The second habit in Stephen Covey’s best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “Begin with the end in mind.” Pope Leo X would have disagreed.
Twyla Tharp tells the story of Pope Leo X and his frustration with Leonardo da Vinci in her book The Creative Habit. da Vinci was experimenting with varnishes and so forth when the Pope thought he should be painting. Leo’s assessment of da Vinci:
This man will never do anything, for he begins thinking about the end before the beginning of his work.
The premise of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People seems statistically dubious. Where’s the control group?