The Magic of Thinking Big - Chapter 02

First assignment of the second chapter is to study people.

Study successful people and the habits that help them win.

Emulate these habits, and you have a decent chance

of winning.

Study the failures and determine the habits that make them unsuccessful. Get rid of these habits in your own life.

Focus your attention on the habits that winners practice.

One habit that leads people to failure is the habit of making excuses. Schwartz calls this habit excusitis. He believes it's a disease that infects countless people and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

Successful people make less excuses.

Excusitis gets worse the more it's left untreated.

Don't let it fester. Get rid of it quickly. Don't get too comfortable with it.

You may think you're just saving face, but you're actually killing your dreams.

According to the author, most people blame their health, intelligence, age or luck for their lack of success. And he offers tips on how we can overcome these excuses.

He worries that 3 out of 4 people have emotionally induced illnesses. Their ailments are cased by emotional strain rather than physical illness. Every moment you spend worrying is a moment of possible life that you're stealing from yourself.

Your attitude towards any subject determines the actions you take. And these actions determine the outcome or results. The author gives several examples of people in similar situations but different attitudes, and the differences in results each of them experiences.

Not many people are willing to admit that they lack adequate intelligence, which often lead to silent suffering and people selling themselves short.

It's not about how much intelligence you have,

it's about how you use the tools you have.

Interest and enthusiasm is a critical factor in success,

regardless of subject you're pursuing.

Sticking with a task until it's done

pays off much more than idle intelligence.

Some people say emotional intelligence, connecting with humans is more important than technical knowledge. For more information on this, read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. That's why some companies today have two interviews, one for technical knowledge and another one for culture fit. Culture fit is about relationships within the company. Will you mess up the dynamic within the company, or will add positively to it. Attitude has a lot to do with how we relate to other people.

The author argues that the mind should be used to think, not to store facts. He gives examples where Einstein was asked a question to he didn't already know the answer. His response, when asked, was that he had no need to store that information in his brain because he could easily find it in a reference book. In our age we'll just go to Google or Chat GPT or DeepSeek.

The value is thinking, not in memorizing.

The value is in people who can solve problems, who can think up ideas.

An idea man can make money. A fact man can't.

The author calls this age excusitis. Most people view age as a handicap that prevents them from performing at the required levels, especially in a country where every opportunity is reserved for people under the age of 35. Funny enough, even those under-35s are under-employed, under-educated, and roaming the streets with no money, no joy, and no idea what to do with their lives.

Aah, look at that. I caught myself complaining and thinking negatively. Is that why we're so miserable and almost hopeless as a country? Does looking at the actual dismal perfornce of our systems cause the systems to be dismal? Or, are the systems dismal, and that's why we notice that they're dismal?

Does it mean that if we can all imagine a country with zero unemployment, we can actually have zero unemployment as a country? At what point does this positive thinking stuff get ridiculous? At what point do we have to accept the reality of our situation and accept that in order for something to change we need to act?

The author claims that there is no such thing as luck. There is a cause for everything. Honestly, I don't think that's accurate. True, luck is not the only determinant of a person's success, but it does have a pretty significant contribution. Do you think a boy born in the DRC today has the same level of opportunity as a boy born in the USA or Europe?

Absolutely not. If you're born in the DRC, you'll most likely be carrying an AK47, fighting in a civil war, before your 12th birthday. In the USA or Europe, at that same age, you'll most likely be building apps, eating pizza in an air-conditioned bedroom.

How did the boy in the Congo inflict that upon himself?

Now, if you have the opportunity to determine your own fate, don't waste it by making excuses. Do the best you can.