Covey was traveling on a subway when a man and his two sons get on. The two boys are running around the train making a lot of noise and it's clear that everyone else on the train is irritated. Covey finally reaches a point where he goes up to the father of the boys and questions why he is not doing something to control the children. The man responds to him with "We just left the hospital where their mother passed away. I'm not sure how to handle it, and I guess they don't know how to either."
You don't know someone's story, where they've been, or what is currently happening in their lives. You still see those yelling and frantic children, but you see them in a completely different light, and suddenly your irritation vanishes and you're full of sympathy and compassion. This is a paradigm shift, looking at something in a completely different manner.
In his book, Covey emphasizes having a behavior based on a paradigm of the world centered more on unchanging principles instead of being centered on what actually happens in the world. Paradigms create our behaviors. A parent who comes in late to pick up their child is "irresponsible" and "a bad parent," when in reality there is an endless list of possibilities that could be the result of that parent being late everyday that have nothing to do with what kind of parent they are.
I've learned a great deal from this book, definitely recommend it!
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