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Victor Frankl and “Between Stimulus and Response“

David Gane
David Gane
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

I've often mistakenly this statement belonged to Victor Frankl. I am not the only one. Many people have misattributed it because of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective People.

It may actually have come from psychologist Rollo May’s 1963 behavioral science article “Freedom and Responsibility Re-Examined,” though the wording varies somewhat.

In Freedom and Destiny he wrote:

Freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to throw one’s weight toward this response rather than that one.
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Co-writer of the Shepherd and Wolfe young adult mysteries, the internationally award-winning series, and teacher of storytelling and screenwriting.

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