The well-known motivational speaker and self-help bestseller Stephen R. Covey died this Monday in a hospital in Idaho Falls.
The former Brigham Young University business professor, died yesterday over complications from a head injury he suffered in April this year while riding his bicycle. Debra Lund, his publicist revealed that the doctors didn’t find any signs of long-term damage in his head.
“He just lost control on his bike and crashed,” Lund said. “He was wearing a helmet, which is good news”. But Covey’s daughter, Catherine Sagers, told The Salt Lake Tribune, that the best-seller author had suffered some internal head bleeding after the crash.
Along with his head injury, Lund stated he also had cracked ribs and a partially collapsed lung that never actually got to recover after two months of hospitalization.
After he had been released from the hospital, Sean Covey, the author’s son stated that his father was at a family gathering in Montana when his health started deteriorating and they took him to the closest hospital.
“Our family, all nine kids and our spouses and my mom, were able to gather together again to be with him for the last few hours of his life, which is what he always wanted,” Sean Covey stated in an email to The Tribune, after his father’s death.
Considered by many the pioneer of self-help genre books, Stephen Covey throughout his career managed to change the lives of thousands of people. In 1989, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” has been one of the best selling self-help books on the market until today. With more than 20 million copies in 38 languages, Covey helped regular people along with the rich and wealthy.
“This was one of the first books in recent times that was really directed at prioritizing the way you worked, so you could be more effective as an individual” said Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Portfolio. Zachkeim described Stephen Covey’s work as a book that would apply to anybody and that “you would hear about whole organizations where everybody in the company was expected to read the book.”
