Dare to Think Big
7. Controlling the Environment,
Striving to Be the Best
Your mind is an amazingly sophisticated machine,
when working in this way,
it can bring about remarkable success;
but if it works the other way,
it can lead you to complete failure.
The mind is fragile,
the most sensitive of all the most fragile things.
Now, let’s take a look
and find out what drives our brain
to think the way it usually does.
Millions of people in America are trying to eat in moderation,
because Americans are always concerned about nutrition.
We spend millions on vitamins,
minerals and other nutrients.
We all know why we do it.
From a nutrition survey we found that our bodies reflect our diet.
Resistance,
resistance to disease,
physique,
even longevity are all closely related to what we eat every day,
the body reflects our diet.
Likewise, the mind also reflects what it is offered.
Of course, the “food” of the mind is not packaged
and cannot be found in any store,
but the environment around you with its myriad influences on thought,
conscious or unconscious.
Each person inherits a certain capacity of the brain to develop.
But, how much it grows
and how it grows depends on what kind of food we provide.
Have you ever wondered
what it would be like to be raised in a different culture,
in a different country?
What kind of food would you like?
Are your clothing preferences different from today?
What kind of entertainment would you like?
What job will you do?
Which religion will you follow?
Of course you can’t be sure about the answers.
But basically,
if you grow up in another country,
you become a different person.
Why is that,
because you will be influenced by another environment.
As the saying goes,
you are the product of your environment.
Except for very little like the way to go to the bathroom
or the way to hold a cup,
all of our interests such as music,
literature,
entertainment,
taste,
dress… are greatly influenced by the environment.
More importantly,
your own thinking,
goals,
attitudes,
and personality are also formed from the surrounding environment.
Long-term relationships
with people with negative thinking patterns make us think in negative ways too;
Being close to petty people also makes us small,
the mediocrity in us grows.
On the contrary,
collaborating
with visionaries elevates our thinking;
Being close to ambitious people leads us to bigger goals.
Experts all agree with the statement:
your current person,
personality,
ambition,
social status…
are largely the result of the surrounding psychological environment.
What you will become in 1.5, 10 or 20 years,
it depends on your future environment.
****************
RENEW YOURSELF TO SUCCESSFULLY
The first obstacle on the way
to great success is the passive mindset thinking
that great achievements are always out of reach.
This attitude stems from many,
many obstacles that bring our thinking down
to the level of mediocrity.
To understand what these obstacles are,
let’s go back to when we were teenagers.
At that time,
each of us often sets a big goal for ourselves.
Amazingly,
we have a plan to conquer the unknown,
become the leader,
get to the top,
do interesting things,
become rich and famous.
In short, when we were teenagers,
each of us set a goal to become the best,
the most important.
It is because we are young,
unaware of the complexities in the world around us,
that it is easy for us to see the path to conquering our goals.
But what happened?
Long before we reached the age of doable work towards our great goals,
countless forces of hindrance appeared and affected us.
We hear a lot of advice:
“It’s silly to daydream,”
and criticize our ideas as “unrealistic,
stupid,
naive and foolish,”
that “must have money” then you will succeed”,
or “luck will decide who gets promoted,
and you must have a godfather
to hold important positions”
or “you are too old or too young”.
When being bombarded
with such “you can’t success so don’t try” thoughts,
each person will have a different reaction.
As a result, most people fall into one of three groups:
Group one:
those who surrender completely.
Most of these people don’t believe
they have what it takes to be successful.
According to them,
success comes
to those who are luckier than they are and in a certain way.
You can easily recognize these people,
because they are always talking at length
about their current situation,
and trying to appear pleased.
Recently I met an acquaintance,
intelligent,
32 years old but confined his life to a very ordinary,
even mediocre position.
He spent hours telling me
why we are satisfied with our current job.
It is true that he is very good at making excuses for everything,
but in reality he is only deceiving himself,
and he knows it well.
What he really wants to do is work in a challenging environment
where he can grow and mature.
But “multiple forces of hindrance” overpowered him,
making him believe he was not qualified to achieve greater things.
In fact, people in this group are most often dissatisfied
with their jobs and are looking for a new opportunity.
Justifying themselves along a rut
(what has been described as “an open but bottomless grave”)
is no less than wandering aimlessly,
hoping,
waiting for an opportunity.
It just happened to happen to me one day,
in a way.
Group two:
those who surrendered partially.
The number of people in the second group is slightly less.
At first they were young people entering adulthood
with great hopes for success.
They work,
plan,
and arm themselves
with what they need to know.
But after about ten,
five years or more,
doubts began to appear and grew,
the chance of competing
for the top position became more and more remote for them.
That’s why the people of this group often say to themselves:
even if greater achievements may be achieved later,
it is not worth the effort.
“We are earning more than average
and living better than average,” they argue.
Then why try harder?”
In fact, this group has built up a series of fears for themselves:
fear of failure,
fear of people around them,
fear of risk, fear of losing what they have.
People who are really not satisfied with their lives right now,
because deep down they know they’re giving up.
This group consists of many bright,
talented people but they choose
to live a dull life just
because they are afraid to stand up and try.
Group three: those who never give up.
This group has a low rate,
they never let negative thoughts dominate them.
They cannot accept the forces that hinder them,
nor do they accept a dull day-to-day life.
Instead, they live to the fullest with success.
People in this group are the happiest people,
because they themselves reap the most success.
They become super salespeople,
senior managers,
become leaders in their fields.
They live an enjoyable,
stimulating and precious life.
They look forward to each new day,
each new encounter with challenges to make life full of meaning.
However, in order to enter and stay in this group,
we must fight back against the obstacles from our surroundings.
To understand how people in groups one
and two will inadvertently hold you back,
let’s study the following example:
Let’s say you honestly confide in some of your “ordinary” friends:
“One day, I’ll be the vice president of this company.”
What is going to happen?
Chances are those friends are thinking you’re joking.
And if that’s the case,
they’ll say,
“Poor my friend.
You will have to learn a lot more.”
When you’re not around,
they talk about whether you have the necessary qualities or not.
Now, imagine,
if you were to repeat that sentence,
with the same sincerity,
to the director of the company.
How will he react?
One thing’s for sure:
He won’t laugh.
He will look at you intently and wonder,
“Does this guy really think so?”.
But I repeat, he will not laugh.
Because important people never laugh at big ideas.
Or let’s say you tell some ordinary friends
that you are planning to buy a luxury apartment,
they will probably laugh at you
because they think that is completely impossible.
But try telling that plan to someone
who lives in a luxury apartment,
he won’t be surprised at all.
He knew it wasn’t impossible,
because he did it himself.
Remember:
The people who tell you something is impossible,
they are always the ones who are unsuccessful,
too ordinary
or even mediocre in their careers.
Their opinions can be poison to your mind.
Stay away from people who are always trying
to convince you that you won’t do anything.
See those negative opinions as a challenge for you to overcome,
to prove that you can do it.
Take this very seriously:
don’t let negative people ruin your plans for success.
Negative people are everywhere,
they seem to enjoy sabotaging the positive progress of those around them.
Over the course of several semesters at university,
I befriended W.W. OLD
He is a good friend,
always ready to lend money when you are in need,
helping you with a lot of things no matter how small.
However,
W.W is bitter,
always grumpy about life,
about the future about opportunities.
He is really a negative person.
During that time,
I was a loyal reader of a magazine column about faith,
positive outlooks,
and new opportunities.
Every time W.W caught me reading that column,
or whenever I mentioned issues in the column,
he would scoff:
“Oh, dear Pete, Dave!
Read that front page.
That’s where you can learn real life lessons.
You should understand that
the other column is only serving hot,
delicious food for gullible people.”
When our discussion turned to the topic of how to be successful in life,
W.W talked endlessly about his formula for making money.
According to him:
“Dave, there are only three ways to make money in life right now.
One is to marry a very rich woman;
two is to steal wisely,
cleanly and legally;
the third is to hang out with people
who are rich and have wide connections.”
W.W always has thousands
of examples available to demonstrate its earning formula.
Because his eyes were glued
to the front page of the newspaper all day,
it was easy for W.W to cite the example
of a foreman among thousands
of other foremen who siphoned off union funds
and escaped without a hitch.
He’s always looking forward to rare,
extremely rare opportunities with wide eyes,
like marrying a Millionaire.
He befriends a friend,
who is acquainted
with another person who is in a relationship with “a rich man”,
he dreams that this tangled relationship
will make him rich in an instant.
Playing with W. W I was also influenced by him a lot,
I almost gave up my beliefs about what it takes to be successful,
and accepted the pessimistic philosophy of W.W.
Fortunately, one night, after a long talk with W.W.,
I suddenly realized
that I was listening to the call of failure,
I tried to pull myself back to my old rock beliefs.
I feel like W.W is trying to convince me rather
than drag me along with his pessimistic thinking.
Since then, I have considered W.W as an object of study and study:
“An experimental repository”.
Instead of listening closely to what W.W said,
I tried to find out why he thought so pessimistically
and where those thoughts would lead him.
I made my pessimistic friend my own experience.
I haven’t seen W.W in 11 years,
but through a friend,
I know that now, W.W is an ordinary designer
with a low salary in Washington.
I asked my friend if W.W has changed at all.
“He hasn’t changed at all,
except that he’s more pessimistic now than he used to be.
His life was very hard.
He has four children,
and with such a salary it is difficult.
In fact, with his brain and ability,
W.W can do it five times now,
if he knows how to use it.”
Pessimists are everywhere.
Some pessimists like W.W,
who almost got in my way, are capable.
But the rest are mostly jealous people,
who both refuse to work to move forward,
and want others to stumble
and make the same mistakes as themselves.
They don’t feel confident,
and they just want you to be as mean as they are.
Be very careful.
Don’t let them destroy your plan to succeed.
Please keep this in mind.
You are judged by the company where you work.
Ox range ox, code level code.
Not all co-workers are the same.
Some are pessimistic, some are optimistic.
Some work because they are “forced to do”;
Others are always progressive,
looking for a job to get promoted.
Some people despise the words
or deeds of their superiors,
some are much more objective and realize:
Before becoming good leaders,
they need to follow orders seriously.
Our way of thinking is greatly influenced by our surroundings.
Make sure you’re in the right group of people.
In the working environment,
you always encounter pitfalls to pay attention to and watch out for.
In any group,
there are people
who are aware of their incompetence and want to interfere,
blocking your way to success.
Many ambitious people have been laughed at,
even threatened,
for trying to work harder and more effectively than others.
Let’s face that.
Some envious co-workers will always want you to be humiliated,
just because you want to get promoted and achieve a lot of success.
You’ve probably seen this happen a few times in your school days:
A group of goofy students try
to mock a classmate who takes the opportunity
to study and consistently achieves high marks.
A gifted student can be laughed at
until he goes along with public opinion,
which thinks that intelligence is not a very good thing.
Ignore those pessimistic thinkers.
Because the word comments and suggestions
that you receive are often not entirely for you as you usually think.
We simply reflect our own feelings of failure and frustration.
Don’t let the pessimists drag you down to their level.
Surround yourself with progressives:
work together and move forward with them.
You absolutely can do it,
just need to think carefully and right!
Be careful with the advice you get.
In most companies,
you will encounter “volunteer mentors”
who claim to be “in the know” and are eager to entice you to join them.
Once by chance I overheard a “volunteer advisor” preaching the truth
about the office to a young female colleague
who had just started working.
He said: “The best way to survive
and fit in here is best not to meddle
in other people’s business.
If they knew her well,
they would have blamed her for more.
Please pay special attention to stay away from Chief Z.
If he sees that you don’t have enough work to do,
he will give you too many tasks to the point of being overwhelmed…”.
This “volunteer mentor” has been
with the company for nearly 30 years,
but he still holds the lowest position.
What a “wary” mentor
to a young person looking to advance in their career!
Only seek advice from people you know well.
There are a lot of misconceptions that
successful people never pay attention to.
They didn’t even think about them.
In fact, the more successful people are,
the more humble they are
and always willing to help others.
Because they are really passionate about their work and success,
they are always eager to see the work progress,
hoping to find someone qualified to take over the job when they retire.
It is the people who “could have succeeded”
who are often the most unapproachable
and difficult to make friends.
One board member would put it this way further:
“I’m a busy woman,
but you’ll never see
the Please Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the front door of my office.
Discussing and giving advice
to people is one of my responsibilities.
We provide standardized training programs on
many skills for all employees in the company.
More than that: “One-on-one counseling,
or “tutor” as I like to call it, yes, available to everyone, at any time.
I am happy to help any colleague who comes to me,
either for work or for a personal matter.
Employees who are genuinely curious and eager
to better understand their work and the relationship
between their work and other jobs,
these are the people I want to help the most.
Of course, I can’t waste my time giving suggestions
or advice to people who aren’t really searching.”
Look to reputable people for advice.
Seeking advice from a failure
is like advising a quack on how to cure cancer.
Today, when recruiting for key positions,
managers always interview the wives of the candidates first.
One sales executive explained why:
“I want to make sure that the future salesperson
of the company will always have the support of their family,
not objecting to their being sent on business trips,
working hours capriciousness, and other inconveniences of business.
Family support helps my employees
get through the inevitable hardships of work.
Today’s managers know well:
what happens on the weekend,
or the time in the early morning
when employees are at home (6-9 am) will have a direct
and significant impact on their ability
to their capacity to work throughout the day (from 9am to 6pm).
But people with a smooth,
happy,
upbeat after-work life are often more successful
than those with a dull and dreary home life.
Let’s see how John and Milton:
two workers in the same factory enjoyed their weekend.
And let’s consider the final result.
How John’s Weekend Goes:
Friday or Saturday night,
he’ll meet up with a carefully curated group of interesting friends.
The rest of the evening he goes to the movies,
participates in a community or urban project,
or visits friends’ homes.
All Saturday morning John is dedicated to Scouting and training.
Saturday afternoon,
he cleans,
does some housework.
Usually John likes to do something a little “special”,
like recently building a backyard hallway.
On Sundays,
John and his family always have interesting plans
like climbing mountains or visiting museums.
Sometimes they drive to the nearby suburbs,
because now John is looking
to buy a piece of land in the not-too-distant future.
Sunday nights usually go smoothly.
John reads books or updates information.
In short, John’s weekends are always scheduled.
Exciting and exciting activities have repelled boredom and anxiety.
John has loads of fun every weekend.
Meanwhile, the activities of Milton is much
less balanced than John’s.
He never plans his weekends.
Usually Milton is a little “tired” on Friday nights,
though he still tries to ask his wife,
“What do you want to do tonight?”,
but the plan is soon forgotten.
It was very rare for Milton and his wife to have a good time together,
and they were rarely invited to go out or to dinner.
Milton got up quite late on Saturday morning,
all day he was only at home doing errands.
On Saturday nights,
Milton and his family often go to the movies,
or stay home to watch TV (“What else can we do?”).
Milton got up very late on Sunday morning.
Sunday noon,
the Miltons drove to visit Bill and Mary,
or vice versa (Actually,
Bill and Mary were the only relatives the Miltons visited regularly).
As Sunday night passed,
each member of the family felt exhausted and stressed,
a consequence of “stay-at-home syndrome”.
Although there was no fight or argument between them,
each person experienced psychological turmoil for hours.
Milton’s weekends were dull, boring.
He was not amused at all.
Now, let’s see how such a home environment affects John and Milton.
After about a week or two,
we can’t see the obvious effects right away.
But after a few months or a few years,
the impact will be huge.
A family like John keeps him motivated,
brings ideas, sparks creativity.
He is like an athlete who is nourished every day with nutritious food.
And the family type like Milton makes him always psychologically unbalanced.
He has a hard time thinking about anything.
He’s like an athlete with only candy and beer to get through the day.
John and Milton may be on equal footing for now,
but there will be a widening gap
between them in the coming months, and in the end,
John is certain to take the lead.
People often say,
“Well, I think John has more success qualities than Milton.”
But any of us who understand the essence
of the problem can explain the root cause:
the sizable difference in performance
between the two is nothing more
than the result of differences in the “mental food”. ”
that two people enjoy every day.
The stream of ideas needs to be “fed”
and nourished daily,
if we are to get good results.
My wife and I,
along with five other couples,
had a wonderful evening at the family of a department store manager.
When the other couple had left,
my wife and I lingered a little while longer
so that I had a chance to ask the host
about something that had been on my mind all night:
“It was a wonderful evening,
but I I still find this difficult to understand.
I think tonight we’re going to meet a lot of retail executives
at your spouse’s house.
Yet tonight’s guests were in completely different fields.
He is a writer,
a doctor,
an engineer,
an accountant,
a teacher”.
He smiled and replied slowly:
“Ah, we also regularly invite people in the retail sector to our house.
But Helen
and I feel it will be much more interesting
and new to meet people from other fields.
I’m afraid if we limit our contact
to people with similar interests,
we’ll fall into a rut.
Besides,
understanding people is part of my job.
Every day,
thousands of people from different professions visit
and shop at the department store.
The better I understand the people around me,
their thoughts,
preferences,
views,
the better I will be able to deliver the products
and services they want and are willing to pay for.”
Here are a few things to do
to help you adjust to your surroundings:
*****************
1. Join a new group of friends.
Confining yourself to a familiar small group environment will cause depression,
sadness,
and discontent.
Equally important,
is that on the road to success,
you need to master and understand people deeply.
If you learn everything about people just
by studying a small group,
it’s like you want to be good at math
but only read a short book.
Make many new friends,
join new associations and communities,
expand social relationships.
Then, different people,
different relationships like
that will spice up and add interesting aspects to your life.
It is a very useful spiritual food.
*****************
2. Choose friends who have different ideas or opinions from you.
In this day and age, individuals
who often limit themselves often have no prospects for growth.
Responsibilities and important positions often belong
to people with knowledge of all aspects of the matter.
If you’re a Republican,
make sure you have some Democratic friends,
and vice versa.
Get in touch,
get to know people of different religions.
Associate with someone completely different from you.
But make sure they are real prospects.
*****************
3. Choose the people you know trifle, unimportant.
The people who always pay attention
to the size of your house,
the applications you have or do not have
instead of focusing on your ideas are the people
who only pay attention to the savings.
Please preserve and protect the psychological environment around you.
Only play with people who care about positive things,
who really want you to succeed.
Find friends who always encourage you
to have creative ideas and thoughts.
If you associate with petty people,
you will soon become petty too.
All hotel management staff are focused on food poisoning prevention.
If this happened,
even a few times, the visitors would never come again.
We also have thousands of laws
to protect people from harmful things.
We keep the poison on the top shelf,
so the kids can’t reach it.
We are willing to do anything
to help others avoid being poisoned.
But there is another,
more insidious poison mental poison commonly known as “gossip”.
Mental poisons differ from physical poisons in two great ways.
One, it affects the mind,
not the body,
and two,
it’s not easily identifiable.
Even the person being poisoned doesn’t know it.
Mental poison is very sophisticated,
difficult to detect
but causes extremely “serious” consequences.
It reduces our ability to think,
causing us to only pay attention to small,
trivial and unimportant things.
It distorts our thinking about a person,
because it distorts the truth,
makes us confused,
and makes us feel guilty every time
we see a person again after we “gossip” about them.
Mental poison does not bring right thinking,
but completely wrong.
Contrary to many popular opinions,
which think that “gossip” is just a common disease in women only,
in fact,
there are many men
who are also living in a polluted environment every day,
no matter how little or much.
Every day there are thousands of gossip stories,
discussed by men around all kinds of topics,
such as “finance or boss’s marriage”;
‘Bill’s backdoor actions to get promoted’,
‘the possibility that John could be transferred’,
‘The reason for the privileges that Tom received’
or ‘Why leaders bring in more heroes this new member in”.
The gossip starts out like this:
“Hey, I just heard…,
why, I’m not surprised at all..,
he has a way to get it… ,
of course, this is top secret…”.
Conversations make up an important part
of the spiritual life around us.
Some healthy talk encourages us,
makes us feel like we’re walking under the warm spring sunshine.
Some other conversations made me feel like a winner.
But there are also gossips
that make us think we’ve just stepped through a cloud of toxic,
dangerous radiation.
It makes you suffocated, sick.
It turns you into a failure.
Gossip often gives a negative impression of people.
Once infected with this mental illness,
the victim will feel the pleasure of getting dangerous,
toxic pleasure from speaking ill of others – without knowing,
for successful people,
he is becoming increasingly obnoxious and unreliable.
For example,
a victim of mental illness,
Mr. Killjoy,
interrupted a conversation
between me and some friends about Benjamin Franklin.
As soon as he understood the content of the story,
he immediately told about Franklin’s personal life in a very negative tone.
Maybe Franklin was once a scandalous actor and warned the world.
The 18th century,
if it was as widespread as it is today,
might have put Franklin in some scandalous magazine.
But the point is that Benjamin Franklin’s private life story has nothing
to do with the issue we’re talking about.
I was discussing.
Fortunately, we weren’t discussing a close friend at the time.
Discussing other people?
Yes, but always look in a positive direction.
Through the following little quiz,
you can test whether you’ve become a double-talker tip or not?
1. How often do I spread bad rumors about others?
Sometimes
2. How often do I say good things about others?
Always
3. Do I enjoy hearing reports of scandals?
Sometimes
4. Do I judge others based solely on the story’s appearance?
Sometimes
5. Do I urge people to tell rumors?
Sometimes
6. Do I start my story with “Don’t tell anyone”?
Always
7. Do I really keep confidential information private?
Sometimes
8. Do I feel guilty about what I say about others?
Sometimes
Ponder this for just a second:
even if you cut all the wood in your neighbor’s house into pieces with an ax,
it won’t make your furniture any better;
Using malicious and unkind words
to talk about other people won’t make you happy in the end better.
Be at the forefront:
this is a principle
that you should apply in your work,
including the services and tools you use.
Once, in order to prove that the ready
-to-go mindset is always right in all cases,
I asked a group of students to tell about a situation
where they were once “one penny wiser,
ten thousand stupid”.
Here are a few of the situations they mentioned:
“I once bought a very cheap coat from a bizarre street vendor.
I thought I got a good deal,
but it turned out that the shirt was not good at all.”
“My car needs a new transmission.
There was a small garage that got it fixed
for $25 less than the official store price,
so I replaced it there.
After all, that new transmission only had 1,800 miles on it.
And that damn garage won’t do any more repairs.”
“Every month I dine at a cheap restaurant to save money.
Dirty diner, disgusting food, service – well,
you can’t even call it service – bad and sloppy diners.
One day, a friend persuaded me
to have lunch with him at a famous restaurant in town.
He ordered a special meal,
so I ordered it too.
I was pleasantly surprised by the delicious food,
attentive service,
relaxed atmosphere,
and just a little more than what I paid at that cheap diner.
I learned a lesson for a lifetime.”
Of course, many times
I hear excuses like
“I don’t have the money to use first-class services”.
The simple answer is:
If so, you won’t have enough money to use any kind of service.
Because, in the long run,
second-class services will cost you more than first-class services.
Please remember that owning one pair of really quality shoes
is always better than having three pairs of “cheap” shoes at once.
We often judge others
by the quality of the clothes and items they use.
That thought is probably ingrained in people’s subconscious.
So, train yourself a habit of using high-quality appliances.
Not only will it not cost you more,
but it’s also more economical than using second-tier ones.
****************
TO SUCCESS FROM THE ENVIRONMENT
1. Always be aware of your surroundings.
Your body as well as your mind reflect your daily menu.
2. Make everything around you always support
instead of against you.
Don’t let countless forces get in the way people with a negative mindset,
always thinking you can’t do anywhere push you to failure.
3. Don’t let petty,
narrow ways of thinking stop you.
Jealous people just want to see you fail.
Don’t give them a chance to satisfy that envy.
4. Always listen to successful people.
Your future is important.
Never dare to suddenly put your future in the hands
of crazy “advisors” who have not tasted success.
5. Be always in a relaxed,
happy mood.
Join new groups of friends.
Discover new and exciting things.
6. Get rid of bad thoughts from your environment.
Avoid gossip.
You can discuss other people,
but only compliment their good points.
7. Be at the forefront of everything.
Otherwise,
you cannot succeed at anything.
