Author Stephen R. Covey dead at 79

Stephen R. Covey, author of the top-selling self-help book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” died Monday at the age of 79. The motivational speaker and writer passed away at a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho due to complications from a bicycle accident in April. Covey was hospitalized after being knocked unconscious in the bike crash on a steep road in the foothills of Provo, Utah.

Covey’s most popular text, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” was written to help his readers become more productive in their lives. The book, which was first published in 1989, sold more than 20 million copies in 38 languages. In August 2011, Time listed the text as one of “The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books.” Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Portfolio, a business imprint at Penguin Group (USA), spoke of the book saying, “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.”

In the writer’s final hours, he was surrounded by his wife Sandra and each one of his children and their spouses.