The Magic of Thinking Big: Summary and Notes
Picture two friends, Joe and Jeff on the long adventure called life. Joe puts faith in whatever he does, while Jeff is full of self-doubt and never takes advantage of the opportunities that come his way.
Of the two, who do you think will have a more fulfilling life? Of course, it’s Joe because he practices belief.
Joe will see daily improvements while his friend, Jeff will experience frustration and failure at every turn.
We learn this from Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, a book that’s full of many great insights on the power of thoughts.
Schwartz likens the brain to a thought factory with two foremen.
The first foreman called Mr. Triumph manufactures positive thoughts and is in charge of the reasons why you can and will succeed. The other foreman, Mr. Defeat produces negative and self-defeating thoughts. He is an expert at producing reasons why you can’t make it, why you are weak and inadequate.
Like the fable of the two wolves, the more you work on the same foreman, the stronger he becomes. If you give time and space to your negative thoughts, negative outcomes will manifest. On the other hand, if you concentrate on positive thoughts, you will experience positive outcomes.
The goal of Magic of Thinking Big is to teach you how to feed Mr. Triumph and develop a positive attitude in life and it all begins with the size of your own thinking.
The Size of Your Thinking
According to Schwartz, how successful you will become will depend on the size of your own thinking.
If you think small, you will get small and mediocre results and if you think big, so will be your results.
To think big, you must have a strong belief. Belief is the thermostat that regulates what we accomplish in life.
To appreciate the power of belief, think back at Joe, our self-driven friend. Joe doesn’t hesitate in the face of opportunities because he has already visualized success in his head. On the other hand, his friend Jeff is full of self-doubt and never takes action. The result? Fewer and less convincing life outcomes.
In a simplified way:
STRONG BELIEF = MASSIVE ACTION
WEAK BELIEF = HESITANCY or LACK of ACTION.
Schwartz offers a three-step process for building belief:
First, think success, not failure. When faced with a difficult situation, think I will overcome this as opposed to I’ll lose. When competing with others, say to yourself: “I’m equal to the best.” Thinking success creates the conditions for success.
Secondly, remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are. The point here is to never to sell yourself short. Successful people are just ordinary people who believe in themselves.
And thirdly, believe big. The greater your belief, the more massive action you will put into the things you do in life.
As you work your belief system, you must do something else and that is to cure yourself of the failure disease.
The Failure Disease
What’s the failure disease? Schwartz calls the failure disease excusitis. It is a mind-deadening disease that explains failure with the average person sufferings from a mild case of it.
As Schwartz points out, the difference between a person whose going places and the fellow who is barely holding his own is the excuses they make.
The bottom line is, the more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses. It is the difference between Joe and Jeff. While Joe gets to work, Jeff is full of reasons why he can’t get started.
In other words, he suffers from an extreme case of excusitis.
Here is the problem of making excuses. Each time, you make an excuse, the excuse becomes embedded deeper into your subconscious. In other words, it gets to live another day. Put another way, positive or negative thoughts get fertilized when they are repeated.
The most common excuses that a guy like Jeff is likely to make include:
I’m too old, poor health, not enough intelligence, or back luck. But these are just excuses.
Even if you have bad health, you can still have a positive attitude in life. Roosevelt was a cripple but wasn’t he a great wartime president?
On the matter of not having ‘the brains’, Schwartz makes a very important point, he says the thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much brainpower you may have.
Our friend Jeff has the brains but he is likely to sell himself short or overestimate other people’s brainpower.
Is there a way to cure yourself of the failure disease? There are a few ways:
First, stop focusing on past failures. The past is done with and there is nothing you can do about it. The faster you start creating your future the better.
Also, acknowledge that you made some mistakes in the past. Remember, mistakes are not there to cripple you. They are there to help you learn and improve.
Finally, stick to your lane by focusing on your strengths. The reason so many people are successful is that they focus on the strengths or what Warren Buffet calls the circle of competence.
Curing the failure disease will open the door for your next chapter in life. Schwartz also talks about fear and how it leads to ordinary results.
Fear
What if Jeff is just afraid? How is he to be saved?
You may not know this, but some people are afraid of success. Now you must be wondering why would anyone be afraid of being successful but here’s the thing; Success brings so many changes it can be scary.
It could mean moving to a new place, finding a new job, accepting a new role, a new boss, and so on. But you shouldn’t be afraid of change because life is about moving forward. You have to cure fear.
But how do you go about it?
According to Schwartz, fear stems from badly mismanaged negative emotions. What this means is that fear can be cured by action and positive emotions.
Here are some of the strategies that Schwartz proposes.
The first is to take prompt action whenever you are faced with a task because delay only serves to increase anxiety.
So, start by developing a no waiting mindset because the earlier you get started on a task the better.
Schwartz also recommends putting positive emotions in your memory bank. How does that work? Think of your brain as a storage unit for important thoughts. Putting positive emotions means concentrating on the good stories rather than on failure so that when you feel like quitting, you can go back and remember your success stories. These will empower you.
Another reason for fear is being afraid of people. If you are afraid of people, realize they are just like you. They have the same fears and expectations. Who knows, perhaps the people you look up to are even more afraid than you but guess what? They don’t give in to their fears instead, they face them and that makes all the difference.
Another way of doing away with fear is to practice confidence. You can dress smartly, walk faster, stand shoulders back, and develop a firm handshake. Doing such things might feel odd at first, but the more you get used to doing them, the more confident you feel.
Your environment also plays a great role in determining how you feel about yourself and you can control it.
Controlling your environment
Think of a stadium, the cheering crowds, and all the energy in the place. The excitement must be contagious right? That’s because the environment also contributes to our emotional energy. Schwartz says managing our environment is important for success. The goal is to make the environment work for you rather than against you because the better you are at managing your environment, the more effective you will be at achieving your goals.
Start by avoiding negative people. If you are like Joe, you would want to work with similar-minded people. People with the same positive energy. Another strategy is to go first class in everything you do.
Going first-class means a lot of things including treating yourself right, changing your style, walking straight, holding your head high, and dealing with first-class people. And talking about dealing with people, you should make it your goal to treat people with the dignity they deserve.
Schwartz talks of making yourself easier to lift. What this means is that you need to make other people like you and enjoy associating with you.
They should be proud to introduce you and call you a friend. Schwartz says that this entails practicing being likable by asking yourself what people look for in friends and copying those traits.
You can also take initiative in building friendships. Here are a few tips: Get peoples names straight, introduce yourself to others, tell people you’d like to know them more, accept people and their differences by understanding the no one is perfect, admire positive qualities in others, dont be too quick to judge because people like it when you see the good in them, practice conversation generosity by giving others the time to express themselves
Can you see the pattern? Taking control, managing your thoughts, building relationships, etc is all about leadership whether its self or others.
Leadership
Schwartz sees leadership as a necessary quality for success. A successful leader can manage their thoughts as well as work well with others.
To be an effective leader, you need to start trading minds with the people you want to influence. This means seeing things from their perspective. It is easier to get people to your side if you can listen and engage them respectfully.
Schwartz also recommends solving things in a human way. When faced with a difficult task, ask yourself: “What is the human way to solve this?”
Dealing with people this way means that you have concern for how they feel. As a leader, you also need to think progress. Don’t get stuck in the old ways of doing things. Try new things, innovate, experiment, and most importantly, learn.
Finally, as a leader, you need time alone to confer with yourself. Meditate and clear your mind of any unnecessary worries.
Conclusion
And that’s the summary of Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. The classic will teach you how to harness the power of belief and lead a more purposeful life.
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