Steven Covey Meets Paul - First Things FirstWritten by Greg Ryan
I’m not sure Paul had Japanese culture in mind at time when he writes, “Seek ye first Kingdom of God and all other things will be added unto you.” I’m not sure how much popularity bible has in Japan today either. Yet, it seems as though Japanese people have at least one biblical principle figured out. In book, “First Things First”, Steven Covey helps us understand how and why Japanese people think how they do and accomplish so much more than American’s in a same twenty-four hour period. Covey explains, that we can divide all our daily tasks into two main areas of our lives. One area is Important/Urgent-NOT Urgent area and second consists of tasks in NOT Important/NOT Urgent area. In last twenty years Corporate America has marveled at efficiency and productivity of Japanese worker. So we decided to study their behaviors. Over time researchers have come to this conclusion that boils down to one basic principle, “80/20 rule” in life. They found that Japanese spend eighty percent of all their time on tasks that are Important/Urgent to NOT urgent and twenty percent of their time on tasks that fall into Not Important/Not Urgent at all area. In other words they determine what daily tasks are important by lining them up with their priorities. Then they will spend majority of their time focusing on those tasks at hand and less time on less significant areas. Researchers have also studied behaviors of Americans, and in contrast they have found opposite thinking holds true. Americans spend eighty percent of their time in Urgent/ NOT so important issues and twenty percent of their time in important areas. In other words, we spend most of our time on urgent things that don’t necessarily line up with our priorities and take up a lot or most of our time and emotional energy.
| | Loving People in spite of it all!Written by Greg Ryan
Before movie “Finding Nemo”, came out Steve Jobs founder of Apple Computer company spent millions of dollars promoting it. Before a major push on merchandise Nike will sign a multi-million dollar contract with some sports star. Sometime soon you will see a major player in clothing industry hire a celebrity to promote their product before holiday rush. These companies think they have it figured out. How do they attract you to product or service they are selling? The packaging!! Millions of dollars are spent on researching and packaging many products and services even before they hit shelves. If they can entice you enough, then they have a better chance to hook you into owning it. Many of us get product home and when we open it up and it doesn’t match expectations outside of box conveyed to us. Then in a short period of time we lose our interest become disappointed and put it on a shelf only to go try and find another to fore fill our desires. Let’s say you have a child and they disobey you. Do you put them on a shelf and go have another or borrow one from neighbor. No. You still value them, accept them and love them. You accept them in spite of their behavior and actions at time. But why don’t we take that same type of thinking with adults we know? It doesn’t matter; friends, dating or married many times we love other person because of what they originally brought to relationship (the packaging, hype). However, once we get to know that person we realize that they have some things that don’t line up with our expectations of them or remind us of a past relationship that went sour. They don’t fit in our packaged box anymore. We even try to mold them to fit, and when they don’t we put them on an emotional shelf with an expiration date. In beginning we loved to be around other person more and were attracted to them because of who there were not in spite of who they are.
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