How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

3. Find a Place to Stretch Your Thoughts
If you come upon great thoughts and spend time mentally shaping them, don’t
think you’re done and can stop there. If you do, you will miss some of the most
valuable aspects of the thinking process. You miss bringing others in and
expanding ideas to their greatest potential.
Earlier in my life, I have to admit, I was often guilty of this error. I wanted to
take an idea from seed thought to solution before sharing it with anyone, even
the people it would most impact. I did this both at work and at home. But over
the years, I have learned that you can go much farther with a team than you can
go alone.
I’ve found a kind of formula that can help you stretch your thoughts. It
says,
The Right
 Thought 
plus the Right 
People
in the Right 
Environment
at the Right 
Time
for the Right 
Reason
= the 
Right Result
This combination is hard to beat. Like every person, every thought has the
potential to become something great. When you find a place to stretch your
thoughts, you find that potential.

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4. Find a Place to Land Your Thoughts
Author C. D. Jackson observes that “great ideas need landing gear as well as
wings.” Any idea that remains only an idea doesn’t make a great impact. The
real power of an idea comes when it goes from abstraction to application. Think
about Einstein’s theory of relativity. When he published his theories in 1905 and
1916, they were merely profound ideas. Their real power came with the
development of the nuclear reactor in 1942 and the nuclear bomb in 1945. When
scientists developed and implemented Einstein’s ideas, the whole world
changed.
Likewise, if you want your thoughts to make an impact, you need to land them
with others so that they can someday be implemented. As you plan for the
application phase of the thinking process, land your ideas first with…
Yourself:
Landing an idea with yourself will give you integrity. People will
buy into an idea only after they buy into the leader who communicates it.
Before teaching any lesson, I ask myself three questions: “Do I believe it?
Do I live it? Do I believe others should live it?” If I can’t answer yes to all
three questions, then I haven’t landed it.
Key Players:
Let’s face it, no idea will fly if the influencers don’t embrace
it. After all, they are the people who carry thoughts from idea to
implementation.