The Magic of Thinking Big

by David J. Schwartz

Amazingly perceptive minds like Shakespeare, who observed, “There is nothing either good or bad except that thinking makes it so.”

Belief works this way. Belief, the “I’m-positive-I-can” attitude, generates the power, skill, and energy needed to do. When you believe I-can-do-it, the how-to-do-it develops.

Belief is the thermostat that regulates what we accomplish in life.

A person is a product of his own thoughts.

it dawned on me that no one else was going to believe in me until I believed in myself.

Remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are. Successful people are not supermen. Success does not require a superintellect. Nor is there anything mystical about success. And success isn’t based on luck. Successful people are just ordinary folks who have developed belief in themselves and what they do. Never—yes, never—sell yourself short.

Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier—certainly no more difficult—than small ideas and small plans.

Any training program—and that’s exactly what this book is—must do three things. It must provide content, the what-to-do. Second, it must supply a method, the how-to-do-it. And third, it must meet the acid test; that is, get results.

You will find that the more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.

Excusitis appears in a wide variety of forms, but the worst types of this disease are health excusitis, intelligence excusitis, age excusitis, and luck excusitis.

I mentioned that most golfers with two arms can’t do nearly as well. His reply says a lot. “Well, it’s my experience,” he said, “that the right attitude and one arm will beat the wrong attitude and two arms every time.”

the thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you may have.

Just enough sense to stick with something—a chore, task, project—until it’s completed pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius caliber. For stickability is 95 percent of ability.

“Second, don’t take advantage of your new ‘gold bars.’ Show respect for the salesmen. Ask them for their suggestions. Make them feel they are working for a team captain, not a dictator. Do this and the men will work with you, not against you.

all confidence is acquired, developed. No one is born with confidence. Those people you know who radiate confidence, who have conquered worry, who are at ease everywhere and all the time, acquired their confidence, every bit of it.

action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear.

When we face tough problems, we stay mired in the mud until we take action. Hope is a start. But hope needs action to win victories.

1. Isolate your fear. Pin it down. Determine exactly what you are afraid of. 2. Then take action. There is some kind of action for any kind of fear. And remember, hesitation only enlarges, magnifies the fear. Take action promptly. Be decisive.

“A person can make a mental monster out of almost any unpleasant happening,” my psychologist friend went on. “A job failure, a jilted romance, a bad investment, disappointment in the behavior of a teenage child—these are common monsters I have to help troubled people destroy.”

The painting was very cleverly done and could be construed to be either a sunrise or a sunset. The psychologist commented to me that what a person sees in the picture is a clue to his personality. Most people say it is a sunrise. But the depressed, mentally disturbed person nearly always says it’s a sunset.)

Your mind wants you to forget the unpleasant. If you will just cooperate, unpleasant memories will gradually shrivel and the teller in your memory bank will cancel them out.

Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches or pounds or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking. How big we think determines the size of our accomplishments.

We do not think in words and phrases. We think only in pictures and/or images.

Suppose you tell a group of people, “I’m sorry to report we’ve failed.” What do these people see? They see defeat and all the disappointment and grief the word “failed” conveys. Now suppose you said instead, “Here’s a new approach that I think will work.” They would feel encouraged, ready to try again.

“We face a problem.” You have created a picture in the minds of others of something difficult, unpleasant to solve. Instead say, “We face a challenge,”

“We incurred a big expense,” and people see money spent that will never return. Indeed, this is unpleasant. Instead say, “We made a big investment,” and people see a picture of something that will return profits later on, a very pleasant sight.

Big thinkers are specialists in creating positive, forward-looking, optimistic pictures in their own minds and in the minds of others. To think big, we must use words and phrases that produce big, positive mental images.

“How do you feel today?” and you respond with an “I’m tired (I have a headache, I wish it were Saturday, I don’t feel so good),” you actually make yourself feel worse. Practice this: it’s a very simple point, but it has tremendous power. Every time someone asks you, “How are you?” or “How are you feeling today?” respond with a “Just wonderful! thanks, and you?” or say “Great” or “Fine.” Say you feel wonderful at every possible opportunity, and you will begin to feel wonderful—and bigger, too. Become known as a person who always feels great. It wins friends.

Look at things not as they are, but as they can be. Visualization adds value to everything. A big thinker always visualizes what can be done in the future. He isn’t stuck with the present.

In marriage the big objective is peace, happiness, tranquillity—not winning quarrels or saying “I could have told you so.”

In working with employees, the big objective is developing their full potential, not making issues out of their minor errors.

In living with neighbors, the big objective is mutual respect and friendship—not seeing if you can have their dog impounded becau...

At least 90 percent of quarrels and feuds would never take place if we just faced troublesome situations with “Is this really important?”

The body is what the body is fed. By the same token, the mind is what the mind is fed. Mind food, of course, doesn’t come in packages, and you can’t buy it at the store. Mind food is your environment—all the countless things that influence your conscious and subconscious thought.

People who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people, are strictly average or mediocre at best in terms of accomplishment. The opinions of these people can be poison.

Taking an ax and chopping your neighbor’s furniture to pieces won’t make your furniture look one bit better; and using verbal axes and grenades on another person doesn’t do one thing to make you a better you or me a better me.

We read attitudes through expressions and voice tones and inflections.

The students had no interest in what the professor was saying because the professor himself had no interest. He was bored with history, and it showed through. To activate others, to get them to be enthusiastic, you must first be enthusiastic yourself.

To get enthusiastic, learn more about the thing you are not enthusiastic about.

Just because there are more broadcasters of bad news than there are broadcasters of good news, don’t be misled. No one ever won a friend, no one ever made money, no one ever accomplished anything by broadcasting bad news.

Make someone feel important, and he cares about you. And when he cares about you, he does more for you. Customers will buy more from you, employees will work harder for you, associates will go out of their way to cooperate with you, your boss will do more to help you if you will only make these people feel important.

Practice appreciation. Make it a rule to let others know you appreciate what they do for you. Never, never let anyone feel he is taken for granted.

Practice appreciation by letting others know how you depend on them.

Practice appreciation with honest, personalized compliments. People thrive on compliments—whether two or twenty, nine or ninety, a person craves praise. He wants to be assured that he’s doing a good job, that he is important.

In at least nine cases out of ten, the “likability” factor is the first thing mentioned. And in an overwhelmingly large number of cases, the “likability” factor is given far more weight than the technical factor.

Notice that there’s no get-even philosophy here. There’s no let-the-other-fellow-come-to-me-to-patch-up-differences. There’s no I-know-it-all-other-people-are-stupid.

Friendship can’t be bought. And when we try, we lose in two ways: 1. We waste money. 2. We create contempt.

Take the initiative in building friendships—leaders always do. It’s easy and natural for us to tell ourselves, “Let him make the first move.” “Let them call us.” “Let her speak first.”

Recognize the fact that the other fellow has a right to be different. Never play God about anything. Never dislike people because their habits are different from your own or because they prefer different clothes, religion, parties, or automobiles. You don’t have to approve of what another fellow does, but you must not dislike him for doing it.

Thoughts breed like thoughts. There is real danger that if you listen to negative comments about another person, you too will go negative toward that person.