How Successful People Think

"A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss."

"Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few do it."

"Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking."

"Pain prompts us to face who we are and where we are. What we do with that experience defines who we become."

You have to follow these simple 6 steps - 

1. Expose Yourself to Good Input: read books, listen to podcasts, etc.
2. Expose Yourself to Good Thinkers: Spend time with the right people. 
3. Choose to Think Good Thoughts: You have to become intentional about the thinking process.
4. Act on Your Good Thoughts
5. Allow Your Emotions to Create Another Good Thought
6. Repeat the Process

“Think like a man of action—act like a man of thought.”

1. Find a Place to Think Your Thoughts: If you go to your designated place to think expecting to generate good thoughts, then eventually you will come up with some.  
2. Find a Place to Shape Your Thoughts: As you shape your thoughts, you find out whether an idea has potential. 
3. Find a Place to Stretch Your Thoughts: "The Right Thought plus the Right People in the Right Environment at the Right Time; for the Right Reason = the Right Result"
4. Find a Place to Land Your Thoughts: You have to share your ideas.
5. Find a Place to Fly Your Thoughts: You have to find how to act on the thought.

1. Allows You to Lead: People who are constantly looking at the whole picture have the best chance of succeeding in any endeavor.
2. Keeps You on Target
3. Allows You to See What Others See: One of the most important skills you can develop in human relations is the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view.
4. Promotes Teamwork
5. Keeps You from BeingCaught Up in the Mundane
6. Helps You to Chart Uncharted Territory: The only way to break new ground or move into uncharted territory is to look beyond the immediate and see the big picture.

1. Don’t Strive for Certainty
2. Learn from Every Experience
3. Gain Insight from a Variety of People
4. Give Yourself Permission to Expand Your World

"Am I thinking beyond myself and my world so that I process ideas with a holistic perspective?"

“knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts are not to bother about.”

1. Remove Distractions
2. Make Time for Focused Thinking
3. Keep Items of Focus Before You
4. Set Goals
5. Question Your Progress: “Am I seeing a return for my investment of focused thinking time? Is what I am doing getting me closer to my goals? Am I headed in a direction that helps me to fulfill my commitments, maintain my priorities, and realize my dreams?"

“If you can’t write your idea on the back of my business card, you don’t have a clear idea.”

"Am I dedicated to removing distractions and mental clutter so that I can concentrate with clarity on the real issue?"

1. Remove Creativity Killers
2. Think Creatively by Asking the Right Questions
3. Develop a Creative Environment
4. Spend Time with Other Creative People
5. Get Out of Your Box

"Am I working to break out of my “box” of limitations so that I explore ideas and options to experience creative breakthroughs?"

Strategic thinking can - 

1. Simplifies the Difficult
2. Prompts You to Ask the Right Questions
3. Prompts Customization
4. Prepares You Today for an Uncertain Tomorrow
5. Reduces the Margin of Error
6. Gives You Influence with Others

1. Break Down the Issue
2.  Ask Why Before How
3. Identify the Real Issues and Objectives
4. Review Your Resources
5. Develop Your Plan
6. Put the Right People in the Right Place
7. Keep Repeating the Process

"Strategic thinking is like showering, you have to keep doing it."

"Am I implementing strategic plans that give me direction for today and increase my potential for tomorrow?"

“Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done.”

1. Stop Focusing on the Impossibilities
2. Stay Away from the “Experts”
3. Look for Possibilities in Every Situation
4. Dream One Size Bigger: Henry Curtis advises, “Make your plans as fantastic as you like, because twenty-five years from now, they will seem mediocre. Make your plans ten times as great as you first planned, and twenty-five years from now you will wonder why you did not make them fifty times as great.”
5. Question the Status Quo
6. Find Inspiration from Great Achievers

1. Set Aside Time for Reflection
2. Remove Yourself from Distractions
3. Regularly Review Your Calendar or Journal
4. Ask the Right Questions
5. Cement Your Learning Through Action

Reflective thinking has three main values: it gives me perspective within context; it allows me to continually connect with my journey, and it provides counsel and direction concerning my future.

"Am I regularly revisiting the past to gain a true perspective and think with understanding?"

1. Think Before You Follow
2. Appreciate Thinking Different from Your Own
3. Continually Question Your Own Thinking
4. Try New Things in New Ways
5. Get Used to Being Uncomfortable

"If you embrace unpopular thinking and make decisions based upon what works best and what is right rather than what is commonly accepted, know this: in your early years, you won’t be as wrong as people think you are. In your later years, you won’t be as right as people think you are. And all through the years, you will be better than you thought you could be."

"Am I consciously rejecting the limitations of common thinking in order to accomplish uncommon results?"

1. Put Others First: Make a mental and emotional commitment to look out for the interests of others.
2. Expose Yourself to Situations Where People Have Needs
3. Give Quietly or Anonymously
4.  Invest in People Intentionally
5. Continually Check Your Motives: François de la Rochefoucauld said, “What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.”

"Am I continually considering others and their journey in order to think with maximum collaboration?"

1. Identify the Real Bottom Line
2. Make the Bottom Line the Point
3. Create a Strategic Plan to Achieve the Bottom Line: The important thing is that when the bottom line of each activity is achieved, then THE bottom line is achieved. If the sum of the smaller goals doesn’t add up to the real bottom line, then either your strategy is flawed or you’ve not identified your real bottom line.
4. Align Team Members with the Bottom Line
5. Stick with One System and Monitor Results Continually.

"Am I staying focused on the bottom line so that I can gain the maximum return and reap the full potential of my thinking?"