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1. Everything begins with a thought. “Life consists of what a man is thinking about all day.” –RALPH WALDO EMERSON
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.” —James Allen
“You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration.”
I know that if I keep improving my thinking, it will impact my beliefs, which change my expectations, which affect my attitude, which changes my behavior, which improves my performance. And that will change my life.
Progress always requires change. Going to a new level always requires changing your mind. You may know that intuitively, but you need to make that idea foundational to the way you “do” life.
“In the end,” Bob observed, “clear and inspired thinking is the only way to change things for the better.
Do you want to become the person you always hoped you could be? If you do, don’t start by trying to change your actions. Start by changing your mind. Nothing else you do will have as great an impact.
Find a Place to Think Your Thoughts
“If you hang birdcages in your mind, you eventually get something to put in them.”
As Kettering’s birdcage attracted a bird, so too will a designated place to think attract good thoughts. If you go to your thinking place expecting to generate good thoughts, then eventually you will come up with some.
“Learning to write is learning to think. You don’t know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing.”
The Right Thought plus the Right People in the Right Environment at the Right Time for the Right Reason = the Right Result
The Right Thought plus the Right People in the Right Environment at the Right Time for the Right Reason = the Right Result
The people in your life impact your thinking, for better or for worse, so why not work strategically to find people who will stretch you to your potential? Make it a goal to find people who will add value to you in areas that are important to you.
The Right Environment: Your environment will either stretch or shrink your ideas. In the right environment thinking is valued, ideas flow freely, fresh eyes are welcome, change is expected, questions are encouraged, egos are checked, ideas stimulate better ideas, and thinking generates teamwork.
Ideas are fragile things when they first see the light of day. If you try to implement them too early or introduce them while there are more naysayers than supporters, they won’t survive.
“A man always has two reasons for doing any thing: a good reason and the real reason.”
As you prepare to present new ideas to people, keep in mind that they are most willing to embrace change when they: Hurt enough that they are willing to change. Learn enough that they want to change. Receive enough that they are able to change.
“think like a man of action—act like a man of thought.”
I’ve observed that high achievers have a natural tendency to jump into any project and start working; they are usually people of action who possess high energy. But to get the kind of results you want—to fly your thoughts well—you should give good thinking time to any endeavor.
Spend time with the right people. As I worked on this chapter and bounced my ideas off of some key people (so that my thoughts would be stretched), I realized something about myself. All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are thinkers. Now, I love all people.
I try to be kind to everyone I meet, and I desire to add value to as many people as I can through conferences, books, lessons on tape, etc. But the people I seek out and choose to spend time with all challenge me with their thinking and their actions. They are constantly trying to grow and learn. That’s true of my wife, Margaret, my close friends, and the executives who run my companies. Every one of them is a good thinker!
If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.
The writer of Proverbs observed that sharp people sharpen one another, just as iron sharpens iron. If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.
“This helps me ‘keep the main thing, the main thing,’ since I am so easily distracted.”
No matter what you choose to do, go to your thinking place, take paper and pen, and make sure you capture your ideas in writing.
Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.
Think things through—then follow through.”
That was about the time that I realized the key to achieving success was to keep growing and improving. It’s something that has been a part of my life ever since.
the key to achieving success was to keep growing and improving.
One good thought does not make a good life. The people who have one good thought and try to ride it for an entire career often end up unhappy or destitute. They are the one-hit wonders, the one-book authors, the one-message speakers, the one-time inventors who spend their life struggling to protect or promote their single idea. Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years. To become someone who can mine a lot of gold, you need to keep repeating the process of good thinking.
“Burn Brightly Without Burning 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.” —DAVID SCHWARTZ
“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”
get caught up in the trees and miss the forest.
When somebody like Jack Welch tells a GE employee that the ongoing relationship with the customer is more important than the sale of an individual product, he’s reminding them of the big picture.
that the ongoing relationship with the customer is more important than the sale of an individual product,
Big-picture thinking brings wholeness and maturity to a person’s thinking. It brings perspective. It’s like making the frame of a picture bigger, in the process expanding not only what you can see, but what you are able to do.
When you meet with people, it’s good to have an agenda so that you can learn. It’s a great way to partner with people who can do things you can’t. Big-picture thinkers recognize that they don’t know lots of things. They frequently ask penetrating questions to enlarge their understanding and thinking. If you want to become a better big-picture thinker, then become a good listener.
Who you are determines what you see—and how you think.
“The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet live very little.”
The truth is that you can spend your life any way you want, but you can spend it only once.
Size up situations, taking into account many variables.
the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. Doing that allows the leader to form a foundation to build the vision.
Sketch a picture of where the team is going.
The goal of leaders shouldn’t be merely to make their people feel good, but to help them be good and accomplish the dream.
Show how the future connects with the past to make the journey more meaningful.
Seize the moment when the timing is right. In leadership, when to move is as important as what you do.
“There comes a special moment in everyone’s life, a moment for which that person was born …. When he seizes it …it is his finest hour.”
People who are constantly looking at the whole picture have the best chance of succeeding in any endeavor.
