I’d just read the motivational classic The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz. 

It’s really a classic, and I can see why. First published in 1959, it paves the way for the future iterations to come, in terms of what we’re reading now in terms of the science of persuasion, productivity, habit formation, personal success, innovation and disruption. While I’ll probably use the more recent books as tactical material, I still found some gems worth noting down.

Sharing them here as reference for myself, and for anyone who might find it useful. This is not a book review, just raw notes lifted directly from the book, with some minor edits, interpretations and categorisations of my own.

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The Magic of Thinking Big

by David Schwartz

See what can be, not just what is

People who don’t have much look at themselves as they are now. That’s all they see. They don’t see a future, they just see a miserable present. Be determined to not let what you haven’t got stop you. Look at yourself as the person you’re going to be in the future. When you look at yourself that way, you feel bigger and think bigger, and it’ll pay off. The price tag the world puts on us is just about identical to the one we put on ourselves. 

Petty thinker vs big thinker

• Saves pennies vs increase income
• Gossip, talk negatively vs talk positive
• Prefer status quo vs believes in expansion 
• Views future as limited vs future as promising 
• Always avoiding work vs looking for more things to do, help others
• Competes with average vs the best
• Set goals low vs high
• Short term vision vs long term
• Preoccupied with security vs seeing security as a natural companion of success
• Surrounded by petty thinkers vs people with large, progressive ideas
• Makes minor errors a bigger deal than they are vs ignores errors of little consequence 

Capacity is a state of mind

How much we can do depends in how much we think we can do. We find time for things where there’s no choice. 

Upgrade your thinking

Think like important people think. Think like the person you want to be in the future. How am I thinking?

• Would an important person worry about this?
• Would the most successful person I know be worried about this?
• What would an important person do if she had this idea?
• Do I look like someone who has max self respect?
• Am I using the language of successful people?
• Would an important person read this?
• Would an important person get mad at what I’m mad at?

Go first class when you have questions

Successful people are not always inaccessible. They often like to help and give back. 

Get plenty of psychological sunshine during leisure hours

Don’t spend weekends unplanned, lazing around on the couch, watching TV and being bored at home, leaving you psychologically starved. Plan refreshing activities, circulate in new groups, enrich yourself in ways that give you energy, ideas.

Surrender to your goal

When you surrender yourself to your desires, when you let yourself become obsessed with a goal, you receive the physical power, energy, enthusiasm needed to accomplish your goal. You also receive the “automatic instruction” needed to keep you going straight to your objective. When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind, you react the right way automatically, making you supersensitive to all the many forces at work that affect him. Without a goal, your actions reflect no personal policy. You waver, second-guess yourself, hesitates, and flounder in mediocrity.