90/10 Principles of Stephen Covey

Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life :
(at least the way you react to situations).

What is this principle?

10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react. What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%. How? By your reaction. You cannot control a red light., but you can control your reaction. Don’t let people fool you; YOU can control how you react. Let’s take an example. You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just what happened. What happens when the next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home, When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter. Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?

A) Did the coffee cause it?

B) Did your daughter cause it?

C) Did the policeman cause it?

D) Did you cause it?

The answer is “D”.

You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened. Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say,” It’s ok honey, you just need, to be more careful next time”. Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having. Notice the difference? Two different scenarios.

Both started the same.

Both ended different.

Why? Because of how you REACTED. You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.

Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.

If someone says something negative about you, don’t be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don’t have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc. How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound on the steering wheel? A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them? WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work ? Why let the cars ruin your drive? Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it. You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job. The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse. Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it. The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle. The result? Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. We all must understand and apply the 90/10 principle.

In case of trouble, we need a helping hand

As you may see that this year flooding in Cambodia is much more serious than previous years, on behalf of SSEAYP International Cambodia, I would like to call for your kind donation even:

- Food: Noodle, Soya Sauce, Fish Sauce,
- Medicine
- Used clothes
- Tents or
- cash

We will distribute these materials or cash to the victims in Kampong Kda village, Kampong Tra Lach commune, Kampong Tra Lach district, Kampong Chhnang on Sunday 6 November 2011 (depart from Royal University of Phnom Penh at 7:00am sharp). The flood has destructed many houses in this village and 198 families are facing difficulties of not enough food, improper shelter and hygiene. It was so sad that one of the victims was killed by the strong storm during the flood.

Heatedly, I hope you all could make a tiny contribution to this vulnerable people as soon as you could.

The donations will start from today until Friday 4 November 2011, 5:00pm at E-printing shop (Opposite RUPP). We will bring all the donated materials to the victims on Sunday 6 November 2011 at 7:00am (meeting place at RUPP). If you are interested to travel with us to the donation area (flooding area), please confirm your participation by Friday 4 November before 5:00pm for arrangement (travel expense will be shared among the travelers).

You can also collect your donation by your batch or group at schools, workplace, or anyone you know and donate to us. Your support and kindness would help the victim a lot to release their hardship.

Call for donations NOW or travel confirmation to our SIC Executive Committee: Ms. Prom Sopheara, Head of Public Relations at 077 843 335 or Mr. Ly Rachana, Social Affairs Officer at 011 241 090.

Pys, Brothers and Sisters and Friends, I would like to thank you so much for keeping your attention to any program that SIC proposed and conducted so far.

Best wishes to all of you,

Your tiny help means a lot for the victim.

6 Lessons We Could Learn from Steve Jobs

6 Lessons We Could Learn from Steve Jobs

Tracking the achievements of Steve Jobs isn’t a difficult thing to do. They’re big, public and – especially in technology – remarkably long lasting. More tricky but, I think, more interesting, is eliciting from those achievements the lessons we could learn from him successes if we tried.

1. Style is Content

From the outset, Jobs and Apple believed in style: in fonts, in graphics, in industrial design and in marketing. It’s easy to under-estimate how eccentric this was at the time – and how eccentric it remains today. While most organizations believe that style is the exclusive purview of marketing, few achieve it even there. Most hardware and software remains remarkably clunky, ugly or simply derivative. (The Kindle is hideous; the Fire a pale imitation.) When I first started working in technology 15 years ago, style was dismissed as frivolous and that’s the status it still holds in most companies today. Anyone who imagines that Apple’s success derives entirely from what’s inside the box (and there are more than a few) has missed a very obvious point. Conventional wisdom divides thinking into the left brain and the right brain. The left is all systematic, rational, linear while the right is more emotional and creative. What Jobs demonstrated was that success lies not in emphasizing one over the other but in bringing them together.

2. Patience Beats Speed

For all that Apple is known for fast product development, the truth is that Jobs was very good at waiting. After his return to Apple in 1997, when the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, he did what any smart CEO would do: slashed product lines (15 desktop models to 1) cut software and hardware engineers, eliminated peripherals, reduced inventory and retailers and moved most manufacturing offshore. There is nothing brilliant about this; it’s textbook stuff. But asked in 1998, by Richard Rummelt, what he was going to do next, in order to move Apple beyond its fragile niche position, Jobs had a gutsy answer: “I am going to wait for the next big thing.” Wait? In a technology business? That took courage. Of course, once he’d figured out what the next big thing was, Jobs was methodical and patient – again – in putting in place everything he’d need to take advantage of the seismic shift in the environment when the U.S. market moved to broadband. It’s also worth remembering that, during the three years he did this, he was remorselessly hammered by industry analysts not one of whom understood what he was up to.

 3. Drama Trumps Romance

Jobs’s product launches were famed for their drama. But one thing they didn’t offer was romance. The products did what they said they’d do. Marketing commentary around them didn’t promise fantasies, illusions or daydreams. Apple promoted its products but didn’t hype them. This may seem a lackluster quality but it built trust. Apple said its products were easy to use not because (like many of its competitors) it hoped that was true, or because it was true for the PhD engineers who’d invented them, but because it was true. It seems peculiar to celebrate a company for truth in advertising but that’s one reason why Apple customers, once smitten, stayed loyal.

4. Nothing Beats a Good Mistake

Jobs’s career isn’t without its mis-steps. Losing control of Apple was the biggest and most obvious but there were plenty of minor slip ups along the way. The suicides at the Foxconn plant that manufactures iPhones was just one of these. But Jobs didn’t try to deny that they had taken place or that they mattered. He was swift to point out that Apple’s scrutiny of its suppliers was more rigorous than most – but he still moved quickly to understand what was going on and try to find remedies. Every company makes mistakes. But, treated right, they can be treasure troves of learning. Moreover, people loved Jobs not because he didn’t make mistakes – but because he learned from them.

5. Technology Isn’t All About Youth

In the age of fast companies, built not to last, Apple offered ample proof that you can be innovative and cool after the age of 25. Experience, know how and skills counted for something. While the products were cool, they weren’t all built by pre-adolescents oblivious to the constraints and needs of normal human beings. That Jobs continued to be as innovative in his 50s as he had been in his 20s is something most companies should take time to consider at length.

6. Business Doesn’t Have to Be Bad

 Earlier this week I was teaching a class of new MBA students. A strikingly international group, they came from Thailand, India, Korea, Colombia, Russia, Canada, Taiwan, China and the U.S. I asked them who their heroes were. As usual, the list included their parents, various heads of state and Nelson Mandela. But topping the list – regardless of age or nationality – was Steve Jobs. More than anyone else alive, he was the person who inspired their love of business and their desire to try their hands at it. In an age where the streets are full of anger and violence at the havoc wreaked by one part of the business world, that there is such an inspirational figure as Jobs is important. We need smart men and women, young and old, to have high ambitions for the world of work, someone who believed passionately and articulated brilliantly how much good business can achieve. Now that Jobs is gone, who can fail to be concerned that no one else adequately represents his rich synthesis of intellect, imagination and passion? The lessons we could learn from Steve Jobs aren’t all that remarkable. Many of them contain wisdom that we already know — we just don’t apply. Why not? Is it that we lack courage? Or is it that we find it hard to believe that tenets so simple can prove so effective? Surely that’s the moral of the Apple story: there is genius in simplicity. But simple is hard.

រក​ឃើញ​ប្រភព «បុប្ផាវតី»

ខ្ញុំ​ធ្លាប់​បាន​ឃើញ​រឿង «បុប្ផាវតី» នេះ​ដាក់លក់​ព្រោងព្រាត​នៅ​តាម​បណ្ណាគារ​នានា​តែ​ក៏​មិន​ដែល​ចាប់​អារម្មណ៍​ទិញ​អាន​ដែរ​ព្រោះ​មិន​ចាប់​អារម្មណ៍។ លុះ​ក្រោយ​ពី​បាន​អាន​ប្រកាស​នៅ​ប្លក់​បង​បឿន ខ្ញុំ​ក៏​រក​ទិញ​អាន ហើយ​ចូលចិត្ត​ប្រាកដ​ថា​រឿង​នេះ​ពិត​ជា​ល្អ អាន​ហើយ​ជក់ចិត្ត​ពិត​មែន។

ក្រោយ​ពី​នោះ​មក​បន្តិច ខ្ញុំ​ក៏​មាន​ឱកាស​ជួប​បង​បឿន ហើយ​យើង​ក៏​បាន​ជជែក​គ្នា​ច្រើន​ពី​រឿង «បុប្ផាវតី» នេះ។ ដោយ​ចិត្ត​សង្ស័យ ខ្ញុំ​ចេះ​តែ​សួរ​បង​បឿន​ថា តើ​រឿង​នេះ​អាច​បក​មក​ពី​ភាសា​ថៃ​ឬ​ទេ? ខ្ញុំ​ឃើញ​មាន​ការ​ប្រើប្រាស់​ពាក្យ ការ​ប្រើ​ប្រាស់​ឃ្លា ជា​ច្រើន​ដូច​ទៅ​នឹង​ភាសា​ថៃ តែ​បង​បឿន​ក៏​ប្រាប់​មក​ថា អាច​មិន​មែន​ទេ ព្រោះ​ខ្មែរ​យើង​ពី​មុន​មក​ក៏​មាន​ប្រើ​ពាក្យ «ចូលចិត្ត (ដែល​មាន​ន័យ​ថា យល់)» នេះ​ដែរ។ ចុះ​ករណី​ការ​ប្រើ​ប្រាស់​ពាក្យ «ក៏, ក៏, ក៏» នេះ​យ៉ាង​ណា​វិញ? បង​បឿន​ក៏​នៅ​តែ​រក្សា​ការ​គិត​ដដែល​ថា​រឿង​នេះ​អាច​ជា​រឿង​សរសេរ​ឡើង​ថ្មី។

ល្ងាច​នេះ នៅ​តាម​ផ្លូវ​ទៅ​បណ្ណាគារ​ជា​មួយ​ប៉ា ខ្ញុំ​ស្ដាប់​វិទ្យុ​អេប៊ីស៊ី 107.5 ក្នុង​កម្មវិធី​ដាំ​ដើម​ជីវិត។ និយាយ​ដល់​រឿង​ស្នេហា លោក​វិជ័យ វាគ្មិន​សម្ដី​បាន ក៏​ស្រាប់​តែ​លើក​ឡើង​ពី​រឿង​ឥណ្ឌា​មួយ​ដែល​មាន​តួ​ឈ្មោះ វេរតៈ និង​បុប្ផាវតី តែ​ចំណង​ជើង​បែរ​ជា «ឡេឡាវតី»។ គាត់​និយាយ​ថា រឿង​នេះ​ជា​រឿង​ល្បី​នៅ​ឥណ្ឌា និង​ប្រទេស​ដែល​កាន់​ព្រះពុទ្ធសាសនា ជាពិសេស​ប្រទេស​ថៃ​ដែល​បាន​យក​រឿង​នេះ​ទៅ​បញ្ចូល​ក្នុង​កម្មវិធី​សិក្សា​របស់​គេ​ថែម​ទៀត។

ខ្ញុំ​មិន​ដឹង​ប្រាកដ​ថា ព្រះធម្មឃោសៈ សម្រួល​រឿង «បុប្ផាវតី» នេះ​ពី​រឿង​ដើម​របស់​ឥណ្ឌា ឬ​មក​ពី​ភាសា​ថៃ ឬ​យ៉ាង​ណា​នោះ​ទេ។ ប៉ុន្តែ​បើ​តាម​ខ្ញុំ ខ្ញុំ​នៅ​តែ​យល់​ថា រឿង​នេះ​ប្រែ​សម្រួល​ពី​ភាសា​ថៃ។ ទោះ​ជា​យ៉ាង​ណា ខ្ញុំ​នឹង​ស្វែង​រក​ចំណង​ជើង​ប្រាកដ​របស់​រឿង​នេះ ថា​ពិត​ជា «ឡេឡាវតី» ឬ​ទេ ព្រោះ​មុន​នេះ​ខ្ញុំ​ខំ​ស្វែង​ណាស់​ដែរ តែ​មិន​ប្រទះ​សោះ! ខ្ញុំ​នឹង​សួរ​បញ្ជាក់​ទៅ​លោក​វិជ័យ​នា​ថ្ងៃ​ស្អែក ហើយ​សង្ឃឹម​ថា​នឹង​បាន​ចម្លើយ​មួយ​ដែល​សម​នឹង​ចិត្ត។

ចុង​ក្រោយ ខ្ញុំ​គ្រាន់​តែ​ចង់​បញ្ជាក់​ថា រឿង​បុប្ផាវតី ដែល​យើង​មាន​រាល់​ថ្ងៃ​នេះ​ជា​រឿង​ប្រែ មិន​មែន​ជា​រឿង​ដែល​សរសេរ​ឡើង​ថ្មី​នោះ​ទេ។ ព័ត៌មាន​បន្ថែម​យ៉ាង​ណា ខ្ញុំ​នឹង Update មក​តាម​ក្រោយ។ សង្ឃឹម​ថា​គ្រប់​គ្នា​នឹង​រក​អាន​រឿង បុប្ផាវតី នេះ ព្រោះ​បើ​ទោះ​ជា​វា​ជា​រឿង​ប្រែ​ក្ដី ក៏​វា​មាន​តម្លៃ​សម​នឹង​ឱ្យ​អ្នក​រាល់​គ្នា​ចំណាយ​ប្រាក់​ទិញ​មក​អាន៕

Angie In Cambodia