The Magic of Thinking Big summary

You might be familiar with the term “knowledge is power,” which means that the more we know, the more we can do. This saying fails to distinguish between the two types of knowledge: fact memorization and creative thinking.

With fact memorization, you learn pieces of information and store them in the brain to be recalled later. But many of these remembered facts end up like old boxes in a garage: you only access them when you need what’s inside.

In today’s society, negativity is everywhere – from murders reported by the news to advertisements that try to make us feel fat or ugly. But it’s not only the media being negative. Even the people closest to us often spew “you-can’t-make-it-so-don’t-even-try” propaganda – for example, your best friends might start criticizing your dream of becoming president of a company.

After a while, we get so used to negative thinking that it feels normal. Our negative thoughts work like mental monsters: the more we let them into our psyche, the stronger they become, until they completely overpower our positive thinking.

Have you ever had a co-worker be mean to you for no reason? Naturally, your first reaction would be to brand them as angry, or maybe even crazy.

What you have lost sight of, though, is that they’re just like you – and chances are they’re only reacting against you because they’re being affected by something else going on in their lives.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “you are what you eat,” which implies you should follow a healthy diet if you wish to have a healthy body. That same idea applies to your mentality: the way you think is influenced by what you see and hear. Your living space, your friends, what you read – all of these act as “mind food” and are instrumental in influencing your thought processes.

For example, prolonged association with people who gossip will make you more likely to gossip. Conversely, prolonged association with people who only speak positively of others will cause you to do the same.

Sometimes when you’re speaking with a friend or significant other, you can tell when they’re feeling uncomfortable or down, even if they choose not to talk about it. This is because our attitudes and outlook on life are always clear to others.

How are we so good at detecting this? Because for millions of years, our evolutionary ancestors had no language. Communication depended on understanding body and facial expressions, not words and sentences. We can read attitudes because in the past this ability helped keep our ancestors alive.

The advice “fear is all in your head” is often given to help people overcome their hesitancy toward entering situations they’re uncertain about.

But whether or not one's fear is self-created or legitimate, the fact is that fear does exist. And it can become the number one enemy preventing you from being successful in what you want to do.

Everyone has their own unique take on the classic statement that “There are two kinds of people in the world...” Two types of people we can all generally identify with, though, are failures and successful people: those who have failed to actualize their potential, and those who have made themselves a success in their career or lifestyle.

What is it, though, about successful people that keeps them from drifting over into the “failure” category?

If you’re someone who knows what you want to do in life, it was probably pretty exciting to reach that realization. But on the path to success, that’s the easiest part.

Goals are easy to generate but become pointless without action. And before taking action, you need to solidify a plan to make sure achieving your goal can become a reality.