The Thinking Series – Part 4

Late last month, I started a series on Thinking based on the nuggets I gleaned from my encounter with John Maxwell during the “Think your way to the Top” workshop as well as highlights from his book “How successful people think“.

Just to recap, we’ve talked about the need to be an Iceberg thinker & not an ice-cube thinker, Being careful of the information we allow into our minds as it determines what come out. The need to think our thoughts, setting a guard on our thought bringing it in alignment with what God wants us to think about, having a place where we think deep & focused thoughts. We also looked at the need to know what triggers our innovation & creativity. Lastly we looked at the need to write our thoughts & visions down.

Today, I will like to answer the question “WHY YOU SHOULD CHANGE YOUR THINKING?” & also share another nugget “Rethink the thought”

I realized that for some people this concept is completely strange & there is a need to back it up with some points.

Changing your thinking can actually change your life, it unlocks the potential you have within you. Good thinkers are always in demand, John says ” A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss”. Focused & good thinking is beneficial to you as it can help you solve problems, create opportunities & generate income. You never lack ideas, you take control of situations & ultimately lead people.

Sadly, changed thinking is not automatic, it takes some cultivating, its hard work but it’s worth the investment. When you take the time to learn how to change your thinking & become a better thinker your mind becomes like a mine of good ideas & solutions which is priceless.

I’ve experience this to some extent in my life & career. There was a time I was faced with a difficult project that had a very short delivery time, the pressure was very high. Everything was setup as required but nothing was working, at some point I excused myself, went inside my car to pray, listen to some music & think a little bit more & just like that an idea just came to my mind about how to solve the problem. I went back to the office tried it & it worked.

This idea was not in any book or manual, so I wrote the steps down in a small manual & shared it with my team & others. Down the years, I discovered that my manual is now in the global resource library of a major telecoms OEM ( Original Equipment Manufacturer). I wished I patent the stuff back then.

Napoleon Hill observed that “More gold has been mined from the thoughts of man than has ever been taken from the earth”. You’ve got something priceless in your mind, please invest to bring it out for the world to see.

RETHINK THE THOUGHT

After taking the time to write down your thoughts as discussed in the last post on this series. The next thing to do is to rethink the thought. This is the incubation period to clarify the though, essentially a minimum of 24 hour is valid enough to either take it or leave it.

If I have a spark of idea come to me now & it’s super exciting & all that, I usually note it down & just ruminate on it for a day or two. If after that waiting period, the idea or thought is still as exciting & engaging as it was before, then its worth exploring & almost all of the time I am amazed at the results I get.

I was given a task at work to do an end-to-end analysis about the variation of data in our mobile network. This was a huge task & involved a lot of factors & as usual the timelines were short. I started gathering data & crunching the numbers, but the most difficult part was the presentation. I was suppose to present to senior management & I knew how short their attention span was especially when it comes to technical stuff.

So I brainstormed on the best way to present, while thinking about it before I slept I got an idea about using a trapezium shape in a PowerPoint slide to explain everything.

The next couple of days I still had the same feeling about the idea, so I knew I had to do it. I spoke with a couple of colleagues & they gave me more insight. So I eventually did it & shared with my director just a day before the meeting. He was super excited & added a few points as well.

On the day of the meeting, my director was so eager for my presentation to start & when I got to the trapezium & explain the whole concept, it was a success. I got great reviews from colleagues in Finance,Commercial etc & that slide was sent to the CEO. Good thing I had my name on it!!

Today people still refer to that presentation & tell me that they’ve never seen techy stuff explain in such a manner before.

All of this came from a place of deep thinking.

You need to change your thinking, there is so much to benefit from it!!!

Cultivate the habit to rethink you thought!!!

Do you have difficulties in doing this? Please share your challenges

This is my snippet, I AM SHALOMESQ!!!