The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life (Hardcover)

by Robert K. Cooper (Author) "I got off to a bad start in school..." (more)
Key Phrases: Art Tatum, Miss Robinson, Martin Luther King (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812932870
• ISBN-13: 978-0812932874
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #779,255 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Articulated, Proven Ways to Improve Performance!, May 10, 2001

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

If you only read and apply one book this year, I suggest that it be this one.

This book deserves more than five stars for being the most effective book I have seen for drawing on scientific evidence of how the mind and body work to point the way to optimum performance. The book benefits from having a few simple points to make, nicely connected to each other. The points are beautifully illuminated by personal stories in many cases that make the concepts easier to grasp and remember. Think of this book as the life planning and management equivalent of Live Right 4 Your Type.

"The next frontier is not only in front of you, it is inside of you." For many years, children were told that humans use only 10 percent of their brains. This factoid is often associated with a suggestion to shut off the television and read a book. Scientific studies have built on that kind of observation to estimate that humans now function at only one ten-thousandth of their potential. So we need to set our sights higher, and focus our attention in ways that will close that enormous gap.

Dr. Cooper points to four keystones, in this order: Trust, energy, farsightedness, and nerve.

Trust is built around the notion of focusing on being exceptional and encouraging that trait in others. Rather than just an exhortation, Dr. Cooper presents proven tools. For example, you can get out of the rut that your mind encourages by asking yourself questions every week. "What's the most exceptional thing you've done this week?" "What's the most exceptional thing you're going to do next week?" He also points out how a confluence of how your mind, heart, and gut respond provides better direction than any one alone, and he provides the scientific background for that observation. Psychologically, we also do better when we focus on accomplishment rather than competition. So the way we set our goals is important. Frankly, the section on trust cuts through the underbrush of theories about how to improve much better than any other book I have read. Everyone else who writes about self-help is just opinion and personal experience by comparison.

The energy keystone is all about taking timely action to pursue what you now perceive is possible. This section is useful and accurate but is much less original and compelling than the trust keystone.

The farsightedness keystone is very effective in making the fundamental point that unless you strive for big things, you will only achieve the little things you pursue. Here is the source of most of the missed potential in our lives. Often the biggest steps forward are the easiest. We simply don't think about taking them. I especially liked the encouragement to hope irrationally, as a way to trigger your mind to find opportunities and solutions that you would otherwise miss.

The final keystone is nerve, and it may be the second most important one. Almost everyone I know has some big dreams and ambitions. Few act on those dreams and ambitions because they lack the nerve. The processes described basically focus on creating habits of pushing the envelope and becoming more comfortable with that approach. It does this in a positive way. "Care as if everything depends on your caring" is the advice I liked the best. If you are pursuing something that is part of who you are, following that exhortation should not be hard. If you are not doing something you identify with so closely, you need to create a closer alignment among your identity, dreams, and activities.

After you have finished reading and planning how to apply what you have just learned in this book, may I suggest that you then assume that you can do ten times as much as what you just concluded you could? I suspect that many improved ideas will occur to you, when you take this leap. If that process works for you, do it again!

Assume you know how to do everything perfectly from experience or observations in another area, and you will usually find that you are right!!

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Taking the Author's Advice, July 13, 2001

By	Philip Hamilton (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One part of the book urges the reader to be truthful and avoid hypocrisy. I will take that advice and disagree with the positive reviews I have read.

This book lacks the focus necessary to impact most readers' lives in a significant way. If you benefit from books that contain scores of miscellaneous suggestions and tips, you might be the exception. After finishing the book, however, I felt as if I had read through a stack of one and two-page articles from Reader's Digest. Many of the tidbits were interesting. Taken together they provided little that I will remember or use.

Based on the very positive reviews I had read, I expected much more substance.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of concrete recommendations that you can take with you, May 21, 2001

By	John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I liked this book because the author provided lots of practical "how to" methods that I could start implementing.

I also liked his stories. The author writes well. He also documents his points with out-of-the-way footnotes.

He bares his soul to the reader.

His most important point to me was the need to find out what we are good at doing. Build up our strengths and don't shore up our weaknesses.

I'd say this could have been a "4 PLUS" book, but I had to give it a "5" because of all the recommended actions that I was able to glean from the book. Although all of the stories were interesting, certain subjects in the last 1/2 of the book (those I thought I knew about) got a little tedious. But the interesting stories kept me reading through to the end.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.

John Dunbar