Name: Live Life in Crescendo
Rating: 4.6 (195 reviews)
Author: Stephen R. Covey and Cynthia Covey Haller

What’s in it for me? Learn how to live your life with a crescendo mentality.

Imagine you’re listening to a piece of classical music. As you listen, the music becomes louder. And it doesn’t just get louder; it also swells and grows. It expands and intensifies. The result is an intense blend of rhythm, harmony, and melody. This is exactly what crescendo means in musical terms.

The opposite is diminuendo. The energy of the music fades. Volume and power recede. And, eventually, the music comes to an end.

Applying the same terms to life, living in diminuendo would mean you’d cease to expand your horizons. You’d stop growing and learning, contributing and producing. But you can choose to live your life in crescendo, continuing to grow and contribute, by adopting a new mindset: the best is yet to come, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

In this Blink, we’ll guide you through four stages of life where you could choose to diminuendo and fade away - or to crescendo and do your best work ever.

First, we’ll look at the midlife struggle, where you might not think you’ve achieved what you set out to do. Then comes the pinnacle of success, where you believe you’ve achieved great success – and feel you’ve completed all you’ll ever achieve. Third, we’ll take a look at some life-changing setbacks, which could define your future if you let them. And finally, we’ll think about the second half of life, when you’ve retired and the expectation might be that you wind down.

Regardless of which stage of life you’re in, you’ll learn some key principles that can guide you to new heights.

In this Blink, you’ll discover

how to use a crescendo mindset to face your midlife crisis;
that your best work always lies ahead of you; and
why practicing ikigai can increase your longevity.

Midlife

Do you ever think that life has passed you by? Maybe you feel like your dreams and aspirations are beyond your grasp, and you’ve given up trying to achieve anything. Often, this happens in the midlife years and so has become known as a midlife crisis. But you, and many others experiencing the same feelings, have likely accomplished much more than you think in areas that matter the most.

Let’s consider George Bailey for a moment. OK, he’s a fictional character in the film It’s a Wonderful Life – but we can still learn a lot from George. He’s a small-town guy with a low-paying job. He once had big dreams, but he gave them up to manage his father’s company. Now, he finds himself facing financial ruin due to no fault of his own. Despairing, he considers throwing himself off a bridge.

Enter Clarence – an angel who hasn’t yet earned his wings. To earn them, he’s tasked with stopping George from jumping. When George tells him he wishes he’d never been born, Clarence shows him how the town would look without him. It’s a dark place, miserable and full of bitter people. Clarence demonstrates how George has touched the lives of so many, and how his absence would leave a huge hole. Realizing he’s never fully appreciated what he’s had, George rushes home to the people he loves. Only now does he fully understand that he truly has a wonderful life.

What George had forgotten was that success comes in many flavors. We don’t have to measure it in terms of our jobs, nor do we have to meet other people’s expectations. Life is a mission – not a career. What we really need is to be successful in the most important roles in our lives and to work toward being an influence for good in the world.

To help you create your best possible future, write down what you’d like others to say about you at your funeral. Think about what people will know you for, and what your greatest accomplishments will be. When you look back at your life, what will have given you the most joy and satisfaction? What legacy will you leave behind? Does what you want match where you are now?

By working through this exercise, you’ll be able to see what you need to do to create your future life. What goals do you need to set? What adjustments can you make to help you reach those goals?

The answer lies in another book by Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s the principle of first things first. That is, prioritize your goals around the people and things that matter to you most in life.

This principle will also help you forget yourself for a while and instead think about how you can serve others. What can you do to encourage someone, make their lives easier, or raise their spirits?

As you work through your plans, bear these tenets of a crescendo mentality in mind too:

First of all, think about what true success means to you. Don’t worry about what others may think, and skip any comparisons with them. What matters to you in your most important roles?

Second, make sure you can identify which changes you need to make in your life to attain the positive results you desire. Then, courageously work toward making these changes happen!

Success

If you’ve already experienced some great success in your life, you might be tempted to sit back and pass the baton to others. But if you want to live your life in crescendo, you should always remember that your most important work lies ahead. If you adopt this crescendo mindset, you’ll always have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning.

One of Covey’s daughters once asked him if he’d ever write something like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People again. He felt a little insulted. Was his life over? Did he have nothing left to contribute? But he told her that his best work was yet to come, and that he still had other books in his head. His crescendo mentality was key to his passion, dream, excitement, and mission.

Setbacks

In 2009, Christian and Stephanie Nielson’s plane crashed and caught fire. They were lucky to escape with their lives. Christian’s flight instructor, Doug Kinneard, wasn’t so lucky – he received burns on 90 percent of his body and died of his injuries. Christian experienced burns on 40 percent of his body and Stephanie on 80 percent. They were both put into induced comas, and it took five weeks for Christian to wake up. Stephanie’s recovery took longer; it was three months before she regained consciousness.

She’d been a beautiful young woman, and at first, she struggled to look at her new face. For her four young children, all under the age of seven, it was even more difficult. It took a long time for them to adjust. But in spite of all the difficulties, Stephanie remembered that she had a beautiful family around her – and that mattered much more than her appearance.

The second half of life

Retirement. It’s something that some look forward to; others dread it. Society generally views this as a period of winding down. And the retiree has to think about what to do with the time they have left on Earth.

But retirement is actually a pretty new concept. History is full of people who never cut back just because of their age. And nowadays, people in many occupations – CEOs, doctors, lawyers, politicians, business owners – simply refuse to conform to the idea that their usefulness has come to an end. They continue to contribute year in, year out. And they believe that it’s in the last third of their lives that they’ll make their finest contributions.

What is Live Life in Crescendo about?

Live Life in Crescendo (2022) anecdotally provides the answers to many questions about life: How do you live your best life, no matter how old you are? How do you respond to life-changing challenges? What do you do if you have a midlife crisis? It shows how to live life in crescendo – continually growing in contribution, learning, and influence.

About the Author

Stephen R. Covey was an educator, author, speaker, and businessman who helped others live more effective, compassionate, and meaningful lives. His legendary book, the internationally best-selling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has sold over 50 million copies worldwide and has been published in over 40 languages. Toward the end of his life, Covey felt there was a final component needed to complete his work. Live Life in Crescendo is that final chapter.

Cynthia Covey Haller cowrote this life-changing, life-affirming book with her father.