As noted in The Question of the Ages (link to blog post), Solomon’s quest for meaning in life starts with intellectualism. This reminded me of John Maxwell’s book How Successful People Think. I received this book from fellow John Maxwell Team member Randy Stroman in August 2014 when I attended the John Maxwell certification event in Orlando.
As John Maxwell puts it, “A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.”
Consider these six steps to become a better thinker:
- Expose yourself to good input. Read books, review trade magazines, listen to tapes, and spend time with good thinkers.
- Expose yourself to good thinkers. Spend time with the right people.
- Choose to think good thoughts. Dan Cathy, Prsident of Chick-Fil-A, has a “thinking schedule”. He sets aside time just to think for half a day every two weeks, for one whole day every month, and for 2-3 full days every year. Dan explains, “This helps me ‘keep the main thing, the main thing’ since I am so easily distracted.”
- Act on your good thoughts. Ideas have a short shelf life.
- Allow your emotions to create another good thought. In Failing Forward, I wrote that you can act your way into feeling long before you can feel your way into action.
- Repeat the process.
Henri-Louis Bergson, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927, asserted that a person should “think like a man of action—act like a man of thought.”
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