Book Excerpts

Look at the arithmetic. If 20 out of 100 suppliers in a market make 80 percent of the profits—and say the profit in the market is $100—then that means the 20 winners make on average$80 divided by 20, which is $4 per winner. Similarly, the 80 losers make$20 divided by 80, which comes to $0.25 each. So the winners make$4 each, which is 16 times what the losers make each, 25 cents. That’s the logic of 80/20 and it explains why it is SO much better to be in the top 20 percent than the bottom 80 percent.

Koch, Richard. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less (p. 268). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Imagine that you have a thorn in your arm that directly touches a nerve. When the thorn is touched, it’s very painful. Because it hurts so much, the thorn is a serious problem. It’s difficult to sleep because you roll over on it. It’s hard to get close to people because they might touch it. It makes your daily life very difficult. You can’t even go for a walk in the woods because you might brush the thorn against the branches. This thorn is a constant source of disturbance, and to solve the problem you only have two choices. The first choice is to look at your situation and decide that since it’s so disturbing when things touch the thorn, you need to make sure nothing touches it. The second choice is to decide that since it’s so disturbing when things touch the thorn, you need to take it out.

Singer, Michael A.. The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself (pp. 81-82). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

The technique of unconditional happiness is ideal because what you’re doing with the rest of your life is already defined—you’re letting go of yourself so that you can remain happy. As far as your spirituality goes, you’re going to grow very rapidly. A person who actually does this every moment of every day is going to notice the cleansing of their heart. This is because they’re not getting involved in the stuff that comes up. They’re also going to notice the purification of their mind because they are not getting involved in the mind’s melodrama. Their Shakti (Spirit) is going to awaken even if they know nothing about Shakti. They will come to know a happiness that is beyond human understanding.

Singer, Michael A.. The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself (pp. 145-146). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

So Globoforce built JetBlue a social “peer-to-peer” recognition program whereby any “crew member” (as employees are called) could nominate a coworker to be acknowledged for exemplary effort or performance. That acknowledgment would then be shared throughout the company on an internal newsfeed, where coworkers could publically post their own notes of thanks or congratulations. The recipient of the recognition would also be given “points,” much like credit card points or frequent-flier miles, that they could spend as they wished.

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Specifically, for every 10 percent increase in instances of recognition, JetBlue saw a 3 percent increase in retention and a 2 percent increase in engagement, and an external evaluation by Symantec found a 14 percent increase in engagement scores overall.

Achor, Shawn. Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being (p. 136). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.