The Magic of Thinking Big - By David Schwartz
Date read: 2017-09-20How strongly I recommend it: 6/10
(See my list of 150+ books, for more.)
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Slightly outdated examples but good advice for someone starting out in their career. I gave it a lower score because I felt like I already have applied a lot of these concepts. Although I wish the author would have gone in more detail as to how to remove barriers and achieve these results.
Contents:
- BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
- BUILDING CONFIDENCE
- THINKING BIG
- THINKING CREATIVELY
- YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE
- MANAGE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
- PROBLEM SOLVING
- GOAL SETTING
- LEADERSHIP
My Notes
Study people very carefully to discover, then apply, success-rewarding principles to your life.
The more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.
All the excuses made by the mediocre fellow could be but aren’t made by the successful person.
Vaccinate yourself against excusitis, the disease of the failures.
THE FOUR MOST COMMON FORMS OF EXCUSITIS
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.
Knowledge is power only when put to use—and then only when the use made of it is constructive.
The ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.
Remind yourself several times daily, “My attitudes are more important than my intelligence."
Compute how much productive time you have left. Remember, a person age thirty still has 80 percent of his productive life ahead of him. And the fifty-year-old still has a big 40 percent—the best 40 percent—of his opportunity years left.
Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear.
Two specific things to do to build confidence through efficient management of your memory bank:
Here are two ways to put people in proper perspective:
Just before you go to sleep, deposit good thoughts in your memory bank. Count your blessings. Recall the many good things you have to be thankful for: your wife or husband, your children, your friends, your health. Recall the good things you saw people do today. Recall your little victories and accomplishments. Go over the reasons why you are glad to be alive.
Don’t build mental monsters. Refuse to withdraw the unpleasant thoughts from your memory bank. When you remember situations of any kind, concentrate on the good part of the experience; forget the bad.
Here is an exercise to help you measure your true size.
You’re bigger than you think. So fit your thinking to your true size. Think as big as you really are! Never, never, never sell yourself short!
To think big, we must use words and phrases that produce big, positive mental images.
Here are four ways to help you develop a big thinker’s vocabulary:
Visualization adds value to everything. A big thinker always visualizes what can be done in the future. He isn’t stuck with the present.
It isn’t what one has that’s important. Rather, it’s how much one is planning to get that counts.
“Practice adding value” exercises:
See the company’s interest as identical with your own.
When you feel like taking negative action, ask yourself, “Is it really important?”
Creative thinking is simply finding new, improved ways to do anything.
Believe it can be done. When you believe something is impossible, your mind goes to work for you to prove why. But when you believe, really believe, something can be done, your mind goes to work for you and helps you find the ways to do it.
Your mind will create a way if you let it.
Eliminate the word impossible from your thinking and speaking vocabularies.
The successful person doesn’t ask, “Can I do it better?” He knows he can. So he phrases the question: “How can I do it better?”
Each day before you begin work, devote ten minutes to thinking “How can I do a better job today?” Ask, “What can I do today to encourage my employees?” “What special favor can I do for my customers?” “How can I increase my personal efficiency?”
Capacity is a state of mind. How much we can do depends on how much we think we can do.
Big people monopolize the listening. Small people monopolize the talking.
Mental stimulation, but here are two that you can incorporate into your pattern of life.
Meet regularly with at least one professional group that provides stimulation in your own occupational area.
Join and participate in at least one group outside your occupational interests.
Three ways to harness and develop your ideas:
Others see in us what we see in ourselves. We receive the kind of treatment we think we deserve.
Remember, your appearance “talks.” Be sure it says positive things about you. Never leave home without feeling certain you look like the kind of person you want to be.
A person who thinks his job is important Receives mental signals on how to do his job better; And a better job means More promotions, more money, more prestige, more happiness.
The way we think toward our jobs determines how our subordinates think toward their jobs.
People who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people, are strictly average or mediocre at best in terms of accomplishment.
Here are a few simple “do’s” to help make your social environment first class:
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.
You don’t get a raise on the promise of better performance; you get a raise only by demonstrating better performance.
Always give people more than they expect to get.
Success depends on the support of other people.
The person who does the most talking and the person who is the most successful are rarely the same person.
Don’t be a conversation hog. Listen, win friends, and learn.
The test of a successful person is not an ability to eliminate all problems before they arise, but to meet and work out difficulties when they do arise.
It is not possible to win high-level success without meeting opposition, hardship, and setback. But it is possible to use setbacks to propel you forward.
Decide right now to salvage something from every setback. Next time things seem to go wrong on the job or at home, calm down and find out what caused the trouble. This is the way to avoid making the same error twice.
Be constructively self-critical. Don’t run away from inadequacies. Be like the real professionals. They seek out their faults and weaknesses, then correct them.
The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.
You must form an image now of the person you want to be ten years from now if you are to become that image.
When we detour, we don’t have to change our goals. We just travel a different route.
Four leadership rules or principles are:
You can use this time to do two types of thinking: directed and undirected. To do directed thinking, review the major problem facing you. To do undirected thinking, just let your mind select what it wishes to think about.
Think, talk, act, live the way you want your subordinates to think, talk, act, live—and they will.