Good thinking is your most potent weapon to be successful in a highly competitive and difficult time. In professional or personal transactions the power of good thinking is always an edge. If you know the “how of things” you may not run out of a job, but if you know the “why of things” you can turn out a victorious leader. A good thinker is a problem solver. He is never short of ideas and always maintains a “hope springs eternal” mindset.
Edward de Bono, lateral thinking guru and creative maestro, parallels a thinking mind to a beautiful mind. He says, “Beauty is something that can be appreciated by others, thus a beautiful mind is a mind that can be appreciated by others. It is not a mind of a person that sits in a corner and solves very complex puzzles. It is a mind that’s valued — usually through conversation.”
A beautiful mind is achievable. You can have it if you master the process of good thinking. It is not a matter of innate intelligence or great knowledge. It is how you use your mind that will spell the difference.
How do you imbibe the habit of good thinking? How can you be a better thinker today and in the future? Best-selling author John C. Maxwell in his new offering, How Successful People Think, advocates connecting to progressive methods that can guarantee a perked-up mind.
1. Have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and information. To attain this, regular exposure to good input is therefore a must. To be a good thinker, always prime the pump of ideas. Look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out. Realize that knowledge has long been recognized as a key component to success. It brings power and essentially raises one man above another. Read books and trade magazines, listen to educational CDs, watch videos and have frequent conversations with other good thinkers.
Being constantly curious and getting intrigued from time to time by people, things, situations and ideas encountered are good thinking boosters. Curiosity can kill the cat, but the lack of it can breed mediocrity. Never stop experimenting and be unrelenting in thinking of ways to build and diversify. If you discover a formula that works and get stuck with it, you’ll never know whether there’s something else that works better. As you do all these, put your observations in writing and keep it in a favorite place to stimulate your thinking. Never cease to learn, because if you do, you will cease to grow.
2. Network with good thinkers. Reach out to other people and build a network of individuals whose direction is to achieve success. Networking doesn’t mean sucking up to your boss, or choosing to hang out with important people only. Real networking is about building relationships at all levels inside and outside of your work environment — friends, colleagues, subordinates, superiors, suppliers, clients, teammates, virtual friends, professional club co-members, among others. From these assortments, seek out and choose to spend time with people who will challenge you with their thinking and actions. Believe that sharp people sharpen one another, just as iron sharpens iron. If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.
3. Be deliberate about the thinking process and choose to think good thoughts. To become a good thinker, your thinking process must be intentional. It is best to be regularly situated in a favorable environment to think, shape, stretch, and land your thoughts. Make thinking a discipline and a priority by having a “thinking schedule.” It will help fight the frenzied velocity of life that discourages premeditated thinking. And as you follow your agenda, be passionate about what you have decided to think about. Love what you do and apt rewards will follow.
Whether you are the president of the Philippines, the busiest show business personality or parent, it is dangerous not to do what you love. If you don’t have a level of passion that drives your thinking about what you’re doing day in and day out, there will be others out there more passionate who will overtake and outrun you. People who zealously care will take the initiative away from those who are half-hearted. So loving what you do is a competitive imperative, not simply a nice thing to have.
4. Think and then act. Know what you want, paint a dream, define a vision and have a clear idea about what you want to do, be, or accomplish. Put your good thoughts and deeds into goals. Ideas have a limited shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date. World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker captured it well when he remarked, “I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through — then follow through.” You may find it hard to take that first step, especially when it’s completely out of your comfort zone, but be pushed by the belief that thinkers think and doers do. Maxwell underscores, though, that until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary of the talkers who talk. The key, he adds, is to have the daring to dream and the courage to act.
5. Let your emotions rule and create another good thought. Don’t wait to feel like doing something, for you will likely never to do it. The same is true for thinking. You cannot wait until you feel like thinking to carry it out. However, Maxwell believes that once you engage in the process of good thinking, you can use your emotions to feed the process and create mental momentum. “Try it for yourself. After you go through the disciplined process of thinking and enjoy some success, allow yourself to savor the moment and try riding the mental energy of that success,” he proposes. Without a doubt, doing this can stimulate additional thoughts and creative ideas.
6. Do the thinking process over and over again. It will be pitiful if you only have one idea. One good idea does not make a successful existence. If you have one good thought and bank on it for your entire career, you will find yourself, sooner or later, miserable or impoverished. Thus, avoid being a one-hit wonder, a flash in the pan, a predictable speaker or a one-time inventor who spends life struggling to protect or promote a solitary 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 50 years,” Maxwell says. To become someone who can mine a lot of gold, you need to keep repeating the practice of good thinking.
In the book, Maxwell also posits the following to make your mind enriched and beautiful — see the big picture by looking at the world beyond your own needs and see how that leads to great ideas; get focused by removing mental clutter and distractions to realize your full potential; be creative by thinking in unique ways and making breakthroughs; work with others on shared thoughts to compound results; reflect on the past to gain a better understanding of the future, question popular thinking; explore possibilities, practice unselfishness, and rely on the bottom line.
“Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done,” Sam Ewing declares. Indeed, good thinking fetches a good possibility for triumph. And to triumph, you must “try” first then “umph.” Success doesn’t come overnight. You have to incessantly expand your mind, catch your dreams and be genuinely triumphant.
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E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating. How Successful People Think is available in all National Book Store branches.