Success Quote by Stephen Covey

In eight words, Covey sells a quiet rebellion against the most common corporate religion: letting past performance dictate future identity. "History" here isn’t just childhood baggage or trauma; it’s your resume, your quarterly numbers, the label your manager pinned on you in 2019, the story you keep repeating because it’s safer than rewriting it. Covey’s command is a management-friendly version of reinvention: you can outgrow your patterns without needing a grand epiphany, just a different operating system.

The genius is the pairing. "Imagination" sounds airy, even indulgent, but Covey frames it as the more practical option. History is inert data; imagination is agency. He’s smuggling self-authorship into a world obsessed with precedents. It also flatters the reader: if you’re stuck, it’s not because the system is rigid, it’s because you’re still living in a smaller story. That’s empowering, and slightly accusatory.

Context matters. Covey built a brand in late-20th-century American self-improvement and executive training, when workplaces were professionalizing "mindset" as a productivity tool. The line fits that era’s optimism: individuals can choose their habits and, by extension, their futures. The subtext is also a warning: if you let history run the script, someone else will. Imagination becomes not fantasy but strategy - the ability to act like the person you want to become before the past grants permission.