The Magic of Thinking Big

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

This book belongs to the self-help classics in the same league as “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck and “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  “The Magic of Thinking Big: Acquire the Secrets of Success… Achieve Everything You’ve Always Wanted” by David Schwartz was first published in 1959 but its big ideas still reverberate to this present age.  The author says, “Think Big and you’ll live big. You’ll live big in happiness. You’ll live big in accomplishment. Big in income. Big in friends. Big in receiving respect.  As the great philosopher Disraeli says, ‘Life is too short to be little.’”

It’s a great classic and therefore a must read for those who want to make it big in life.  Here are some of the book’s big ideas:

Believe Big

Here is the author’s first advice as a foundation for becoming big, “The first step towards success and the basic step is to believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.”  In the updated version of the book, it quotes one of my favorite dialogues in the movie Matrix, when Morpheus was challenging Neo to believe in himself.  Recall the scene in the movie when Morpheus was training Neo for the first time in karate in a virtual martial arts hall, telling Neo, “What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.”  Much like winning in sports, life is all about having confidence that you can do it and win over all the challenges life throws at you to succeed.

Excusitis

Here is the author’s opinion on people who make a lot of excuses in life, “Go deep into your study of people, and you’ll discover unsuccessful people suffer a mind-deadening thought disease. We call this disease excusitis. Every failure has this disease in its advanced form. And most ‘average’ persons have at least a mild case of it.”

What are the common excuses many people have on why they are stuck in life?  It’s “I am too old.” “I am too young.” “I don’t have enough money.”  “It’s too late.”  “I am not smart enough.”  “No one gets rich studying.” “There’s too much competition.”  Another common trait among successful people the author says is that they don’t make excuses.  “The more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.”  (David Schwartz) As the saying goes, “If you are determined to succeed no one can stop you but if you don’t want to grow, no one can help you.”

Stickability

Stickability means never giving up or always completing a task you have started.  When you open your email for example, stickability means you complete all that is needed to be done there in your mail box by replying to all queries and sending those emails that are necessary.  Leaving some things hanging will just be a waste of time, effort and energy because you will have to come back to your unfinished task when you could have done it in one sitting.  Stickability also means not to give up when the going gets tough on your life goals.  Here’s one of my favorite quotes about persistence by Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Action Cures Fear

The author says, “Action cures fear.  Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear.”  What a great lesson on procrastination!  Delaying doing things feeds our fear.  Action on the other hand kills it.  A fitting inspiration on not to procrastinate is from Russell Simmons from his book “Do You!” that says, “The pain that’s created by avoiding hard work is actually much worse than any pain created from the actual work itself. Because if you don’t begin to work on those ideas that God has blessed you with, they will become stagnant inside of you and eventually begin to eat away at you. You might seem OK on the outside, but inside you will be ill from not getting those ideas out of your heart and into the world. Stalling leads to sickness. But taking steps, even baby steps, always leads to success.”