SA Leadership Podcast Episode #129

How Great Leaders Think

It is hard to overstate the value of changing your thinking. Good thinking can do many things for you: generate income, solve problems, and create opportunities. It can take your life to a whole new level of living. Consider some things about changing your thinking:

Changed Thinking Is Not Automatic – A change in your thinking habits does not happen on its own. Good ideas rarely go out and find someone. If you want to be a better thinker you have to work at it. The amount of good thinking you can do at any time depends on the amount of good thinking you are already doing.

Changed Thinking Is Difficult – When you hear somebody say, “This is just off the top of my head,” expect dandruff. The only people who think that thinking is easy are the ones that never engage it.

Changed Thinking Is Worth The Investment – Author Napoleon Hill observed that more gold has been mined from the thoughts of man than has ever been taken from the earth.”

I want to give you six thoughts on becoming a better thinker at the outset of this podcast series.

Expose Yourself To Good Input

Good thinkers are always looking for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out. Read good authors, articles, spend time with great thinkers. Write down your thoughts and keep them in a place where you can be reminded of them.

Expose Yourself To Good Thinkers

Spend time with the right people. Who provokes you to a higher level of thinking and action – hang out with those people. The writer of the biblical book, Proverbs observed that sharp people sharpen one another, just as iron sharpens iron. If you desire to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.

Choose To Think Good Thoughts

Be intentional in your thinking process. Regularly put yourself in the right place to think, stretch, and land your thoughts. Remember that thinking is a discipline. Dan Cathy of Chik-fil-A had a thinking schedule. He would set aside ½ day every other week, one full day every month, and 1-3 full days consecutively every year.

Act On Your Good Thoughts

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date. WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker stated, “I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through, then follow through.”

Allow Your Emotions To Create Another Good Thought

In the book Failing Forward, John Maxwell writes that you can act your way into feeling long before you feel your way into action. Once you engage a process of good thinking, you can use your emotions to feed the process and create mental momentum.

Repeat The Process

One good thought does not make a good life. One who have one good thought and attempt to ride it throughout their career often end up lonely and destitute. These people are the one-hit wonders, the one-book authors, and the one message speakers. Success comes to those who have a mountain of gold to mine – always coming up with fresh content. If your goal is to be a person who can mine a lot of gold, you need to be a person that repeats the process of good thinking.

Here is a formula for successful thinking:

The right THOUGHT plus the right PEOPLE in the right ENVIRONMENT at the right TIME for the right REASON = the right RESULT!

LINKS

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Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!

 

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