Thinking big...

David Schwartz in his book ‘The magic of thinking big’ beautifully spoke how ‘thinking big’ would work wonders. It all depends on how you think… whether you perceive a half filled glass as half full or half empty.

People often try to give excuses for not being successful in life… the most common being not having enough brains. David Schwartz gives instances of how successful people can be even without intellectual brains. It is not because of any miracle in their lives, it is just the magic of ‘Thinking big’, instead of complaining about not having enough brains, they started thinking big. It’s all how you think rather than how much is your IQ.

Henry Ford, who had little formal education, was once asked few basic questions about history and wars. He failed to answer them but quickly said he could find a man who could answer them. He feels, the ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as garage for facts.

A CEO of a manufacturing firm happened to come across a quiz master who could answer when, where, what of almost everything happened in the world. When asked how much he would pay for the man, he said not more than 300$, the price of an encyclopedia. Knowing and memorizing the facts is just not enough, ‘thinking’ is what matters to be successful. Use the knowledge to create new things, to create new path. Knowledge is powerful, only when used constructively.

The world’s richest man and the founder of Microsoft opined that the Indians are the most intelligent people in the world after the Chinese. Then why is India still a developing country? Why isn’t India advanced in technology or science compared to many other countries in the world? It is because of the lack of thinking. We Indians set boundaries for ourselves and will never try to go beyond that. We study in prestigious institutes, taking over tough competition, learn few theories and finally end up in a job where we can implement these theories and feel complacent about our achievements. Everybody wants to follow a set path. We can find only few people who can explore new directions.

America imports many things from all over the world, and from India it imports ‘brains’, Brain drain has been the hottest topic in India. But we can find only few percentages of these Indians in top management or strategic management in American companies.

Our education system is designed in such a way that we give little or rather no importance to thinking. There is no scope for creativity or practical projects. We memorize things, we score marks and then we are intelligent. The parents and teachers emphasize more on what you score. The ever increasing rate of student’s suicide after the SSC or intermediate results shows the level of pressure our education system creates.

Success can be yours irrespective of whether you have intellectual brains or average brains. It is thinking that is more important. Your thoughts should be extension of your knowledge, then only we can say ‘Knowledge is powerful’. Even the great scientist Einstein couldn’t answer the question how many feet make a mile. He said he did not want to waste his time and brain in memorizing the things he could find out in 2 min by referring to a book, instead he could use the time effectively on thinking. ‘Thinking big’ really can do wonders.

I recommend everyone to read ‘The magic of thinking big’ by David Schwartz, I read only half of it till now, and already this is my favorite book.