The Magic of Thinking BIIIIIIIG!!

I started reading this book three or four months back and I took my time to finish it. What an incredible book!!! Personally, I have learned a lot from this book. I can surely say that now I am not the person I was before reading this masterpiece.

Honestly, I suggest that you to read it yourself to get the most out of it, but if you don't get a chance you can always come here to read the highlights.

So let's start with the thought which will help you achieve anything in the world,

"A person is a product of his own thoughts"

Our mind is a thought factory, a very busy one, producing countless thoughts in one day. Production in this factory is under the charge of two foremen, Mr. Triumph (incharge of positive thoughts) and Mr. Defeat (incharge of negative thoughts). These guys are very obidient and come to attention immediately. To see how these foremen work for you, try this example. Tell yourself "Today is a lousy day." This signals Mr. Defeat into action and he manufactures some facts to prove you are right. Ten minutes later you have a whole list, your coffee spilled, the bus was late, your boss seemed annoyed, and it's not even noon yet. Mr. Defeat is really good at his job, give him one negative thought and he'll build an entire case file to back it up.

Let me give you a real example from my life, starting this very blog. When the idea first came to my mind, Mr. Defeat showed up instantly. He said "Who's going to read this?" "You're not even a writer." "There are already a thousand blogs out there." etc etc.

But at that point I switched to Mr. Triumph by thinking "Even if one person reads this and takes something from it, it's worth doing. If not then I am growing and improving my writing skills anyways, it's a win-win for me." And just like that, Mr. Triumph took charge. He reminded me of the books that changed my thinking, the notes I'd already been making for myself, and pointed out that the only real failure would be not starting at all. And now as you can see with only 21 blogposts I have average of more than 170 readers per post. Even though I didn't post anything last month I got 81 readers for my previous blogposts.

This is probably happening in your life too, right now, with something you've been sitting on. A dream, a switch you want to make, a conversation you've been avoiding. The task hasn't changed. The only thing deciding whether you move or stay stuck is which foreman you're currently listening to.

So choose Mr. Triumph, start with the positive thought that you can do it, and notice how things get aligned automatically.

Another thought I found interesting is

"Look at things not as they are, but as they can be."

Most of the times we see things exactly as they are and we leave it that way, we stop. We don't see what it could become.

This applies to people too, maybe even more than it applies to things. We often size up a person, including ourselves, by what's visible right now. A shopkeeper struggling to manage his one small store gets written off as "he'll never grow this business." A student who's average at studies gets labelled "not the smart one" by relatives. We do the same to ourselves, we haven't started that skill we've been wanting to learn, so we tell ourselves "I'm just not that kind of person" or "I'm not cut out for this work." But a person, just like an idea, is never the finished product we see today. That shopkeeper could be running three branches in a few years. That "average" student could end up being the most successful person in the family. The version of us that feels stuck right now is not permanent, it's just a draft.

And that brings up something worth sitting with, it isn't what one has that's important, rather, it's how much one is planning to get that counts. It's not about how many readers we have today, how much money is in the bank right now, or how far along we already are in anything. What actually matters is the direction we're headed and how much we're willing to grow into. Two people can be at the exact same starting point, but the one who's planning to get more, learn more, become more, is already ahead, simply because of where their mind is pointed.

So the next time we look at something or someone unfinished, whether it's a project, a skill, another person, or even ourselves, it's worth asking, "Am I seeing this as it is, or am I seeing what it's capable of becoming?" Because the moment we only see the "as is," we stop building. And the moment we see the "can be," we start moving toward it.

Also

"Get your advice from successful people. Your future is important."

We've all been in a position where wanted to start something or stuck at a decision and we ask around for advice. But here's the catch, we often ask WRONG people. We ask about our careers to the relatives who have never studied a day in their life. We ask a friend who's never invested a rupee in his life whether we should start a SIP. We ask a relative for marriage advice who's been fighting with his wife every now and then and their own relationship is in danger. We ask someone who's never run a business what they think of our business idea. And then we wonder why their advice left us demotivated or confused.

Think about it logically, if we wanted to learn cooking, we wouldn't take lessons from someone who's never stepped into a kitchen. If we wanted to get fit, we wouldn't take training tips from someone who's never worked out, right? Yet when it comes to the biggest decisions of our life, career, money, relationships, we casually take advice from people who haven't achieved what we're trying to achieve. We let their fears, their failed attempts, and their limited thinking become our own.

This doesn't mean we ignore everyone around us or stop listening to family and friends, they matter, and their concern usually comes from a good place. But when it's advice specifically about an important goal of yours, that freelance advice from someone who hasn't walked that path needs to be weighed differently than someone who's actually done it, or is at least seriously trying to.

Now you know who's advice to give importance and who's to ignore.

And last but not the least,

"Now is the magic word of success."

We all have that one thing we've promised ourselves we'll start "soon." The workout plan starts Monday. The course gets enrolled next month. The idea gets pursued once things "settle down a bit." We've convinced ourselves that we're not avoiding it, we're just waiting for the right time. But if we're being honest, that right time rarely shows up on its own, we have to create it, right now.

Here's the thing about "later," it's not actually a real time, it's just a comfortable place we park our excuses. Tomorrow becomes next week, next week becomes next month, and before we know it, a year's gone by and we're still saying the same thing we said last year. Meanwhile, someone else with the exact same idea, the exact same resources, maybe even less talent than us, just started. Messy, unprepared, unsure, but they started. And that gap between us and them isn't skill or luck, it's just one decision, now versus later.

This is exactly what Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) was talking about centuries ago.

He said, "Hasten to do good deeds before you are caught up by one of seven calamities awaiting you; Poverty which may impair your wisdom/ability to carry out good deeds, wealth which may mislead you, an ailment which may damage your health, old age which may harm your senses, a sudden death, the Dajjal (Antichrist), or Qiyamah which is indeed the hardest and most bitter."

(Sunan Tirmidhi, Hadith: 2306)

and Sant Kabir said:

"काल करे सो आज कर, आज करे सो अब।

पल में परलय होएगी, बहुरि करेगा कब॥"

Meaning, whatever we plan to do tomorrow, do it today, and whatever we plan to do today, do it right now, because in a moment everything can change, so who knows if we'll even get the chance later. That's basically the desi, centuries-old version of "now is the magic word of success." Nothing new under the sun, we've just been ignoring these advices for a very long time.

So all in all, if there's one thing I want you to take away from all this, it's that every single thing we've talked about today, our thoughts, our vision, the advice we choose to listen to, the timing we choose to act on, all of it is within our control. We're not victims of circumstance, we're the ones running the factory, picking the foreman, deciding whether we see things as they are or as they can be. The book didn't teach me anything magical or complicated, it just reminded me of something we all secretly already know, that we've been sitting on our own potential, waiting for a "better time" that was never actually coming. So whatever it is we've been putting off, that's your sign. Not next Monday, not next year, not when things settle down. Now. Because like Prophet (PBUH) said and sant Kabir reminded us too, we're not promised tomorrow, only this moment, and what we choose to do with it.

That's where the magic really is!