Security and clear guidance bring true wisdom, and wisdom becomes the spark or catalyst to release and direct power. When these four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual.

The extent to which you begin with the end in mind often determines whether or not you are able to create a successful enterprise. Most business failures begin in the first creation, with problems such as undercapitalization, misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business plan.

Spend time with your children now, one on one. Listen to them; understand them. Look at your home, at school life, at the challenges and the problems they're facing, through their eyes. Build the Emotional Bank Account. Give them air.

In emphatic listening, you listen with your eyes and your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel. Empathic listening is powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with.

If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act upon you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole — the work needs, the family needs, other needs that may be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions — you'll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration.

If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.

All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind.

Many people experience a fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddenly step into a new role, such as that of husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions.

The Character Ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.