aStore Proxy » The Web Entreprenuer Store

Product Description

For centuries, it has been assumed that there are vast limits to human capacity. Now, although a host of scientific discoveries prove this wrong, a mindset of limits persists, blocking us from our greatest possibilities and leaving us feeling bombarded by stress, change, and uncertainty. No matter how hard we work, no matter how much we give, we're still not getting what we hoped for. There is another way.

Dr. Robert Cooper, a neuroscience pioneer and leadership advisor, urges us to take a radically different view of human capacity. We are mostly unused potential, he says, employing less than 10 percent of our brilliance or hidden talents. In easy-to-follow steps, he explains how to develop and apply the art and science of your hidden capacity.

The art is the motivation and inspiration coming from the wonderful stories that are the heart of The Other 90%. Dr. Cooper draws on his wide-ranging insights and experiences to show how it's possible to make a difference in yourself and others.

However, inspiration without a way to turn vision into reality is an empty vessel. Combining art with science, Dr. Cooper provides extraordinary help in the form of specific, little-known practical ways to use the latest research in neuroscience, performance psychology, and work physiology for excelling in a pressure-filled world. He shows you how to:

* Increase energy at work -- and have more energy for personal and family life.

* Activate the brain's "alertness switches" to defeat pressure and stress.

* Use not only the brain in your head but the ones in your heart and gut.

* Motivate exceptional ingenuity and performance in yourself and others.

The most exciting breakthroughs will not come from advances in technology but from a deeper realization of what it means to be most human and alive. Many of the choices that can dramatically change our lives are simple and practical -- yet few people know what these choices are or how to apply them in work and life. The Other 90% is your guide to new territory and new challenges.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #312856 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-22
• Released on: 2002-10-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.60" h x .87" w x 5.52" l, .69 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 316 pages

Amazon.com Review
Some 10-to-90-percent splits are good, like giving one-tenth of what you make to those less fortunate or putting 10 percent of it into a smart saving plan. Others are bad, like being a miserly 10-percent tipper or using only that tiny portion of the capabilities of your powerful computer software. Worst of all is the fact that most of us use only 10 percent of our intelligence and creativity potential, leaving vast quantities of what we're capable lying dormant, unused and untapped. It's this ratio that Robert Cooper hopes to help reverse with The Other 90%, his inspirational guide to waking the sleeping giant within each of us.

Cooper groups his observations and advice under four keystones: trust, energy, farsightedness, and nerve. In a diagram at the beginning, he illustrates each of these keystones with insights quoted from an unusual mixture of literary and political figures, setting the tone for a book that mixes tales of the famous with those of the unknown and moments of ordinary life with the eureka moments of exceptional triumphs. He promotes trust in its broadest sense, such as incorporating and blending all three streams of intelligence (brain, heart, and gut) into decision making, and trusting oneself enough to escape the trap of comparison. He shares simple suggestions for cultivating calm energy, so as to be quick and effective without rushing, and encourages readers to learn the difference between the trivia in life that counts (and drains us of precious energy) and that which doesn't. Being farsighted, for Cooper, is essentially learning to align more of your actions--and ultimately your life--with your biggest dreams. And nerve is the art of developing a thick skin and making adversity your ally on the road to achieving those hopes and ambitions.

The Other 90% suffers a bit from the problem of many inspirational books, being so densely packed with anecdotes that the good advice is sometimes lost in a blur of well-intentioned examples. Indeed, some of Cooper's most profound comments leap out of the least elaborate stories, such as the memory of his grandfather gazing at Sirius, one of the brightest but most distant stars, and explaining that he did this "because it draws my gaze the farthest away from where I'm standing right now." But Cooper's enthusiasm is timely; the accepted notion that we only use one-tenth of our capabilities was revised a few years ago by studies indicating we only use one ten-thousandth. So there's room for all kinds of improvement. --S. Ketchum

From Publishers Weekly
Business consultant Cooper, a popular speaker on leadership and achievement, appears on the same elite lecture circuit as Tom Peters, Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard. However, this well-researched, intelligently written but unoriginal self-help book sorely lacks the dynamism that Cooper presumably brings to the lectern. Taking inspiration from a wise grandfather who challenged him to go beyond his limits (the grandfather believed that most people use only 10% of their potential), Cooper achieves a synthesis of motivational and parental voices. His advice is boilerplate: cultivate passion for your endeavors; record feelings in a "day book"; synchronize your calendar with your family's schedule. Readers will appreciate suggestions for pleasurable or salutary behaviors dream big; challenge yourself; be childlike; appreciate nature; care about people; practice good posture, eating habits and a sense of humor and his belief that intelligence resides in the gut and heart as well as the brain. A chapter on the Quaker saying "Let your life speak" pales in comparison to Palmer Parker's brilliant book of that name. With its clever catch phrases e.g., periodically shift your perspective "from the microscope to the telescope"; "Develop the skin of a rhino and the soul of an angel" Cooper's book may sell well because of his successful speaking career. But readers seeking a fresh look at motivation won't find it here. Agent, Stephanie Tade.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Cooper is a popular motivational speaker who regularly addresses audiences at university business schools. He is the author of High-Energy Living (2000) and the co-author of Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations (1997). Cooper is also an expert on the "neuroscience of trust, initiative, leadership, and commitment." His advice is an uncommon combination of inspirational homily and personal vignette backed by scientific observation and physiological research findings. Cooper's title--and premise--is based on an old adage passed along by his grandfather that asserts "we only use 10% of our potential in the course of a lifetime." But Cooper adds that studies of the brain show that we typically use only 1/10,000th of its actual capacity. He exhorts us to tap into our store of potential by building on the four keystones of "the other 90%": energy, farsightedness, nerve, and trust. Not only will we accomplish more but also feel better while doing so. David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved