Chapter 1: Believe You Can Succeed and You Will.
“Belief, strong belief, triggers the mind to figure ways and means and how-to. And believing you can succeed makes others place confidence in you.”
>When you have strong belief in yourself and your vision, the reticular activating system in your body ignites. This system starts to pull together all sorts of helpful ideas that will progress you in the direction of your vision that you would not think up if you haven’t activated the system with strong belief.
An example of the reticular activating system in motion is when you buy a red car and all of a sudden you notice multiples of red cars all over the road. The red cars have been their all along but now that your reticular activating system is activated you’ll notice red cars everywhere you go. This same applies to a strong personal belief. When you just know you will be a success the mind starts to bring in ideas that support this strong belief ensuring your success.
“Belief is the thermostat that regulates what we accomplish in life. Notice the man living in mediocrity. He has little belief in his self worth and therefor get’s very little out of life. While in contrast, the man will large amounts of self belief in his self worth will enjoy massive success in all areas of life.”
“How To Develop The Power of Belief.1. Think success, don’t think failure. At work, in your home, substitute success thinking for failure thinking.2. Remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are.3. Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief.”
> I think it would be a shame to look back on your death bed regretting not have believed in yourself, your ability to adapt and learn. There’s no great tragedy than a live full of potential that was never actualized.
“It’s fun to feel yourself growing more confident, more effective, more successful day by day, month by month. Nothing – absolutely nothing – in this life gives you more satisfaction than knowing you’re on the road to success and achievement. And nothing stands as a bigger challenge than making the most of yourself.”
> Just as everything in life, getting started is the hardest part. It’s building that initial momentum in any endeavor that is so critical in the results you’ll enjoy farther down the line. When you believe you can do it that starts this much important momentum to actually make something of yourself, which will bring a smile to your face and new sense of confidence in yourself to do bigger, better things. All success builds on top of itself. Small wins lead to slightly bigger wins which lead to larger wins which lead to massive wins. If you never had the initial small win, you’ll never carry the momentum to massive wins. Believe in yourself to win big.
Chapter 2: Cure Yourself of Excusitis: The Failure Disease.
“Looking and looking and looking for an illness often actually produces illness. In Dr. Schindlers book, How to Live 365 Days a Year, he shows that three out of every four hospital beds are occupied by people who have EII – Emotionally Induced Illness.”
> Image if all people could learn to control their emotions. We would have less fighting and more people.
“Resolve to live until I die. A lawyer friend who had an arrested case of tuberculosis , who now is sevety-eight years old, expresses his philosophy in these words: ‘I’m going to live until I die and I’m not going to get life and death confused. While I’m on this earth I’m going to live. Why be only half alive? Every minute a person spends worrying about dying is just one minute that fellow might as well have been dead.”
“The Right attitude and one arm will beat the wrong attitude and two arms every time.”
> A person’s attitude is how a person thinks through their life. You could have an IQ of 132 but if you have a terrible attitude toward all things, play victim, fail to work on hard problems, never give back to your community, you’re never going to be a champion thinker.
“Four things you can do to lick health excusitus”
1. Refuse to talk about your health. The more you talk about an ailment, even the common cold, the worse it seems to get.2. Refuse to worry about your health.3. Be genuinely grateful that your health is as good as it is. 4. Remind yourself often, It’s better to wear out than rust out. Life is yours to enjoy. Don’t waste it. Don’t pass up living by thinking yourself into a hospital bed.
> What your are thinking about is providing area to that part of life. That energy grows and grows attracting similar energies which further grows your energy pool. Energy will spill over to other areas of your psyche lifting up weaker areas of your thought processes helping your to vibrate at a higher frequency attracting higher vibrating experiences into your life. This is a positive feedback loop and enhances your life. Beware: the same things happens if your thoughts are negative. Just look at clinically depressed people. They believe their is no hope they’ll ever get better because their minds have been hijacked by negative thinking for so long they can’t seem to see through the poisonous fog of depression.
“But you’ve got to have brains to succeed”
1. We underestimate our own brainpower.2. We overestimate the other fellow’s brainpower.
“The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than the quantity of your brainpower. An example is an unsuccessful man using his great brain power to prove why things won’t work rather than directing his mental power to searching for ways to succeed. Remember, the thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you have. Not even a Ph.D. degree can override this basic success principle!
“Knowledge is power when you use it constructively. Having knowledge is only potential power. It’s only when we put it to use does it become power. Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile and his reply was ‘I don’t know. Why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book.”
“The ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.”
Three Ways to Cure Intelligence Excusitis
1. Never underestimate your own intelligence, and never over estimate the intelligence of other.2. Remind yourself several times daily, ‘My attitudes are more important than my intelligence.’3. Remember that the ability to think is much greater value than the ability to memorize facts. Use your mind to create and develop ideas, to find new and better ways to do think. Ask yourself ‘Am I using my mental ability to make history, or am I using it merely to record history made by others?’
> It’s so much easier to copy what other people are doing than to be original with your own ideas. There is nothing wrong with modeling people, but you shouldn’t copy them. Model the systems and thinking of successful people, but make sure to do it in your own unique way. Your brain thinks different than every single brain that has exist or will exist. That means you’re unique and your unique way of thinking can contribute to the world in a novel way. If you just copy everything another person does, how are you ever going to carve your own slot out in life? You won’t. You’ll be fake because someone was original. That someone most likely MODELED another successful person, then turned that system into their own unique system but based on the success principles of the original model.
> Model. Don’t copy people. Model people.
Chapter 3: Build Confidence and Destroy Fear
“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.”
1. Deposit only positive thoughts in your memory bank.2. Withdraw only positive thoughts from your memory bank. Destroy negative thoughts before those thoughts become mental monsters.
Two ways to put people into perspective1. Get a balanced view of the other fellow2. Develop an understanding attitude. Underneath most people they are probably very nice as most folks are.
Read this until it absolutely saturates you: To think confidently, act confidently.1. Be a front seater.2. Practice making eye contact.3. Walk 25 percent faster.4. Practice speaking up.5. Smile big.
> The confident person built themselves to that level bit by bit, every single day. When they decided to wake up, do push ups, yoga – that built their confidence for the day. Then the same person continued building their confidence during the day putting in the necessary work to feel like a contributing member to society. Bit by bit they grew more confident to later to bigger deals, work with bigger clients, build bigger websites. But we can’t forget the small step they too in the morning to wake up on time and do those damn push ups!
Chapter 4: How To Think Big
“We do not think in words and phrases. We think only in pictures and/or images. To think big, we must use words and phrases the produce big, positive mental images.”
4 Ways To Develop Big Thinker’s Vocabulary1. Use big, positive, cheerful words and phrases to describe how you feel. 2. Use bright, cheerful, favorable words and phrases to describe other people.3. Use positive language to encourage others.4. Use positive words to outline plans to others.
“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.”
“The price tag the world puts on us is just about identical to the one we put on ourselves.”
“What makes a good speaker? Knowledge of what he’s going to talk about and an intense desire to tell it to other people. They have something to say and they feel a burning desire for other people to hear it.”
Chapter 5: How To Think and Dream Creatively
“Step one: Believe it can be done. A basic truth is we must first believe it can be done to set the mind in motion to find a way to do it. Your mind will create a way if you let it.”
> A huge trend in thinking I see in successful people is they get out of their own way. So many times we present the mind with a problem and the mind comes up with wonderful solutions to the problem that are disguised as hard work. Or, the solutions are not believed to be good enough for the conscious mind (typical in very smart people) so they discredit the idea and never make any progress. Often I’ve also learned that the first ideas to a problem are just the seeds to better ideas, but if we don’t work on those initial ideas, we will never come to manifest the better idea that would only become available after working on the first, less awesome idea.
“There is one best way to sell a product. Find the best way. Then never deviate from it.”
> I see this in digital marketing. When a campaign is converting, don’t change it! Optimize the campaign as best you can and let the software do the heavy automatic lifting for you.
“Capacity is indeed a state of mind.”
“Top-level leaders in all walks of life spend much more time requesting advice than they do in giving it. Before a top man makes a decisions, he asks, “How do you feel about it?” “What do you recommend?” “What would you do under these circumstances?” “How does this sound to you?”
“Ideas are highly perishable. If we’re not on guard, the squirrels (negative-thinking people) will destroy most of them. Ideas require special handling from the time they are born until they’re transformed into practical ways for doing things better. To harness and develop your ideas.”1. Don’t let ideas escape. Write them down.2. Review your ideas.3. Cultivate and fertilize your idea
> Keeping a daily journal whenever I go is the single greatest habit I’ve developed which has improve my life in every domain. Do it and thank me later.
“Resolve to put your ideas in salable form. An idea written or in some sort of picture or diagram form has many times more selling power than the idea presented only in oral form.”
> Package your ideas in a business – a website, an e-book, recorded webinar – something you can upload online to sell.
Chapter 6: You Are What You Think You Are
“To be important, we must think we are important, really think so; the others will think so too. Here the logic in that:How you think determines how you act.How you act in turn determines,How other react to you.”
“It cost so little to be neat. Take the slogan literally. Interpret it to say: Dress right; it always pays.Remember: look important because it helps you to think important.”
“Think you work is important. Think: I am important. I do have what it takes. I am a first class performer. My work is important. Think this way, and you’re headed straight to success.”
> The key to winning is thinking positively toward yourself. The only real basis other people have for judging your abilities is your actions. And your actions are controlled by your thoughts. You are what you think you are.
“A person who thinks his job is importantReceives mental signals on how to do his job better;And a better job meansMore promotions, more money, more prestige, more happiness.”
“Give yourself a pep talk several times daily. Example:Kyle Smith, meet Kyle Smith – an important, a really important person. Kyle, you’re a big thinker, so think big. Think Big about Everything. You’ve got plenty of ability to do a first-class job, so do a first-class job.Kyle, you believe in Happiness, Progress, and Prosperity.So: talk only Happiness, talk only Progress, talk only Prosperity.You have lots of drive, Kyle, lots of drive.So put that drive to work. Nothing can stop you, Kyle, nothing.Kyle, you’re enthusiastic. Let your enthusiasm show through.You look good Kyle, and you feel good. Stay that way.Kyle Smith, you were a great fellow yesterday and you’re going to be an even greater fellow today. Now go to it, Kyle. Go forward.”
Chapter 7: Manage Your Environment: Go First Class
“The mind reflects what its environment feeds it just as surely as the body reflects the food you feed it.”
“Recondition yourself for success. Believe it can be done.Remember: People who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people, are strictly average or mediocre at best in terms of accomplishment.”
“Make it a rule to seek advice from people who know.”
> The internet has many fake gurus. Ask them to show you proof, then give them your money to learn. If they can’t prove it, they are just like 99% of people on the internet – fakers.
“Make your environment make you successful. Be environment-conscious. Make your environment work for you.”
> Make it a habit to clean your house/apartment once a week. Keep an orderly desk. Wash your clothes and hang them up. Keep life simple.
Chapter 8: Make Your Attitudes Your Allies
“For millions and millions of years, people got by with little more than moans and groans and grunts and growls.”
“Grow these three attitudes: Make them your allies in everything you do.”1. Grow the attitude of I’m activated.2. Grow the attitude of You are important.
3. Grow the attitude of Service First.“To activate others, you must first activate yourself. To activate others, to get them to be enthusiastic, you must first be enthusiastic yourself.”
“Enthusiasm can make things 1,100 percent better. An important key toward building enthusiasm is to learn more about the thing you are not enthusiastic about.””When you make a habit of coloring your words with sincere feelings you’ll notice a great uptake in your ability to hold attention. Life it up. Be sure everything you do and say tells people, “That fellow is alive.” “He means it.” “He’s going places.”
“Broadcast good news. Good news gets good results. Broadcast it.”
> Be your own self promoter of your success so other people know your actions are accomplishing positive things. Nobody is going to promote yourself so it’s your job!
“Grow the “You-Are-Important” Attitude:Every human being wants to feel important. Everyone, yes everyone – your neighbor, you, your wife, your boos – has a natural desire to feel he is ‘somebody.’ The desire to be important is man’s strongest, most compelling non biological hunger.A short story. People do more for you when you make them feel important. Years ago, in Detroit, I rode a certain bus to work each morning. The driver was an old grump. Dozens, maybe hundreds of times, I saw this driver pull away from the curb when a wildly waving, shouting, and running passenger was just a second or two from the door. Over a period of several months I saw this driver show special curtest to only on passenger, and this passenger was shown special courtesy many times. The driver would wait for this passenger.And why? Because this passenger went out of his way to make the driver feel important. Every morning he greeted the driver with a personalized, sincere “Good morning, sir.” Sometimes this passenger would sit near the driver and make little comments like “You sure have a lot of responsibility’; “It mus take nerves of steel to drive through traffic like this every day” ; “You sure keep this thing on schedule.” That passenger made the driver feel as important as if he were piloting a 180-passenger jet airliner. And the driver in returned showed special courtesy to the passenger.It pays to make “little” people feel like big people.”
“You must feel important to succeed. Helping others to feel important rewards you because it makes you feel more important. Here’s how to do it:”1. Practice appreciation. 2. Practice calling people by their names.3. Don’t hog glory, invest it instead.
“Want to make money? Then get the put-service-first attitude. People with a money-first attitude become so money conscious that they forget money can’t be harvested unless they plant the seeds that grow the money. And the seed of money is service. That’s why “put service first” is an attitude that creates wealth. Put service first, and money takes care of itself.”
“Always give people more than they expect to get. Each little extra something you do for others is a money seed. Money seeds, of course, grow money. Plant service and harvest money.”
> When you give more than expected you’ll constantly improve the liberties in your work and life. People will break the rules for you, because you always over deliver and they can count on that super power.
Chapter 9: Think Right Toward People
“The rule is: Success depends on the support of other people. The “likability” factor in a person 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.”
> I’ve been the best at at big company but I didn’t promote myself well to higher ups so they never understood how good I was. All the data analysis would prove I was a top performer, but there is something more important in succeeding than being technically good. You need to be likable – you need to be good with other people of all walks of life.
“A person is not pulled up to a higher level job. Rather, he is lifted up. In this day and age nobody has time or patience to pull another up the job ladder, degree by painful degree. The individual is chosen whose record makes him stand higher than the rest.”
“Successful people follow a plan for liking people.”
“President Lyndon Johnson’s 10 point formula for success.”1. Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing.2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you. Be an old-shoe king of individual.3. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-going so that things do not ruffle you.4. Don’t be egotistical. Guard against the impression that you know it all.5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so people will get something of value from their association with you.6. Study to get the “scratchy” elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an host basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.8. Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely.9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.10. Give spiritual strength to people, and they will give genuine affect to you.
“Take the initiative in building friendships – leaders always do. Next time you are in a large group, observe something very significant: the most important person present is the one person most active in introducing himself.”
> If nobody knows who you are how are they going to give you money for a service? Always build your network.
“Your mind is a mental broadcasting station. This broadcasting system transmits messages to you on two equally powerful channels: Channel P (positive) and Channel N (negative). The longer you stay tuned to either Channel P or Channel N, the more interested you become and the harder it is to switch channels. This is true because one thought, positive or negative, sets off a whole chain reaction of similar thought.”
> Tuning into Channel P improves your neuroplasticity to always think positively.
“The person who does the most talking and the person who is the most successful are rarely the same person.”
“How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.”Chapter 10: Get The Action Habit
“The great self-made merchant John Wanamaker often said, “Nothing comes merely by thinking about it.”
“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.”
> Many folks believe once you are wealthy the problems disappear. They don’t. The problems just change. It’s the human condition to always face problems so long as they are living a well-intention life. The most problems we keep solving the better we become at solving problems and the positive feedback loop rewards you plus compound effects start bearing fruit farther down the line, which is where the massive wins come from.”When you write a thought on paper, your full attention is automatically focused on that thought. That’s because the mind is not designed to think one thoughts and write another at the same time. And when you write on paper, you “write” on your mind, too. Tests prove conclusively that you remember something much longer and much more exactly if you write the thought on paper”
“Once you master the pencil-and-paper technique for concentration, you can think in noisy or other distracting situations. When you want to think, start writing or doodling or diagramming. It’s an excellent way to move your spirit.”
Key Points:1. Be an activationist. Be some who does things. Be a doer, not a don’t-er.2. Don’t wait until conditions are perfect. They never will be. Expect future obstacles and difficulties and solve them as they arise.3. Remember, ideas alone won’t bring success. Ideas have value only when you act upon them.4. Use action to cure and gain confidence. Do what you fear, and fear disappears.5. Start your mental engine mechanically. Don’t wait for your spirit to move you. Take action, dig in, and you move the spirit.6. Think in terms of now. Tomorrow, next week, later and similar words often are synonymous with the failure word, never. Be an “I’m starting right now” kind of person.7. Get down to business – pronto. Don’t waste time getting ready to act. Start acting instead.8. Seize the initiative. Be a crusader. Pick up the ball and run. Be a volunteer. Show that you have the ability and ambition to do.
Chapter 11: How To Turn Defeat Into Victory“Persisting in one way is not a guarantee of victory. But persistence blended with experimentation does guarantee success.”
> The person that never gives up and tries different approaches will succeed in life. There are only so many ways to build a business model. After enough interactions you’ll find traction and once you see the traction double down on that model to scale.
“Tell yourself, There IS a way. All thoughts are magnetic.”
“Back off and start afresh. Often we stay so close to a problem for so long that we can’t see new solutions or new approaches.”
“Study setbacks to pave your way to success. When you lose, learn, and then go on to win next time.”
“Have the courage to be your own constructive critic. Seek out your faults and weaknesses and correct them. This makes you a professional.”
“Stop blaming luck.”
“Remember there is a good side in every situation. Find it. See the good side and whip discouragement.”
Chapter 12: Use Goals To Help You Grow“The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.”
“Each of us can learn a precious lesson from the forward looking business. We can and should plan at least ten years ahead. You must form an image now of the person you want to be ten years from now if you are to become that image.”
Questions to help craft that 10 year vision:Work Department:What income level do I want to attain?What level of responsibility do I seek?How much authority do I want to command?What prestige do I expect to gain from my work?
Home Department:What kind of standard of living do I want to provide for my family and myself?What kind of house do I want to live in?What kind of vacations do I want to take?What financial support do I want to give my children in their early adult years?
Social Department:What kinds of friends do I want to have?What social groups do I want join?What community leadership positions would I like to hold?What worthwhile causes do I want to champion?
“Will this help take me where I want to go?”
Advise from John Wanamaker: “A man is not doing much until the cause he works for possesses all there is of him.”
“The most amazing thing about a deeply entrenched goal is that it keeps you on course to reach your target. This isn’t double-talk. What happens is this. When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious is always in balance. You conscious mind is not, unless it is in tune with what your subconscious mind is thinking. Without full cooperation from the subconscious mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive. Now, with your goal absorbed into your subconscious you react the right way automatically. The conscious mind is free for clear, straight thinking.”
“Now, as you press forward to success, set goals: deadlines, target dates, self-imposed quotas. You will accomplish only what you plan to accomplish.”
“The person determined to achieve maximum success learns that principle that progress is make one step at a time.”
> So often I’ve become overwhelmed with some big project because I keep thinking about the big picture. This is not good. Alas, starting with the big picture is important but the manifestation of the big picture happens one step, one key stroke, at a time.
“Next time you see a particularly well-poised, well-groomed, clear-thinking, effective person, remind yourself that he wasn’t born that way. Lots of conscious effort, invested day by day, made the person what he is. Building new positive habits and destroying old negative habits is a day-by-day process.”
“Prepare to take detours in stride.”
> Life is anything but a straight line. It’s jagged, there will be backtracking, their will be round-abouts. This is all normal and too be expected. Unfortunately most people don’t understand this and give up when the path is no longer straight. Don’t be that person. Keep your 10 year vision in mind and execute the next task.
“The biggest and most rewarding kind of investment is self-investment, purchasing things that build mental power and proficiency.”
“Invest in education. Real education, the kind worth investing in, is that which develops and cultivates your mind. How well educated a person is, is measure by how well his mind is developed – brief, by how well he thinks.”
> Notice this idea is not talking about how many years of formal school you’ve taken. I’ve learned more from personal reading, podcasts, and Youtube videos than I ever learned in my formal education.
Chapter 13: How To Think Like A Leader
Four Leadership Rules or Principles:
1. Trade minds with the people you want to influence.”To get others to do what you want them to do, you must see things through their eyes. When you trade minds, the secret of how to influence other people effectively shows up.”
2. Think: What is the human way to handle this?
3. Think progress, believe in progress, push for progress.”Think improvement in everything you do. Think high standards in everything you do. Remember: when you take over the leadership of a group, the persons in that group immediately begin to adjust themselves to the standards you set.
What kind of worldwould this world be,If everyone in itwere just like me?”
4. Take time out to confer with yourself and develop your supreme thinking power.”Researches discovered that decisions and observations made alone in managed solitude have an uncanny way of being 100 percent right! When the fog is lifted, the right choice becomes crystal clear. Managed solitude pays off.”
“To do undirected thinking, just let your mind select what it wishes to think about. In moments like these your subconscious mind taps your memory bank, which in turn feeds your conscious mind. Undirected thinking is very helpful in doing self-evaluation. It helps you get down to the very basic matters like “How can I do better? What should be my next move?
> Undirected thinking is an amazing habit to integrate into your life. Often the conscious mind doesn’t know why it’s thinking about the thing it’s thinking about. The idea could have come from a person cutting you off in traffic and now you’re thinking about those awful in-laws. Not good! Quite the conscious, directing mind, and let the undirecting mind bring up all sorts of ideas your conscious mind needs to work out and think about. This is how you’ll become in better harmony with your soul and be a more effective individual.
When little people try to drive you down, THINK big.1. You win when you refuse to fight petty people. Fighting little people reduces you to their size. Stay big.2. Expect to be sniped at. It’s proof you’re growing.3. Remind yourself that snipers are psychologically sick. Be Big. Feel sorry for them.
“A wise man will be master of his mind,A fool will be its slave.”
> In summary the way you think determines your entire life. Thinking well is about thinking big, following a set of principles outlined in this book. Allow your undirecting mind to provide you directing mind ammo to ponder, strategize, mull over, in time coming up with solutions to the problems the undirecting mind is not in harmony with.
Stretch this process and way of thinking over the long term, you’ll enjoy a well ordered life, monetary success, rich friendships, and worldly experiences. All from Thinking BIG!