As A Man Thinketh
Assessment by Samaila Ibrahim (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
The main idea is that man should be of good thoughts. Thinking is what made man, his action, his environment and this translate into what the world looks like. Thought is what made character of humanity. And thought itself is the creation of man, it is effective in all circumstance. Good thought result into goodness and vice versa. The mind is the focal point and the engine room of the body. Thought from the mind is victory, no failure in character and in achievement. Purposeful thought is the answer of all work.
2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.
i. Every man is where he is by the law of being
Every man is living by law that rules his life. Love and peace are the simplest rule of life. Anything other than love and peace is just the opposite. For all happiness and success come from living in love, peace and harmony. The way man chooses to live in life is the way he controls his environment. My friend was a salesman at a supermarket, he sells well and earn a good money from his job, but how he spent his money and the life he choose to live was the problem and trouble to face. One day we sat to take our meal at his house and he raised the alarm that he lost. He said his friend and the people around him are against him and he asked what he can do. He asked for advice. Well! I answered him that, “my friend, things can change if you will to change yourself, the life you choose was your big problem and the cause of your trouble. Adjust a bit, so you can move forward, obeying the simple law of life “Love and Peace.” Good! He used my advice and his life changed dramatically.
ii. Good thinking, Good product
Thought is the primary creative force in man. The way you think, the way you act, you may decide to think that others are superior for you have fallen into the trap of “self-limit” into less potential than what you are capable of. Whenever your expectation came to fulfillment, if you have confidence in yourself, it will happen. When you confidently expect good thing to happen, good things usually happen to you. Otherwise, when you think bad things to happen, it usually happens to you. As I was growing as a child, I always think success came by chance, but along the way, I came to understand that nothing happen by chance. As I changed my thinking on how to be productive and start to produce local shoes, I am out of my childhood thought, now the product is producing good result.
iii. Good thoughts bear good fruits, Bad thoughts bear bad fruits
It is said that what you sow is what you reap. To be intelligent and productive on the field, you must plant a good seed. I have a friend who always sit under the tree without a job, one day he decided to be productive, and today he is harvesting a good product and healthy product.
iv. Outer circumstance shaped by inner thought
The quality of your thinking brings about the quality of your life, and the outer picture of a man depends on how he shapes his inner thought. One’s thought is like a 360 degree mirror, wherever you look, you will always see yourself. There was a time my business colleague was having a problem with his business because of his action. But instead of facing the problem, he thought it was other people that caused it or by external circumstance. And he was always angry to be told that he was the primary architect of his surrounding, and he still failed to change his inner thought. Today he lived bitter.
All the situation in your life have the meaning you give them by the way you think about them. The real picture of you is how you think inside you that reflect to the outside world. The outer picture of man depends on how he shapes his inner thought.
v. Cherish your vision; cherish the music that stirs in your heart
Your dreams, vision and ideals are like seeds planted in the soil that needs water to germinate and grow. When I first started my business, I was taking away by some unproductive activities that kept me down for years. But as I understood to water my dream with good thought, I began to have a good story to tell.
vi. Good thought and action can never produce bad results; Bad thought and action can never produce good results.
Good thought is about doing the right thing at the right time and place, to produce a good result. And the opposite gives the other result. I know of a boy who wants to become a musician. He has the talent, idea, and many other things that matter in music, but he ended up the dream and talent on the street without a step toward his dream. And my brother who nurtured all procedure to become a pastor finally became one. My uncle had a great idea and dream which he carried about, but never a day did he try to take a step toward the success of his dream and idea. That is how his idea and dream faded away. But my junior brother who dreamt of becoming a teacher and walked toward his dream is today a professional teacher. All what you need is one good idea and action to success in life. Any good thought to see the light of the must pass through the right door to success. Good thought without action is just like a well without water.
vii. Human are the master of thought, molder of character, maker and shaper of condition, environment and destiny.
Thought is creative, by the way you think, you create your world. Good thought enhances man to shape his condition, environment and destiny. God, the creator, creates man with intelligent and mind and thought, if well used, it will improve the mind of the living. All technology product we used are the result of someone’s thought which are used to improve human lives on earth. If there is no limit to how better one can think, so there is no limit to what you can create for better living. In another way, man is a “creative art”. He used the fine art to show the beauty of his environment; in science, he used his thought to make and shape the condition of living, such as the introduction of technology.
3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so, how?
The book contains uncountable ideas or lessons that helps in my daily, personal life activities. The book teaches me to be intelligent in all my doing. It tells me what thought is, and how to make a good use of thought. I’m good at trade, and today, the book added more useful and important lesson, which I used to expand my business.
4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.
“Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside condition.”
Your outer world reflects your inner world in every way of life. Nothing come for you from your outside world without corresponding to something inside of you. You can change or improve anything in your life by changing your inner thought. You cannot achieve anything without creating it inside you first. The way you think inside you reflect your attitude, your health and your material world are the reflection of your outside world. I personally enjoy this statement knowing many people refuse to accept the fact that they have the key of their life in their hands, but choose to blame others for their failure. You have the power to control one thing in life and that is how you think most time. From the author, a man can rise, conquer and achieve by lifting up his thought, he can only remain weak and miserable by refusing to lift up his thought. If you change the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life.
5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?
The book contained many ideas, which I agree with all the ideas in the context.
6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?
The book has simple exercise to complete practically. I practically apply them and found them helpful and easy.
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.
Thought and action will always determine how your results look. Focus on accomplishment rather than activity. Your attitude of optimism and confidence increase your energy, your creativity and your capacity to get your work done and gives you control over your life.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 10
B. How helpful were the contents? 10
C. How easy was it to understand? 10
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 10
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Assessment by Samaila Ibrahim (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
Changing one’s level of consciousness, understanding and awareness, to develop physically and mentally. Thought, learning and including in practicing new thing despite the obstacle and challenges that one will encounter. And with changing level of consciousness, perfection will develop to high level in existence. In another language:
To be a learner as all time and never give up in any condition.
Hard working and training; and believing in one’s self and dream will make them come to reality.
Those that fail to learn only hurt their self and remain where they are.
2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.
i. Life is not about eating only, avoid stomach infrastructure.
Most of us live without thinking on how to fly in the sky, but the only thing most of us knew was to fill our stomach and sleep. We almost lost our mind and kept telling ourselves that working is the hardest thing to do than eating, and the easier thing was eating. There was a time, I personally believed that we are born to feed our stomach alone, as time goes on, I came to understand that there are many other things we need in life, that are more important than feeding the stomach.
ii. Think
This is the most important part in man that determine what man can do or not do in life since all the situation in your life have meaning you give them and by the way you think about them. And since there is no limit to how much better you can think, so also there is no limit to how much better you can go in life. Whatever you think and how you think about it determines the reality. I personally have an experience on this topic, which takes me from grace to grass or from success to failure since only I can control my thought and how I felt about it, neither positive nor negative. By focusing on the positive side of my thought and away from the negative one’s, dramatically, things changed from failure to success. It is up to you if you want your life to get better, you must get better; if you want things to change, you must change; if you want things to improve, you must first improve yourself.
iii. Let’s try again
Any product you can see has first being tried by somebody. Success and failure are one; two things that goes hand to hand with each other. Trying again doesn’t mean repeating, but it means getting the accurate measurement in result. When there is failure to obtain an accurate result, trying again will be a good decision. High achieving people are not necessarily those who make their decision right. They accept feedback and self-correction; they take in new information and they change, if necessary, and always deciding to move forward and never wish to move backward, and they have an attitude of careful approach to life.
iv. Different method (Trying)
It is the idea you generate more than anything else that will enable you to solve your problem, overcome obstacle, and achieve your goal. Ideas are the key to the future. It is not possible for you to achieve anything of value without expecting it, it will require thinking creatively and doing something new and different from what you have done before. Most time we fail to change from our old fashion to a new fashion; we keep holding to our hold fashion and remain at a place without moving a step forward. Well! This is my story; my business was moving backward and everything was changing into failure. But I failed to change to a different method and try a new method which landed me into a state of failure. One day, the story changed as I try a new method, different from what I was doing in the first place, and it yielded a good result for me.
v. Self-control
By filling the sense of self control, you feel you are totally in control of your life. Self-control is one powerful element in man making decision. Decision-making is what determine what and how man control himself. I understood this powerful element when my shop burnt down. I almost lost my control and decision. I calm down and took a decision that changes my loss to gain. You are how you are by the decision you make in your life; positive or negative, you live by those decisions you made.
vi. Learn-Learn-Learn
Learning makes perfect. Your ability to get along with others is perhaps the most important skill you can develop if you really want to be successful person in life. The good news is that your emotional intelligence is not genetically determined or limited. It consist of a series of interpersonal skill you can learn via practice and repetition. You learn to be very good in the area of your specialization, one of your chief responsibilities in life is to learn how to fly and by learning-learning you get to where you want easier and faster. Learning and practicing get you more of the thing you really want, better, faster, and easier than ever before.
vii. Endure challenges
Challenging are there to improve and move you forward, but not to destroy if properly handled. Many fail to succeed because they fail to endure in the time of challenges and get confused and moved the wrong way. Challenges and problem seem to be one word of the same meaning. When there is problem, then there are challenges with some questions to solve. The way you handle problem determine how the challenges will reduce.
I have experienced some challenges in my life when there was economic challenges leaving many in the country with some challenges to face, ranging from financial, critic, rent, transport, and family problem. But I endure and face each problem as it was.
3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so, how?
The book contains many ideas or lessons that are helpful to my personal life. The idea of widening horizon by learning new thing and indulging in extra-curricular activities, in some cases you may be facing challenges and obstacles. Teach others what you learn, in flying, try to make someone fly with you; as you go high, you may help some to go high with you. Confidence in yourself as a rock in doing your daily activities, despite the confidence, add humility and respect.
4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.
“For most gulls, it is not flying that matter but eating; most of us think food is more important, and that they can do anything while forgetting the tendencies of humility, respect, unity, and human development. Some even kill, cheat, corrupt, and destroy.
He was alive trembling ever so slightly with delight, proud, that his fear was under control. The act of “fear” was the reason most people fail to succeed. Those who face their fear and take action in spite of their fear are those that don’t back-away from things they fear. When you keep doing things that you fear, your fear will die away and give you power to move forward. For most people, fear of failure and the fear of criticism are their blocks to success and personal effectiveness. So, control your worst fear and you succeed in everything you do. You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self here and now, and nothing can stand in your way. Freedom; the most important thing in life and the best way to success. You can choose to be free or imprison yourself. To be your true self you need to free yourself from budged. You can imprison yourself by your thought, decision, and action.”
5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?
“Break-out” and “Stand to centre” are to be looked into again in the context used.
6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?
Living the book remains the exercise
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.
Restriction/confinement by religion, culture, economic situation, social constraints tend to restrict someone from indulging in new thing which will translate to development not to one only but to the whole society. Will: the will to develop a positive tendency is lacking sometimes, the role of discouragement by the outer tendencies and physical negative forces brings down the performance of people.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 10
B. How helpful were the contents? 10
C. How easy was it to understand? 10
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 10
Keys to Success
Assessment by Samaila Ibrahim (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea the author is trying to convey in the book?
The author clearly defined success and how to achieve it, success do not come from expensive of a sleeping bed, only by working towards it. The author is trying to convey to the readers that ideas is a great key to success and personal achievements, goat setting, developing and building personal success through a clear vision, faith, self-control and screens of humors.
2. What were the seven rules which were personally most important to you and why?
List these seven ideas follow by as explanation after each one as to why it is important to your personal example from your own life.
i. Goal setting
Life is full of ambition to be achieve because man is naturally a goal seeker the difficulty always lies in your ability to set a clear defined goal in the first place Brain Tracy wrote In one of his book that ”achievement is different from success” achievement refer to set goals and objectives. To make plan, action and the implementation of those plans. The reason you create goals is to help you focus yourself on the most important issue and become more active. Thus goal setting is the best machine to move one faster than ever. The mind played an important role in getting you to a basic strategy in reaching your goals. In getting a goal set, many things have to come into consideration such as;
What are the idea to use in achieve a goal set
How will the ideas go with others people and which impact it has to you and people around you?
The set of having plan for your goal.
Answering these questions gives you a good picture to you goal. I have two friends and their goal is to become successful business men, even without a quality class room education. The first went and invest without proper goal set and plan at the end of the time he way out of business. the second take his time to study his ideas and plan, set goal for himself, ha take them step by step and implement his plan and at end he came out successfully
ii. Developing ideas
Developing ideas is another key to success,. Having an ideas wants the problem the problem too many but how to dewlap the ideas. So you can have a good idea but if you do not do it right it is a waste of time, developing ideas need-learning and learning. As my friend does say “having ideas is not the problem, but learning to control of the ideas by developing the ideas to what you need. Anytime I have an idea to I sit down and write them and out and then study the contest one after another because having an idea didn’t grant a good result, so there are a few things you processes that are essential for developing idea they are: Analyzing; Planning; Imagination; Reflecting;
Examine of each these processes give a good way of developing your ideas.
iii. Budgeting time and money.
This is the starting point for try ideas create for implementation of a goal. According to advance learner dictionary budget is defined as
“the money that is available to a person or organization and a plan of how it will be spent over a period of time.” Having idea and getting goal and planning budgeting have the next action to realize the plan. Budgeting time and money is also powerful that it have effect in everything you do, say or even think or fill in your life. The reason you need a budget is to prepare you in advance and to prepare all tools and money you need to complete your goal. Budgeting save your time and money, all you need is to just keep doing the right thing.
iv. Sense of control
Another essential tool for you to perform at your best is a sense of control. There are many in my locality that fill others are in control of their life, with such thought in mind you are giving their sense of control to others. Those who fill that what they are doing is dictated by others people and pressure tend to be high stress, low performance personality. For you to control your life you most first control your mind, with the way you want to determine your goal that give you a “sense of control” with that in mind you be in total control of your destiny. By refusing you to be upset about things that have already happened and that cannot be change something that has is a fact, it is a past reality, the only thing you can do about the fact is to control your attitude toward it. Never lose control of yourself to any type of obstacle that come your way, use the “Sense control” with live with you. The choice is yours.
v. Focus
There is nothing more important that learning the act of keeping your mind focused upon the things, condition and circumstance you really want. Focus give you the discretion and fastened you to some deeply held basic commitment that shape all what you are doing, focus give you immediately assert control over the situation the situation that are causing you to fill trapped and frustrated and have the power to control any condition or situation that comes your way. When you stay optic to all you are doing, you remain on the high way.
vi. Building personal success.
If you are going to achieve success you will do so only by extra-ordinary effort that most people are not willing to make. In building personal success where one has an idea has to create effective system for regular task. The dictionary definition of the word “system,” is A regular orderly way of doing something one has to put a system is a powerful tool use in examine an idea and re-examine continuously till you reach your desire result. Your personal relationship with others matter in building personal success you have to have built those around you. Many think they can work out their problem alone and fail to break the York to success by failing to have the trust of others around them. Having the trust of people around, they will be willing and happy to render you help on your way to success.
vii. Faith
In good faith and believing that what you are doing is right, believing that something is correct and if you have faith and believe to be true, even if is complete false, you will think and fill in such a way it will be true for you. It is writing that; “with faith all things are possible.”
3. How will these ideas or lesion help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so how?
The lesion or ideas in the book help me in completing some of my project that I couldn’t complete in many years. But taking some ideas from the book makes a different. It will be important to everybody to learn an idea from the book and practice it on their daily activities the result will make you a different person.
4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particularly of your attention? If so please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.
“If you can see an opportunity as quick as you can see the fact of others you will see success. When you allow yourself to be taking always by looking into others fault or mistake, without you looking unto your mistake and finding ways to improve your mistake and finding ways to improve your personality, you are leading yourself to a pit of failure. There are people that will be jealous they will gossip to make you look bad if you allow yourself to be upset of what they say. You’re allowing them to gain control over you instead focus on your defined goal and achieve what you what.”
My friend once told me, finding fault in others was the simplest thing to do than doing what is right. So keeping off from finding others fault others fault will keep one in a good heath to succeed.
“Let your manner always be friendly in matter what the outcome and people will be glad to have locked with you. Being friendly to others people wish make other people to be
Impressed by your willingness to help they and they will be happy to workers with you. Most of us are not friendly to our co-workers, friends, family, business partners for most people being friendly make one look stupid in the eye of their friends, co-workers, family and business partners. But in a good human sense being friendly give you the power to command other in your business world and others in your and other people happily help you success.”
“There is nothing more important than learning the act of keeping your mind focused upon the thing condition and circumstance you want. If there is something that keep you in check that gives direction and purpose to what you want to become. Learning the principle and focusing in becoming what you what in life and view to success through a balanced perspective. It is learning and focusing.”
“Anyone who sees no opportunity is simply an liable for his or her own unwieldiness to assume responsibility and used imagination. A lazy mind that is a lazy man whom used imagination without defending the actualization of him imagination. There are many people today whom sit right in front of their television set and imaging themselves as the best on the planet without having any responsibility to assume.”
“Whatever you think you are, you are as you think. King Solomon stated that; “As a man think in his heart, so he is” so you have no one to be blame for being weak because it was said, your thoughts determine your action, your action repeated, build habit, your habits, assembled, become your character and your character determines the results you achieve in your life.”
“If you are going to achieve success your will do so only by extra-ordinary effort, effort that most people are not willing to make. Most successful people loved to travel extra-mile in search of their dreams without fear of failure. If one has to achieve great things in life, has to set the fear of failure aside, I meant a boy whom dream to become a professional driver, but whenever he is on the wheel his fear was not to be hit by another car but his master continue telling him to focus on his safety drive on the road, two years hasted he told me that fear is the main reason many couldn’t learn to driver safety on the road. Many people has not success because they cannot face their fear of failure, critic and sink down and think all things are impossible to achieve because he is giving away his power of control to fear, with make him to stand still. Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in wonder land, one of the character say she is quite capable of believing several impossible things before breakfast each day. Well if you can do the impossible thing, fear to do surely will come your way.”
5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about or are there ideas which you disagree with and if so why?
The author made all the contest of the book and ideas simple to understand, all ideas in the book are simple to follow. So I tested the ideas in the book and agree with them.
6. Did the book contain exercise for reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercise and did you find them helpful?
The book contain many important exercise that are helpful to the reader the most important exercise in the book was the exercises of self-control having exercise mine, am in total control of my resource. Not only this exercise contains the useful and vital issue, but there are many important exercises that are not mention in this little space.
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous question? If so, please comment.
None.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 10
B. How helpful were the contents? 10
C. How easy was it to understand? 10
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 10