Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw in a final session.
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:So this is going to go over four weeks.
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:And the first two Habits, Josh, are...
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:Maybe I'll kick it off and then you can dive in and we'll have Josh's take first.
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:ah So Habit 1 is be proactive and Habit 2 is begin with the end in mind.
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:So let me define what Bob thinks.
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:So be proactive is uh think ahead of the game.
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:ah Be strategic.
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:Don't wait to be told to do something.
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:Try to be ahead of the curve.
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:uh Be proactive in your planning.
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:Be proactive in your execution.
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:Be proactive in your strategy.
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:I always thought it really aligned with, you know, I thought of tactical leaders, in the
moment, command and control leaders versus folks who did that, but also really leaned into
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:the future.
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:And was a reminder.
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:think it's there.
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:There's also a balancing act in there a little bit.
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:So that's habit one.
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:Josh reactions.
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:Yeah, I in my brain how I've interpreted that how I apply that em is don't wait for
permission.
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:That's a that's a key thing that has shaped some of the successes and some of the
challenges that I've had em is I have found real value, especially when trying to drive
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:change in being proactive and not waiting for things to be handed or given or
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:for you to be like tapped on the shoulder, like you can do this.
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:just, this is a Bob moment.
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:I just wrote an article about becoming the imposter about folks that struggle with feeling
like you're an imposter, like you don't belong.
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:And what I actually was talking to people about is become the imposter, go put yourself in
the situation where it's uncomfortable.
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:So, so for me, that has been how I've grown.
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:And so I see this and I read into that and it's,
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:confirming in my brain of, yeah, that's a thing that has worked for me.
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:That's a thing that I preach.
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:That's a thing that I teach in go make it happen.
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:Don't wait for things to be given to you.
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:uh Something we've seen in my career is uh I was early in the 90s and 2000s labeled a job
hopper.
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:um And there were many people, old school, including my parents, like, hey, you gotta stop
doing that.
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:it's going to look bad, bad on your resume.
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:And I actually viewed it as I was going and getting the job that I wanted as opposed to
waiting for it to be given to me.
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:So I decided to take thing in my, my, my own hands.
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:And so this aligns pretty nicely with how I think about being a leader.
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:And when I think about people on my team, that's what I want them to be able to do.
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:That's what I want to empower them to do is to see a problem and to go attack it.
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:as opposed to like, hey, Josh, have you noticed this problem?
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:If you've noticed it, cool, let us know and we should go fix it.
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:No, I want people that find problems, attack them and just continue to do that over and
over again.
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:Because to me, that's how you scale a winning organization by having a group of people
that can look around, find issues and then quickly attack them and resolve them before
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:they grow.
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:I think beyond the team, one of things I think about is be proactive in everything we do
as a leader.
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:ah So if you don't like your company, be proactive in looking for your next role.
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:Not that that's the point, you know, but ah be proactive in managing your network, ah your
collegial network.
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:ah Be proactive in hiring and recruiting.
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:We've talked a lot about that in MediCast.
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:about anticipating, uh anticipating future needs.
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:So there's an anticipatory aspect of proactivity.
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:It's not just flailing.
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:We as the leader are really looking down the horizon and anticipating.
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:So recruiting, our role, succession planning.
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:We've talked about that in the MetaCast not that long ago.
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:uh Be proactive in everything we do.
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:Be proactive in our own growth, in our own learning and development.
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:Like if you know what the thing you're worst at, whatever it is, what your biggest
weakness is, and it's standing in the way of your team, you see what it's doing to team or
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:projects, you don't wait to be told.
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:Like the last thing you want to do is have your boss pull you aside and say, Josh, that
hat is huge, right?
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:I know that.
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:And it's it's you want to you want to shrink your head and you want to proactively shrink
your head.
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:So but all joking aside, better castors, there's there's a broad and deep nuance to the
proactive there.
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:The other thing might also be what not to do, because you could get overwhelmed with, what
are you saying, Bob?
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:I have to anticipate every possible outcome and be ahead of the game.
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:Probably not.
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:There's some prioritization, there's anticipation, there's using your best judgment, et
cetera.
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:But then deciding what's in play and then being ahead of that.
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:Yeah, you bring up a really great point about hiring and I just want to talk through
evolution for me as a leader with that hiring process and I started out not in a proactive
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:manner and I would wait for a job description like hey Josh, you are now allowed to hire
these roles and I would dutifully go do it and then things would happen and I got coached
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:and I learned and I grew and I evolved.
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:into the situation where I was always looking for people.
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:Whether I had a role or not, I was always looking for people because I realized the
difficulty in finding good people.
124
:And if I waited until I was given the green light to go hire, then I was scrambling to
make this thing happen.
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:So I just decided I'm gonna be always looking for really good, good people.
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:Then what happened is I would find good people and I would like try and keep them on a
shelf, try and keep them warm, like, just
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:Just like, just hang on.
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:think I'm going to get to get a position open in six months.
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:Just hang on.
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:Then what I started doing is I started, okay.
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:I've got somebody good.
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:Now how do I get them on my team as soon as possible?
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:What are the levers I can pull?
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:What are the things that I can do to get that person hired?
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:Even though I don't have an official wreck or have something open or anything like that.
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:But when I recognize someone's good and they need to be a part of my team,
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:Then I need to proactively find a way to make that happen.
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:What, what are the ways I can do that?
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:What are the ways where we're allocating money over there or there's money that wasn't
spent that I can now spend there and make that happen.
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:So that's the evolution of becoming proactive in the hiring space that I, that I went
through over probably about a decade.
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:And that really changed the game for me instead of always being in a reactive mode, get
into this proactive so that either
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:when the opening was available, boom, had someone or I just hired someone when the need
was there.
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:It just did it.
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:I'm with you.
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:I've had the same experience in hiring and recruiting.
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:I mean, I want to just extend that to everything we do.
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:It's anticipating a new technology stack ah would be the same thing.
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:You're looking at technology stacks.
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:You're looking ahead.
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:You're looking at tooling as a leader.
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:You're anticipating that.
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:You're anticipating the people side.
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:You're anticipating evolutionary growth of the company.
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:So like, say there's an &A on the future on the well.
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:you you detect because you're proactive in &A on the future.
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:And then you get you get involved in that very early on.
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:You become, you know, a key, key part of the team analyzing that.
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:So you're again, it's to me, be proactive is be ahead of the curve.
159
:Maybe a metaphor, metacastas is you're surfing and you're on that you're on that edge of
the wave.
160
:Right.
161
:And you're you're successfully balancing the wave in everything you do.
162
:ah You're not paddling from behind.
163
:And maybe an interesting part of that metaphor is you're not so proactive or so ahead of
the curve that you're crashing, you're crashing into the ocean, right?
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:But it's that balancing act of the metaphor.
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:Anything else?
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:I feel good about covering that, Josh.
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:Anything from your point of view?
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:No, I think your surfing visual is good.
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:em And I can understand how someone listening or watching can feel overwhelmed because you
start thinking about how to, by trying to be proactive with everything, how do I, how do I
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:do that?
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:And, and, and I think you just pick one thing.
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:Yeah.
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:one thing and get to where you feel comfortable and confident in like, okay, I am
effectively on the wave for this thing.
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:I am effectively proactive with that.
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:And then find the next thing.
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:Don't try and tackle this all at once.
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:Find the thing that is most troublesome in your current space as a leader that you just
wish you were a little bit more ahead of the curve on and then focus on making that
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:happen.
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:And
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:If you're thinking about that and you have no freaking clue how to do that, reach out to
us, right?
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:The number of times over the past couple of months, Bob and I have really talked about the
importance as a leader of getting help.
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:I got lucky.
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:I stumbled into having Bob as a natural mentor coach over the past 20 years.
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:I got lucky.
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:Not everybody's going to be that, that lucky, but you're lucky enough to be listening or
watching here.
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:So reach out to us.
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:We, we are here to help.
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:If we can't help you, we'll find somebody that can.
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:So if it feels overwhelming, you just start at the beginning, just like start with step
one and start with that thing that's bothering you the most and try and get proactive.
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:And if you're struggling to find your way, get some help.
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:I'm going to disagree a little bit with Josh in that it's not just one thing.
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:And I'm pulling this out of thin air, MandeCaster.
193
:So give me some grace.
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:But I would pick a quadrant model of some sort.
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:And I would say one quadrant would be, what personal thing am I going to be proactive on?
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:Then I would say team.
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:And maybe my model here would be, you're a manager or a leader.
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:And then I would have another quadrant to say, what is the number one team thing that I
need to get ahead of the curve on?
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:It could be recruiting, like we were talking about.
200
:Then I would say, what one work project related thing do I need to get a product
development or something?
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:Do I need to be?
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:And you might be your team might be working on 10 of them.
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:So what's the one?
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:And again, don't be intimidated, but it's a little bit of parallel.
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:And then the final one would be strategy.
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:And what I would say is true look ahead, true look ahead as a leader.
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:And you might reserve this one.
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:If you're just starting out, this one might be a little scary, but you want to put it on
your quadrant model because what I find is leaders have a weakness that they, they stay in
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:the moment too much and they don't look ahead enough.
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:So this quadrant will be one to make sure you're not, you're not staying too much in the
now and it's only a quadrant.
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:So what am I, what am I suggesting?
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:Bite off, not just one, but maybe.
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:as you do it, look at it at four different areas and then pick one thing per.
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:uh Josh, is that too much do you think?
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:No, I think that's a reasonable thing.
216
:have, recognize you're new to this.
217
:So give yourself narrow scope.
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:Make that scope, make that narrow scope as large as you can manage, but keep it narrow.
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:And I think Bob's approach is fair and right on.
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:All right, second habit, habit two, begin with the end in mind.
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:uh Full disclosure, Medicare is one of my favorite ones.
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:I'd probably quote it.
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:I quote it in coaching.
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:I quote it in my personal life.
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:I quote it a lot.
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:Or say it.
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:I say it out loud.
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:I say it mentally.
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:uh The way I think of it is, I think of it from a project mindset mostly, or a product or
a uh project plan mindset.
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:What are we doing?
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:Like if you're building a team, for example, Josh has joined organizations in the very
beginning of their evolution.
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:If that was me, I would say, okay, I'm building an organization.
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:I'm building it.
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:There's two developers and I need to scale it to 30.
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:I would pause and say, what kinds of team, what are the dynamics I'm looking to build?
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:What are the outcomes I'm looking?
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:What's the vision for the team?
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:So I'm at the very beginning of that exercise, but I'm looking down at the end.
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:And I know things evolve, but I'm looking down at the end or an endpoint or a milestone,
and I'm envisioning that.
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:And then now I keep that in mind.
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:I get that mindset.
242
:It's sort of that mind quest.
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:And I keep that in mind during that journey.
244
:ah I love it when project managers, so project managers, I think when you do a project
charter, ah
245
:or a liftoff in agile terms, there's a term in agile, there's a book called Liftoff.
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:The liftoff is what happens at the beginning.
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:I think begin with the end in mind is a beginning activity.
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:And it really sets the proper beginning.
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:So Josh.
250
:Yeah, to me this this aligns with a ton of the coaching that I've done as well, even at
the company level, just company strategy level of beginning with the end in mind, I was
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:working with a company a few few months ago, and they had their first on site and they
were talking about what their mission and vision should be.
252
:And there was all this stuff.
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:And then I just hit the pause button.
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:I said, let's talk about five years from now.
255
:How are we going to have fundamentally changed the section of the world that we're working
on?
256
:What is the thing that we're going to do that we're going to be proud of?
257
:Let's define what that is.
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:And then we work through that over the next hour or so.
259
:And once we had that clarity, we all were on the same page with the type of company, the
type of product, the type of change that we wanted to drive within the market that we were
260
:attacking.
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:Once we had that, everything else just kind of fell in line.
262
:mission, the vision, the product we needed to build who we needed to attack as the
customer base everything, but we were really wrestling with trying to get everything
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:perfect without really knowing what the finish line looked like.
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:And so that's a thing that I always talk about is what is the finish line?
265
:There's a, think it was Bob.
266
:If it wasn't Bob, I'm going to give Bob credit.
267
:Um, 20 years ago, he and I were working together and trying to get people to understand
this.
268
:And he talked about, Hey, we're in North Carolina.
269
:And our destination is Hollywood.
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:We have to go from here to Hollywood.
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:We have a general idea of the path we're going to take.
272
:going to, we don't know when the bathroom breaks are going to happen, when somebody's
going to get hungry, when there's going to be a traffic jam, when who knows what's going
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:to happen, but the destination is always Hollywood.
274
:And that's the thing we're always driving towards and we can never lose sight of that.
275
:And so that's something that's always stuck with me in always having that.
276
:that end in mind that Bob, whether it was you or not, it's you now.
277
:I think that's a common sort of metaphor, but we probably explored that years ago.
278
:I would say yes, and things like MVP, if anyone's minimal viable product, establishing
that, to me that's a begin with the end in mind activity.
279
:Anything where you're sort of looking at end state, end state for product, end state for
functionality, end state for an M &A, end state for building a team.
280
:And and stay free, you know, with your career even you can apply that to your career Like
what are you trying to you know, very often we're living in the moment.
281
:There's nothing wrong with that But like it's what's directional soundness begin with the
end in mind to me is like having directional soundness or directional awareness Rather
282
:than than just shooting in the dark ah I have a funny story Josh.
283
:I see at least it's funny to me.
284
:I was in the army
285
:years ago and in basic training we had we were getting trained with our rifles and one of
the activities was night fire and night fire was you take and most of the folks were like
286
:18 to 20 21 years old so relatively young and you take and you take like 200 guys out to a
range at night and and you give them trace around so night fire is you put in your
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:magazine like a tracer every
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:three or four bullets you put a tracer around and night and in this case Josh it was live
fire ie bullets were flying and and then the drone sectors you know they point you you
289
:know you're supposed to be going down range right down ranges point everyone point in that
direction uh so directional sound this was there but then when they said you know go you
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:see tracer rounds
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:going up in the air.
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:You see them going behind us.
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:You see people firing.
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:We're lucky we didn't kill people.
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:So that's not so beginning and end in mind is like that directional awareness, which we
clearly didn't have that.
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:And we're lucky that no one died.
297
:One of the things that uh I know I have gotten myself in trouble with is just a slight
word of warning with beginning with the end in mind is there have been times when I became
298
:so maniacally attached to what the end looked like that I didn't recognize where we were.
299
:So if we go back to um driving from North Carolina to Hollywood and driving West, it would
be there's a giant traffic jam in front of us.
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:And like, but I know this is the highway that gets us there.
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:This is the highway to Hollywood.
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:This is what we're doing.
303
:This is the road we're taking and, being too stubborn and being too focused on that and
not having a willingness or capability to divert ourselves for a little bit and
304
:understanding that if we can't get past this, if we can't get through Texas, we're never
going to make it to California.
305
:So let's
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:Yes, we're going to get to California, but we're not there yet.
307
:We have to make it through Texas first.
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:And so there were times and I've seen people that over optimize for the end, even though
the end is a couple of years away and that op that optimization for the end is slowing
309
:them down, which may prevent them from ever reaching that, that, that end.
310
:We're going to get into that, I think, in some of the next items of the seven habits here,
but that's, that's, that's something that I know that I have over
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:rotated on and I've made a couple mistakes.
312
:just be thoughtful about that and then kind of tease up the next thing we're talking about
in episode two of this series.
313
:think you nailed an important point, Josh, and probably this is an adjustment to Cubby's
view.
314
:So back again, remember mid 80s, mid to later 80s, seven habits came out very tragic, very
traditional PMI project planning, very traditional command and control death marches.
315
:This is the land of Ed Yordan's death march projects and things like that.
316
:I think Cubby's end in mind was a fixed end.
317
:What we've learned from
318
:that over time, I hope most of us have learned is the end can change.
319
:ah So oh maybe an extension to Covey's thinking is begin with the end in mind, but then
have points of evaluation and pivot.
320
:ah Hollywood would be the destination, but maybe then it changes for business conditions
to Phoenix.
321
:Then it changes to Denver.
322
:We're still going West.
323
:And we don't want to be in Phoenix and then switch to Denver.
324
:I mean, that would be wasteful.
325
:So we want to be polling and adjusting and pivoting.
326
:But it's a changeable end.
327
:But at each pivot point, we reevaluate, well, what is the end?
328
:And if we land in Denver, what part of Denver?
329
:What season or whatever, things like that, the details get reestablished.
330
:Yeah, there've been multiple startups that I've been in.
331
:Again, this is something that early in my career, I struggled with because, because I had
that clear definition of this is the finish line and that's, and that's going to happen.
332
:So I need to build the team, the product to get there.
333
:And we were in startup mode and we were wrestling for funding and it was just, and I had
to have, I had to be sat down and said like, Josh, I understand that you're optimizing for
334
:this, that that finish line is where you're
335
:you're trying to get us and I appreciate that.
336
:But if we don't last the next six months, if we don't generate the revenue we need over
the next six months, that destination never has a chance.
337
:So I need you to refocus on the now.
338
:And so that's one of those things that, again, if we just go with the words, begin with
the end in mind.
339
:So that means that you start there.
340
:Everybody starts the foundation of this is who we're trying to be.
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:This is what we want to achieve.
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:This is what we want to
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:to accomplish, but the journey is still the journey.
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:There's going to be twists and turns and accidents and bathroom breaks and who knows
what's going to happen, right?
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:No one knows what's going to happen, but we have an idea of where we're going.
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:then to Bob's point, we evaluate as we travel through that journey and make whatever
decisions are appropriate so that we can survive the day, right?
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:And then we just stack up days that we survive.
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:We keep stacking those up and eventually we're going to get to that destination.
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:Maybe not exactly when we thought.
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:Maybe the journey won't be exactly like we envisioned it.
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:It might be better.
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:You never know.
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:some maybe do a way to close this episode, Josh, as I just was thinking, and I hadn't
thought this, I always thought of the habits as being linear habits or singular habits,
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:but I just had a interconnection.
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:And I think one of the things we should do is look for interconnections as we go forward.
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:So beginning the end in mind needs be proactive, proactively reevaluate where are we
going?
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:Mm-hmm.
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:And do that in real time.
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:So there's a cross cut there Between habit one and habit two that I think is important to
keep in mind and look metacasters look for those cross cuts as we go forward because I
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:think those cross cuts became are becoming more important as we evolve from the mid 80s to
today and and beyond with that uh Coming attractions metacasters habit three put first
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:things first and Habit four I'm excited about this next session think
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:win-win.
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:So with that, I think we've covered the two, Josh, and ah hopefully we've what people's
appetite for this series.
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:uh Now I'm from, oh, I forgot my clothes, uh from beautiful downtown Cary, North Carolina.
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:And for beautiful downtown Fuqua Verena, North Carolina.
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:I'm Bob the Big Bob-A-Loo Galen.
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:And I'm Josh the small Babaloo Anderson and bake.
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:Take care, y'all.
