As A Man Thinketh
Assessment by Ogunnaike Sikiru Oladimejo (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
The main idea of the book is that all men rise and fall in their life based on the thought that they encourage in their mind. Thought makes us grow. Our character whether good or bad, noble or ignoble is determined by the type of thought that will allow in our mind, as good and pure thought produce good and, pure like character. Our thought create the circumstance that surround us, not that circumstances create us. As the author believe, man themselves are makers of themselves, by virtue of the thought, which they, choose and encourage; that mind is the master weaver, both the inner garment of character and outer garment of circumstance, and that as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness. Also, a noble and God like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long – cherished association with Godlike thoughts. And also ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts in our mind, says the author. This shows that anything we allow in our mind will become part of our life. In conclusion, a man is literally what he thinks, his character is the complete sum of all his thought and his thought can either brake or made him in life.
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.
A. God has gave us our mind in other to use it to affect our life positively. When we are created, we were given 4 natural capabilities, the mind, body, spirit and emotion. The mind is the most useful and important because it allow us to think and choose the proper way to use other natural capabilities. Our mind allows us to think in other to make choice about how our life will be and how to react to situations, play or relate with people and all these determine our success or failure in life. The type of
thought that we encourage and filled with our mind determine our success or failure in life.
B. My thought what make me what I am today
A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thought. He can only remain weak abject and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts truly as well.
Human mind is like a computer, it is what we fill in that we get the result if we fill our mind with bestial and ignoble thought, our character, vision, ambition and ways of life will be bestial and ignoble as well.
C. My thought determines my character.
Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into my mind, and to take root there, will produce its own blossoming sooner or later. The human character is like a flame, while the light which cause the flame is the thought. People will only see character
but not our thought and our character is what people will use to describe us, so we must keep our thought to be a right, our character determine how people relate with us weather in business affair, organization and so on, for we to enjoy good human relation with other people, We must sown the right seed of thought in our mind.
Since our character is the combination of qualities and personality that makes one person or thing to be different from others, our thought which mold our character should be filled with pure, noble and intelligent thoughts.
D. Our thought predetermine our circumstance
The outer world of circumstance shape itself to the inner world of thought and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. Anything that happen to us is as a result of what we think in our mind. I have always believe before that all thing that happen to me are outside my control and I always react to circumstance instead of directing the circumstance to suite myself. After reading this book, I have the believe and started working on what the author said that “A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and reviled, and commence to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And as he adapt his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his predicament and builds himself up in strong and noble thought” I have cease to use them as aids to my more rapid progress and as a means of discovering the hidden power and possibilities within myself. I how believe that I can be the world greatest in everything that I lay my hands upon.
E. My thought determines how healthy I am.
I have found out that charge of diet, will not help a man who will not change his thought. This statement has really help me when I had an accident. I have believed that ill thought will bring about unhealthy to the body.
F. Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.
I have learn that the man with no central purpose in life will fall easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pitying. A man without a vision and ideas are dead, but still alive in body, because a man without any direction always goes nowhere. Vision is what keeps my mind working I never stop until I have achieve and
fulfill my mission. Vision is seeing a future state with minds eye and most of us don’t envisage or realize our purpose because most people live in a very restricted circle of
their potential. We all have reservoirs of energy in us. Also each of us has immeasurable power and capacity to reinvent our lives. Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Memory is past. It is finite. Vision is future. It is infinite- vision is greater than history, greater than baggage, greater than the emotional scars of the past. Until our thought is linked with vision, purpose and objective, ideas there will be no intellectual accomplishment.
G. Another lesson is that calmness of minds is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
The more tranquil a man becomes the greater is his influence, his power for good, says the author. The great lesson I have learn from this is that calmness is strength. This has been working for me because I have found out that the calmer I am, the more the people relate and be part of me.
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?
These lesson that I have learn will help me to filled my mind with good thought all the time, because, I have realize that ignoble and bestial thought will bring about ignoble and bestial character to one’s life. It has thought me to clerics my vision, my idea and the music that stirs in my heart, the believe that form in my mind the loveliness that drapes my purest thought, for out of them will grow all delightful
condition, all, heavenly environment of these, and if, but remain true to them my world will at last be built.
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.
Here are some of the statement that got my attention
A. They themselves are the makers of themselves”.
Nobody can be use to represent me in my believe and vision, ever if we have the same outlook and body posture, our vision and believe cannot be the same. This explain that I am responsible for what happen to my life, whether good or bad, nobody can help me if am not ready to help myself and I am the maker, builder and moulder of my life. “Man is the master of thought, the moulder of character and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destine,” says the author. And he
can find even truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. My mother used to say that the children that did not have parent used to leave in this world”, but sometime, I will think she did not lower, but in fact she is telling me that I must be responsible for my life. Couple with what this book has said that men are the maker of themselves, I have how believe and made up mind that am responsible for anything that happen to my life, not parent, family, school, government or society.
B. “He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.”
As the author said, “doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge and he who encourage them, who does no slay them. Thwarts himself at every step.” Doubt and fear only tries to belittle our vision and make us to see everything as a problem that cannot be conquered. This statement is important because it explain that I must look fear in the eye and say never to his weapon by not encouraging the thought of fear and doubt in my mind.
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?
NO
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?
NO
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.
NO
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? 9
B. How helpful were the contents? 8
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Assessment by Ogunnaike Sikiru Oladimejo (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
Looking beyond our limitation, that is seeing beyond present level we are is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book. And this is supported by the statement in the book that this explain that despite challenges and obstacles, we should believe that anything that can be connived in our mind is possible and we can be perfect in it as well.
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.
A. Power of persistence despite failure
The power of persistence despite failure is one of the ideas that are important to me. This life is full of challenges, failure will always to come anyone us who is trying to do great thing. The ability to see the failure as a challenge which we should face, conguer and learn from it is what distinguish between a winner and lesser. Despite many failures, condemnation, and criticism, Jonathan still persist in flying leaning. “Seagull as know, never falters, never stall. To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor. But Jonathan Livingston seagull unashamed, stretching this wing again in that trembling hard Carve-slowing and stalling once more”. Also despite his banish from the seagull Council, he still persist, because the future is bright for him. There will be so many comment friends, elders and parent that will want us failure as not possible thing, our persistence will give us the cause to smile at the end.
B. Important of learning
According to Maxwell, “when we stop learning we stop leading.” A reader is always leader is have made to realize that learning is what make us to move in life. Whether young or old, learning is very important because it open the doors of opportunity every time. Jonathan Livingston uses almost all his time alone to learn and practice. Our learning is also stage by stage till death comes. According to Suillivan in the book, we went from one world into another that was almost exactly like it. Forgetting right away where we had come from, not caring where we headed, living for the moment. Any human being who fails to learn is living for the moment, because learning open our eye to see things that are possible but not seen by others who did not learn. “We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing – nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitation and lead weight to overcome,” says the books. If I fail to learn some important thing in the university while am still in the world, it will greatly affect me when I get to employment world, because I will believe that it is the government policies that is not good, not knowing that I have not learn the thing that will make independent. It is important to note that learning will make us to
reach out and touch perfection in that in which we most loved to do, and perfection doesn’t have limits, says the author. Although, it takes great pain and determination to learn, but learning make us to excel, which I believed that am going to excel.
C. Power of making difference, without being concerned whether we are out casted or condemn. We may look unpopular and condemn or even out casted at the beginning, but with focus and persistence, we will surely be celebrated as hero. People had gave me different name because I wanted to change the face of my club in the school, but am not – concern about the names, but the future that is bright for the organization is ultimate goal. I have found out that to reach out and touch perfection in life, we cannot make everybody to be happy. In his book titled, “The One Minute Manager”, Ken Blanchard says, “there is a different between interest and commitment, when you are interested in doing something you do it only when it is convenient, when you are committed to something you accept no excuses.” So, commitment is what makes us not to lose focus in any thing we are doing despite condemn and criticism. I have learnt from this book that the best way to silence critics is to solve the problem and move on. Our norm, law, value, ethic and tradition will always make us to maintain the status quo, because it kill our inner voice which propel us to make difference, so we must be prepare to break rules in other to reach our goal. Finally, we should think about what Immanuel Kant pointed out in the eightieth century, “Perpetual peace is available only in the graveyard.”
D. The power of thought
A powerful thought brings out powerful drive to learn and there would be no more challenge and failure when the drive to learn vanishes. Self and society limiting thought for example, If were meant to learn much about flying, I’d have charts for brain, if were meant to fly at speed, “I’d have a falcon’s short wings and live on mice instead of fish. Seagulls never fly in the dark; if you were meant to fly in the dark, you’d have the eyes of owl! You’d have falcon short wings! All these always distract us from achieving our aim and objective in life. Walt Disney is reported have said that there three kind of people in the world. These are well poisoners who discourage others stomp on their creativity and tell them what they can’t do. There are lawn mowers, people mow their own lawn but never help others and there are life enhancers. The well – poisoners who stomp on our creativity and tell us what we can’t do are the society limiting laws, value, norm which affect our thought, and before we can move in life, I must do away with all these society and self limiting thought.
E. Power of love and kindness
This can also be referred to as giving lack to the society our success is when we affect the life of others by sharing what we have learn and how it has help, so that they can see it in their own life. It teaches me to love and care for people without considering whether they have done good or bad for me before. From this book, our ultimate goal should always be to help people go
to higher level and reach their potential, and kindness and care should be our watchword.
F. Power of Believe
Our believe system can either brake or makes us. What I learn from this is that, we should believe that there is nothing that is not possible, despite the fact that nobody has done something before should not make us to believe that we cannot do it as well. Our believe should be strong. We may have not have the power, but we should not say never. The trick, according to chiang in the book was Jonathan Livingstill to stop seeing himself as trapped inside a limited
body that had a forty-two inch wingspan and performance that could be plotted on a chart. The trick was to know (i.e. believe) that his true nature lived as perfect as an unwritten number
everywhere at once across space and time. This explain that individual must believe in themselves before they can achieve any goal in life because, men are the maker of themselves by their believe system.
G. Breaking promises
To achieve great-things in life, we must be ready to break promises. I have made to realize that anybody who wants touch excellence in their endeavor must learn to break limiting promises
that will not allow them to move forward. Jonathan broke so many promises that he had made because they limited his vision for flying. The great lesson that I learn from this is that we must learn to bend the promises that we have made before, which is affecting or limiting our passion for what will love to do.
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?
These lesson help to me realize in my daily personal life that the man who never made a mistake never made anything and failure, respected failure are finger prints on the road to achievement. Talent will not; nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent as a weapon of reaching out to excellence. I have made to realize that, it is impossible to succeed without suffering and attitude is the determining factor of whether our failures make break us. To accept failure as final is to be finally a failure, failure is the line of least persistence.
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.
Here are some of the statement that got my attention and why they are important to me.
A. “we can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as create of excellence and intelligent and skill”.
This explains that we can find our way out of any problem if we try to believe that we can do it. According to BUCK MINSTER FULLER, “All children are born geniuses; 9,999 out every
10,000 are swiftly, in a divergently degeniusized by grow up. There plain that we are born to be great in one or the after thing, if believe our self and work toward flat. For us to ever realize that me are ignorance of a particular thing is out that ignorance, depended on preparation and persistence because failure will, always come around. This is important to me because it help me to realize that I came be a creature of excellence intelligence and skills if can only lift myself out ignorance and beluga that I am born to be great. Every individual was sent to this world to fulfill a particular mission, not until each of us can be able to understand that and lift ourselves out of limiting thought and see problem as a challenge will continue to be an ignorance. It is said that fear aid self doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential, because it make us to see ourselves as a failure.
B. “The most important thing in living was to reach out and touch perfection in that which we most love to do.”
Nothing can be use to represent perfection in this world, because it is what rules the world. This explains to me that in anything that, want to major in, perfection should be my watchword.
C. “Heaven is not place, and it is not a time, heaven is being perfect.”
The explain that leaning is a stage by stage process, and we never stop learning we died. A learner is a reader, once we stop learning, we stop leading. There is no such thing as full grown tree. The day a tree stops growing is the day it dies. Then we should be a tree which grow their entire life. This explains that there is no such place as final stage for anybody who want to learn. It is a continuous process and persistence in it will only make us to be perfect.
D. “The gull sees farther who flies highest”
Woodrow Wilson once said, “We grow by dreams” The dreamers are the winner.
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 book is self explanatory,but i will like to know the meaning of this statement. “If our friendship depend on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our brother! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time,and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
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?
NO
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.
NO
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 8
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8
Psycho Cybernetics 2000
Assessment by Ogunnaike Sikiru Oladimejo (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
What the author is trying to convey is that it is our self-Image that set the limits for what we can and cannot achieve. Every one of us always acts, feels and behaves in a way that is consistent with our self-image regardless of the reality of that image. The author explains that, each of us carries a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves, which set limits of what our servomechanism can aim for. The author goes on to explain that each of us is capable of taking control of our self-image and reprogramming our automatic guidance system (Brain) for success. The author maintained that all living creature posses such a built-in-goal-striving mechanism, a success instinct that guides them toward goals of nourishment, defense and reproduction. It operates as a creature mechanism, guiding us toward fulfillment of the many goals that make us human and contribute to a rich and satisfying life. Thus, when we programmed our creative mechanism (self image) with images of success, and it operate as a success mechanism and vice versa. This book is also about changing habits-habits of belief, habits of attitude & habits of action.
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.
Removing The Glitches From Our Personality.
Emotional scars or emotional wound, “author wrote”, lead to the development of a scarred, marred self-image; the picture of a person not liked nor accepted by others human beings; of a person who can’t get along well in the world”.
Our automatic mechanism is programmed to target on goals but sometimes a wound or emotional injuries we’ve received can cause a flow to develop in our program when our internal guidance system encounter one of these glitches (emotional wound or scars), it stop dead in this path. The result is frustration aggressiveness, all those elements of failure personality.
The experience of being ridiculed by a parent may make us hostile toward bosses and other authority figures. The cruelty of schoolmates long ago may cause us to lash out in anger to any slighting remark, real or imagined. Taken advantage of us by a trusted associate in our youth, we may have adopted “Never trust anybody” as our watchword. When we consider our own “emotional scar tissue” as author called it, we feel more understandingthan when we look at the wounds of any Tom, Dick or Harry.
According to the author, Emotional scar can be as visible as physical scar. A typical examples depicted in people like Johanna, a phone-company employee, who was 32 years old but looked 52. She had marked from line on her forehead and at the corner of her mouth and there was not a hint of sparkle in her eyes. Her body bent in the shape of a question mark and a sour expression on her face. As a teenager Johanna had been 60pounds over weight. Her peers had made fun of her in the typically insensitive manner of adolescents, but far worse for her self-esteem was the abuse she took from her mother. She berated Johanna for her weight in front of others and took to calling her “Bubbles”, the name of a hippopotamus in the local 200. These psychic wounds had left Johanna with a scarred personality. Though she had long ago directed away her excess poundage, in her subconscious mind she still had an ungainly body. She hide herself from people and was embarrasses by comments about anybody’s weight. Often when she heard people laughing, she was sure they were laughing at her. Any association with “bubbles” such as a bathtub full of sudden, water or a glass of champagnes sent her into depression.
I have learnt that a personality glitch reveals itself through our images of our body just as our mind condition our feeling amount our body, so our mind. Our perception of our body is intimately intertwined with our perception of our self.
Johanna’s personality had been scarred by her perception of her body. Her low self-esteem led her to experience “phantom fat”. I have learnt to forgiving people that wound us and forgive ourselves instead of wallowing in resentment, pain, bitterness and humiliation.
This idea is important to the because:
* I have learnt what causes personality glitches and how to recognize it.
* I have also learn the technique for keep our personality glitches free,
which are:
* Be too big to feel threatened
* Developing a self-reliant attitude
* Combating emotional wounds with relaxation
* Approving our self as a spiritual being and
* Giving of our self to others.
I have learnt that emotional scar is not the only way glitches can form in our personality. It can happen far more innocuously from the way we handle negative feedback. Since our guidance system is a feedback-activated mechanism. Negative feedback is the signal that warns us when we are off course.
I have also learnt what poor and good personality is, the person with a poor personality does not express the creative self within. He has restrained it, handcuffed it, locked it up and thrown away the key…. For one reason or another he is afraid to express himself, afraid to be himself, and has locked up himself within an inner prison. While a person with good personality has really freed and released the creative potential within him and is able to express his real self.
Finally, I have learnt that the only way we can liberate our self is by removing the glitches from out personality.
Belief System
Every one of us has certain ideas about ourselves and our environment that we “know” are true, even when they’re not. These beliefs have been a part of us for so long that we may not even be aware of them, but our subconscious mind and become our belief system.
This belief system begins in early childhood with “reflections” we receive from our parent. This reflection serves as our first indicators of our personal worth. As we grow and develop, family members, peers and teachers, hold up other mirrors to us. These reflections form the basis of our self-image as we grow to maturity. By challenging some of these beliefs and using our imagination to create new ones-new memories, in effect-we can change our attitudes and behavior and discover new abilities within ourselves.
The essence of this write-up is to talk about false or limiting belief systems that hold our power of imagination and creativity.
People operating under a self-limiting belief system “without realizing it consciously are working against themselves. They cannot express or bring into play their actual available strength and this usually bring about frustration.
The idea of belief system is important to me because, I leant how we can free ourselves from false beliefs, how to use CRAFT process every day in changing our belief system, how to identify our false beliefs and finally how to cancel our self limiting belief system by creating new memories.
Power of Courage
Courage is a prerequisite for creating change. According to the author, courage is the willingness to risk, making decisions, to take the action needed to translate goals and desire into
realities. Courage is brought about change in the pattern of how we live our life. For more emphasis, the California Task force concluded that we can grow, solve problems, and discover the potential within ourselves only by developing the courage to explore new thought, behavior, and possibilities to take appropriate risks, and to venture out across safe boundaries.
This ideal is important to me because, I have leant that courage should be the first virtue of a man that want to be successful in life. It makes us have experience and to respond decisively to crises without recur to fear.
Willing to make mistake is another message from this idea, because that will make us to take bold step when there is reoccurrence of problem.
Importance of Esteem
According to the author, of all the traps and pitfalls in life, self-disesteem is the deadliest and the hardest to overcome for it is a pit designed and dug by our own hands, summed up in the phrase, “It’s no use – I can’t do it”.
It can also be mold by our parent or people that play important role in our life, by what they said to use or how they describe us.
Idea of self-esteem is important to me because, it is what determines whether we are going to succeed in life or not.
Importance of Goals
The creative guidance system within us is goal-striving mechanism, and the first requisite for using it is to have a clear-cut goal or target to shoot for time and time again.
And we can’t dig our self out of rut and move forward, unless we have clear and specific goal. Otherwise it doesn’t matter how hard we strive. If we don’t know what we want, we are guaranteed not to get it. But, if we want to hit a target, we’ve got to have one. I have leant that there is a direct relationship between what we strife for and what we actually achieve. If we can consciously establish a set point, our automatic mechanism has a tendency to adjust toward that set point.
I have leant that having a goal start from knowing what we really what in life, how do we see life or what does life mean to us. It is as a result of what we want in life that is what is going to determine the kind of goal we are going to have and the possibility of achieving of our goal in line with time frame.
It lead to taking an inventory of our skills, it start with what skills do we have already posses that would be useful to us in achieving that goal? What skills may be hidden from our conscious view and so on. After this, we set the goal in terms of some important aspect of our life for example, carrier, Business, spiritual knowledge and development and so on. After writing our goals, will test each one against five criteria refers to as SMART approach,
S Specific
M Measurable
A Action oriented
R Realistic
T Time-conscious
I have leant from this book that specificity of goals gives our automatic mechanism something to aim for. Our goals must also be measurable in terms of time frame and we must also develop action plan toward achieving our goals. For our goals to be realistic it must be balanced between safety and risk and be sure the timing is right for ours goals.
Finally, I have leant that it is important to think of any goal as a process, not a place to be, we must think of it as the path our automatic mechanism is taking to ward a particular bend, not the end in itself. If we are going to reach our destination, we need to view the process as complete, fluid and dynamic otherwise we could tend to view every little setback, slow down or meander as a sign of failure.
Importance of Relaxation
Relaxation is the state in which our left-brain decelerates and our right brain is allowed to roam free. I leant that when we’re tense, anxious or as stressed out, we approach problem – solving situation with our left-brain. The Left-brain does a fine job of analyzing problems, but it’s not much good at solving problems, except those of the conscious, procedural, or verbal variety. Our left bran can’t create, intuit or invest, when we try take a left brain approach to problem-solving, the resulting frustration only increase our stress.
Relaxation is the only condition in which we can access our creative imagination and do the work of reprogramming our automatic mechanism. According to the author, relaxation is the key to freeing the mind for creative, holistic, right-brain solving problem. Also relaxation is capable of accelerating feats of learning and memory.
I have leant that if we are physically tense or mentally distracted, our automatic mechanism cannot function. It can only operate effectively when we are in a relaxed state. I have also leant relaxation influence our health, learning ability creativity, performance and self-esteem. I have also leant that relaxation unjam our success mechanism. I have leant from the author that relaxation is an aid to health and problem as well as a necessary condition for the work or preprogramming our informal guidance system.
Importance of Stress Management
Instead of eliminating or managing our stress, we cover it up. We use tranquilizers drugs to cover up our stressful overexposes. From the book, tranquilizers have become the single most prescribed class of drugs. In 1981 Americans consumed more than one hundred tons of Valium
alone to cover up our stressful over responses. And when the effect of the drug subsides anxieties are still there. And this over dependent on tranquilizer cause excessive stress and prevent our automatic mechanism from functioning as a success mechanism.
Any event or situation that happen to us will be determine if it is going to cause stress or not by the way we react to it. We over respond to situation because we have formed a habit of stressfully. reacting to event instead of acting on them. It is our horse, not our rider that is in change.
One important lesson of stress management is to control how we respondent to situation or event that happen to us so that it will not cause stress. This is forming a new habit of acting on stress cause situation or event.
One of the ways of managing stress is sowing SEEDS, In any stress-causing situation – a personal conflict at work, meeting new people, being late for appointments, hassles with spouse, traffic jams or bureaucratic foul-ups we can use SEEDS to decondition our self from anxious over espouse.
From the book, leant that it is important to sow SEEDS every time we feel ourselves reacting stressfully to an outside event. New habits are leaned only through constant repetition of SEEDS.
Mother techniques of stress management are:
i. Developing immunity to stress through exercise.
These activities Include walking, running, swimming, bicycling or aerobic dancing. These naturally cause the body to release endorphin the natural painkillers, which relieve physical and emotional stress without the damaging side effects of drugs.
ii. Reduce stress through Altered states of consciousness.
These include Mediation, Day dreaming, Internal Scanning and so on.
iii. Using power of laughter
iv. Using stress precaution lists.
The author presents a number of “quickly” stress reducing techniques.
* Delaying the response to stress
* Building a psychic Umbrella
* Talking little Vacation Every Day.
This idea is important to me because I leant that, by taking a proactive instead of a reactive stance to the event, we are deconditioning ourselves from the habit of over responding any time our buttons get pushed and we can only take proactive step to stress causing situation when we use aforementioned drug free Tranquilizer.
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?
From all the idea presented in this write-up, the one that really interest me most is important of goal setting, this has help me in setting goals in line of carrier, business, spiritual knowledge and development and need for people skills.
I have already achieved some of my goal in business and knowledge development through the help of the idea from this book and am working tenuously with the mentality of militant to achieve the stated goals.
I have also being sharing the idea of goal setting with some of my friends and they are looking into it.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
From all the idea presented in this write-up, the one that really interest me most is important of goal setting, this has help me in setting goals in line of carrier, business, spiritual knowledge and development and need for people skills.
I have already achieved some of my goal in business and knowledge development through the help of the idea from this book and am working tenuously with the mentality of militant to achieve the stated goals.
I have also being sharing the idea of goal setting with some of my friends and they are looking into it.
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?
NO
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?
NO
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.
NO
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? 5
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 7
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8
The New Dynamics of Winning
Assessment by Ogunnaike Sikiru Oladimejo (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
For we to be a champion, we must think like a champion. What the author is trying to convey in this book is that there are some important qualities in all know champions through out the whole world, this, for us to be a champion we must learn, these qualities and live with them.
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.
Power of Stair-Step
Dr. Deming management philosophy, particularly regarding manufacturing was on keeping close track of progress and making continuous small improved, which played a prominent role in the design and manufactures of the Ford Taurus, one of the best American cars in the past twenty years.
Also, when Grey Lemond began seriously training for the 1990 tour de France, there were many who criticized him for missing the entire bicycle-farcing classic in the spring. But, coming from far behind, Lemond stair-stepped his way through the graveling twenty-one stage race, not wining a single stage during the twenty-two day period, but making history on the final day as he silence his detractors with another impossible Tour de France victory in 1990. By breaking the race into minigoals, he won by strategy, tactics and efforts. Ignoring what others did or thought or said, Lemond formulated his own approach, implemented it and follows it through to victory.
Power of Commitment
I have learnt that if success has an entry free, the cost is total commitment. The Olympic champion slowly but surely achievement grows out of commitment. Mary Lou wasn’t born a classic gymnastic. She wasn’t graceful. She didn’t have the movement of a ballet dancer. She was just four feet mine inches tall with a compact muscular body. She looked more like a sprinter than a potential gymnastics star.
Because she was totally committed she didn’t fear paying the price of success. She said, “I knew I wouldn’t look graceful pique turns and ball Erma moves. But I was a good sprinter and I had a lot of power and explosiveness. So I could do something some of the other girls couldn’t do.”
So, at a time when most teenagers are thinking about anything but commitment, Mary Lou Retton made an enormous sacrifice. She left the comfort of her home in Fairmont, West Virginia and moved to Houston, into the home of a family, she didn’t know just for the opportunity to train under one of the world’s greatest, but most demanding, gymnastics coaches, Bella Karolyn.
While other kids were watching TV, going to movie, hanging out with friends and going on trips. She was practicing four hours a day, seven days a week, she didn’t prepared for so many years just to let the pay off get away. Commitment kept her doing.
In her final event, she scored a perfecting, the ultimate but to surprise and aware of spectators, officials and participants, she went ahead and executed the optional second vault. Incredibly, the result was the same again, a perfect ten.
The only one not surprised was Mary Lou Retton. She was ready to enter the winner’s circle, because she knew she has paid the price.
Gail Dever story also illustrate the power of commitment. Paying the price of success for most of us seems like paying the united state national debt. It appears overwhelming for us to harvest in ourselves the amount of time and effort required for peak performance. Too often, we believe our own physical and environmental limitation is unique and much greater than those of gifted champions.
When the likes Walter Payton, Mary Lou Rattan, and lee Treuino-have paid the price in full, we too can have the best seat in the house and take this commitment.
Power of Mental Toughness
Mental toughness is the ability to thrive on pain and adversity. In the word Bill Tooney, a former high school English Teacher, the man that was determined to became the first competitor in history to go from being a spectator in the stands to wining decathlon gold medal in the following Olympiad, “when it start to hurt, you start to win”. The stumbling blocks into stepping-stone is what truly sets the champion apart from the rest of society.
Power of Vision
Visualization works because the mind reacts automatically to the information it receives in the form of feelings, words and sensory experience. Our mind can’t tell the difference between a real experience and one that has been vividly and repeatedly imagined. By mentally rehearsing the perfect accomplishment of our goals, we create a neurological padhiray that allows air muscle to repeat those actions.
Pablo Morales vision was the gold Medal in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea. But the dream went up in smoke at the Olympics trials. But the vision burned inside and couldn’t extinguish the inner flame less than a year before the 1992 summer games, he decided to go for it one last time. Now with more visualizing, more goals, more training. He planned the race in detail in his mind it would last less than a minute, yet he saw it in crystal clear detail from start to finish. He would get out fast, taking advantage of his speed. He would he hoped cleared down his competitors and the outlast them to the finish. Seeing the race in advance, he went out and swam it late that day, standing on the pedestal, watching the stars and stripes raised, listening to the national anthem, with the gold medal around his neck, he was transformed form visionary to victor. His dream had become reality. The story really depicts the power of vision, which must drive our life.
Many great people began life in the poorest and most humble of homes, with little education and no advantage. But they have vision Andrew carriage started work at $4 a month, John is Rocked feller at $6 a week, MKO Abiola a firewood seller, Orgi Uzor Kalu palm oil trader. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin.
Demusthenes, the greatest orator of the ancient world, stuttered: the first time he tried to make a public speech, he was laughed off the rostrum. Julius Caesar was an epileptic. Napoleon was of humble parentage and for being a born genius ( he stood-sixth in his class at the military Academy in a class of sixty-five).
Beethoven was deaf, as was Thomas Edison, Charles Dickens was lame, and so was Handle. Homer was blind. Plato was a hunchback. But they all had a great vision. What grave these great individuals the stamina to overcome severe setbacks and become successful, each person had on inner dream that lit a fire, which could not be extinguished. Great vision begins as “inside Job”.
Hebert H. Humphrey is an example of what you see is what you can be”. During a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1935, he wrote this letter to his wife: “Honey, I can see how somebody if you and I just apply ourselves and up our mind to work for bigger and better things, we can someday live here in Washington and probably be in government, politics, or services. Oh, gash, I hope my dream come true. I am going to try anyhow”.
Helen Keller was asked, “What would be worse than being born blind” she replied, “To have sight without vision”. I have learnt in this book that, the key to achieving our full potential and to enjoying the very best that is possible for us in every area of life is for us to raise our self- concept in that area. They may be accomplish vastly more the outside by changing our thought and feeling about our potential in that area on the inside.
All Great Things Start From Drive To Leave Our Comfort Zone Whatever our self concept, our habit of thinking with regard to money or any other area of performance very soon became our comfort zone” Our comfort zone became our greatest obstacle to improved performance. Once we get into a comfort zone in any area, we will strive and struggle unconsciously to remain in that comfort zone even though it may be vastly below what we were truly capable of achieving in that area that has been studied. It appears that “stick-to-it-iveness is the most prominent feature of the personality of successful coaches: with these I have learnt to be inquisitive, eager-to-learn, willing to risk big and willing and being a good coach.
Power of Dream
The thing that gives Napoleon Hill’s book, think and grow rich, believability is his research. He studied a number of successful people and the one common cord running through them was that they were all dreamers. They were just burning up inside the dream they had cherish for years.
The author made me to realize that the secret of wearing the gold medal around my neck in the external world is that first I must be an inner winner. It is obvious that talents looks and attributes aren’t equally distributed among us, but were all given an abundance of value that determine if we are winner of looser.
Not until I have read the book, I always want to perform as perfectly as possible in all situations I do not get hurt sometimes. If I can perform up to my own expectation. This book has made me to realize that it is a self-destructive belief.
All Great Things Start From Drive To Win
Champions in every sport and in every industry are driven by a burning desire to succeed. Lee Leola called it “fire in the belly”.
Champions like Greg Lemond know how to transform their aspiration into action in the real world. At some point in their lieges, not always early, they saw something they really wanted to accomplish. They saw it, vaguely and nonspecifically at first. Then they began to think about it, to consider it, to get to know it, to examine it, study it, try it, fail at it, succeed at it, get knowledge about it, field-test it, get coached in it, develop skills in it and as the concept took sharp; it also took roots, and like the seedling of a red wood tree, the motored-the goal-is pushed upward through the earth, through bed rock, up through mountains of doubt, skyward, tolerating no distraction or obstacle in the way.
This idea is important to me, reason, I have learnt that it take courage, persistence, mental toughness to turn our burning desire to real achievement.
And this has made me prepare my mind toward it. I have also learnt four great fears that always want to prevent us form turning our burning desire to real achievement. I have found out that what makes a champion is that they shrunk form risk. Champion knows that the greatest risk is doing nothing.
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 lessons that I have learnt in this book will help me to stay committed to my vision despite failure and dejection.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“You could even say that if success has an entry fee, the cost is total commitment”. Total commitment to a particular vision has always being a successful end, and it is a pillar that holds vision.”
What I have learnt from this quote is total commitment is passport to a successful career.
“Winners works at doing that the rest of the population won’t even consider trying”.
Just because of power of visualization and total commitment, a winner uses creative power to achieve a daring goal.
Am also inspire by the Ten Self-affirming Belief by Terry Orlick in his book, In Pursuit of Excellence.
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?
No
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?
Yes
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.
No
A. How interesting was it to read? 5
B. How helpful were the contents? 6
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 6
E. What is the overall rating you would give it 6
Keys To Success
Assessment by Ogunnaike Sikiru Oladimejo (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
What the author is trying to convey is that there some success principle, which has being working for generation that if we learn and use it in our life and make it to be part of our habit, our success is definitely guaranteed. These success principles are the lesson of the action and attitude of everyone who has ever had a lasting accomplishment and if we make them our action and attitudes. We will realize every one of our worth while goals and our success is unlimited.
These principle of success ranger from definiteness of purpose, self discipline through emotional control, controlled attention, personal limitative, creative, applied faith and so on.
These principles are interrelated and if we can follow the step-by-step process of a turning to it, our success is limitless
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.
Power Of Definiteness of Purpose
I have learned that one of the greatest benefits of definiteness of purpose is that it open mind to the quality, known as faith. It makes mind positive and frees it from the limitations of doubt, discouragement, indecision and procrastination.
A man that does not know where he is going to will not know the effect of decision he had make. In the power of definiteness of purpose, I have learned that first, is to realize that all the riches and all the material goods that we acquire through our own effort begins with having a clear, concise picture of what to seek. When that picture grows to be ostentation with us, we will find that our every actions leads us toward its acquisition. It is not sheer had work that make us to be successful. Then education is not reason either. Sam Walton never won a Rhodes scholarship, but had more money than anyone who ever studied at oxford. Great success is as a result of having a clear and concise purpose in life. Our most precious natural resources are not our mineral deposit or our beautiful forests. It is the mental attitudes and imagination of the people of every generation who have mixed experience with education to goods and services that improve the life of the people around.
This is why definiteness of purpose is very important because no one can be successful without first knowing what he or she wants. I have learnt that a man without definite of purpose is like car without an engine, I wonder how it is going to move. The definiteness of purpose is the beginning of all achievement when it is tied to a strong, compelling motive.
Power Of Personal Initiative
According to Andrew Carriage, “there are two types of people who never amount to anything. They are those who never do anything except what they are told to do. And those who cannot even do what they are told to do. The people who get ahead to do the thing that should be done without being told; and they don’t stop there, they go extra mile and do much more than is expected of them. These are the people that have personal initiative.
Every human being has the faculty of imagination which allows us initiate plan and action, our ability to use the power of imagination determine how creative we are in term of using our personal initiative. All great idea and information start from great and successful people who put their power of personal initiative to use. Neil Bolter, Amy Hilliardajore, Andrew Carnegie, Herbert Bass and Alex Guester Walter P. Chrysler, Are the great people that have put their power of initiative to work. I have learnt that these people aforementioned would not have being great and successful people if they had put their power of personal initiative to use. I have learnt clearly that, personal initiative is a demanding quality and its practice require a good deal of mental resource i.e. using our power of imagination.
I have learnt that personal initiative create work in places we do not expect such. It also creates opportunity, this can be seen in Neil Balter a carpenter’s apprentice making just four hundred dollar a week use his personal initiative and started the California Closet Company. Neil Balter could have been contented just learning to be a computer. But he identified his skills, set himself a definite goal and succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of any apprentice with using his initiative.
Personal initiative creates advancement this can be seen manifested in Amy Hilliard Jones a marketing strategist Gillette. Finally, I have learnt and believe that personal initiative is absolutely necessary if am going to value my goal. It will bring me inducement, attention and opportunity. I have put the idea of personal initiative to work in my business. As an undergraduate looking for ways to support himself, I have always believe that am responsible for all that happen in my life, I found out I can knit cardigan and I love it because it put my imagination to work. So I started the business two years’ ages with nothing. But now I have registered my company as enterprises and am about to get a manual-knitting machine so that I can improve the quality of my product.
Power of Learning From Adversity & Defeat
Failure and pain are one language through which nature speaks to every living creature, pointing out our mistakes. All do, Animal may become timid so that they avoid a threatening situation when it arises again: but we must become humble so that we can acquire wisdom and understanding. And we should know that some form of defect or failure usually defines the tuning point at which we begin to attain success is usually defined by some form of defeat or failure.
With this fact, I have realized that I need not accept defeat as failure, but only as a temporary event that may prove to be blessing in disguise. I have learnt that there is no one who has obtained success without some form of failure comparable with the scope of his or her success. Edison “failed” with more than ten thousand different attempts to create a light bull before he lent on the formula that worked. Jonas Salk tried countless different media to cultivate the poliovirus for a vaccine before discovered that monkey brain tissue did the job, Abraham Lincoln failed so many time before he became the president of the united state of American.
I have how believe that defeat should be accepted merely as a test, which permits us to discover the nature of our thoughts and their reaction to our definite major purpose. Knowing this modifies our reaction to adversity and keep us striving toward our goal.
This idea is also important because I have learnt some of the major cause of person failure and benefit of defeat. I have learnt that, the habit of drifting through life without a definite major purpose inadequate education, meddlesome curiosity about other people’s affairs, lack of self-discipline, manifested as both uncontrolled appetites and indifference to opportunity, lack of
vision, lack of persistence and follows through the desire to get something for nothing Negative mental attitude, unwillingness to go extra mile are some major cause of personal failure and it is now left for me to plan my life carefully with some of these course of personal failure.
I have also learnt that defeat reveals and break bad habits, releasing our energy for fresh start with better habits, it supplants vanity and arrogance with humility and paving the way for more harmonious relationships, it cause us to take inventory of our assets and liabilities, both physical and spiritual.
Am also intrigue by Walter Malore poem, entitled “Opportunity” Malore’s definition of defeat has made me to realize that every defeat carries a seed of an equivalent benefit.
Finally, I have learnt that fear, self limitation and the acceptance of my defeat as final will cause me not to be bound in shallow and in mysteries and defeat is never the same as failure unless and until it has being accepted as such.
Also I have realize and prove to my satisfaction by making it so that every adversity sorrow or defeat, weather or not I cause it to happen, contains the seed of an equivalent benefit which I can nurture into a blessing that soars above the disaster that brought it.
Importance of Positive Mental Attitudes
I have learnt that great success is the result of one’s understanding
and using positive mental attitude. Having a positive mental attitude means that my actions and though further my ends. At birth we all arrive figuratively clutching two sealed envelopes. One is labeled “Rewards” and the other “Penalties” The first envelope contains a list of all the benefits we will enjoy from taking possession of our mind using it to get which we want. The second carries a list of the consequences that will befall us if we neglect controlling our mind and directing it toward a worthwhile goal.
I have learnt nature abhor two things a vacuum and idleness. If we do not use a muscle, it will Witter and become useless. If we do not use power of our mind, they will do the same thing our brain and our life will become subject to every passing influence, unable to resist them or to act positively. Unless we fixed our mind on the object of our desire and create and, and act upon a plan for attaining it
Also if we take possession of our mind and direct it toward desirable goals, we will enjoy:
1. Success consciences, which attract only the circumstance, which make for success
2. Sound health: both physical and mental
3. Financial independence
4. A labour of love in which to expires our self
6. Humility for self-limitation and the wisdom to understand out self and others.
Also if we neglect taking possession of our mind and directing it toward worthwhile goal.
We are doomed to;
1. Poverty and misery our entire life
2. Mental and physical ailment of all kinds
3. Self limitation which trop us in mediocrity
4. Fear and all its destructive consequence
5. Hatred of the means by which we support our self.
6. Hatred brand of worry known to humanity
7. Subjection to the will of others and soon
This fact aforementioned is important to me because it helps me realize that nothing great can ever be achieved without possible mental attitudes.
This ideal is also important to me because it gives me step by step process to build positive mental attitude and acknowledge that the space occupy in this world is in exact ration to the quality and quality of the service render for the benefit of others, plus the mental attitude in which we render it.
Importance of Mastermind Alliance
I have found out the mastermind principle let’s us appropriate and used the full strength of the experience, training and knowledge of other people just as if they were our own. We can overcome almost any obstacle we face, no matter our own education or talents, if we use the mastered principle effectively.
This idea is important because I had learnt various ways of developing or building my mastermind alliance, which ranges from determine my main purpose of forming the alliance, select the member of my alliance, determine my reward and set a time and place for meeting and finally on how to maintain my alliance.
Since I have realized no one has over attained outstanding success in any thing without the ideal of forming alliance with the people of likes mind. Mother Theresa said, “you can do what I can not do, I can do what you cannot do but together we can do great things”. This quote as actually shed more light to the power of forming an alliance. Since a tree cannot be called a forest, a cup of water cannot be called an ocean, we will always need people of like mind to move forward in life in other to achieve great thing. This ideal will help in forming business mastermind alliance on my business plan that I have already working on.
Power of Thought
All plans, purposes and achievement are created by thought. Our thoughts are the only thing over which we have complete control. We can use them wisely or unwisely, but how we do it, our thoughts have power. Aldolf Hitler found the opportunity to use his power of thought so destructively because so many other people failed to use there constructively. I have learnt that accurate thinking is crucial to my desire for success in any endeavor.
The rigor of Jonas Salk’s thinking discovered the vaccine, which prevent polio disease. George C. Marshall’s careful planning revitalized Europe economically after the effects of Hitler’s in human atrocities. George Bush’s methodical of the desert storm alliance and the detailed planning of generals like Harman Schwarz Kopf and Colin Powell put a shop to Saddam Hussein’s Hitler like ambition. The quiet diligent that mother Clara Hale put into building Harlem’s Hale house now provide love and care to children ravaged by their parent’s addition to drugs and infection with AIDS. It impotent to note that more of those great things could not ever have happened without accurate thinking of the se great people.
The Power of Opportunity
Am highly inspired by Witter melon, poem, Tittles “Opportunity”. This poem made me to realize that yesterday is a bounce cheque, tomorrow is a postdated cheque, but today is bank draft which I must make use of judiciously. I have learnt that instead of thinking defeat and past failure, we should enter our theater of imagination today and shape our tomorrow.
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?
This book has help me to set concise plan of how I wan to live in my life. It has helped me to have definiteness of purpose for my future and my business. In my business, I have put 5 years development plan of how I am going to move my business from good to great and this make me to be a model among my friends. Power of initiative, which I have learned in this book, woke up my mental creativity, which is really helping in my business.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“All our most precious natural resources is not our mineral deposit or our beautiful forest. It is the mental attitude and the imagination of the people of every generation who have mixed experience with education to deliver goods and services that improve the lives of both Americans and people around the world. Our real wealth is the intangible power of thought.”
I have found out that average youth in my area have negative mental attitude to life and they did not put their power of imagination to use, which is blocking their power of thought to function effectively. I have learned from this quote that, we must be able to merger positive mental attitude with imagination so that our thought can think creatively in other to develop our self and build our nation. I have found out that, instead of teaching people on how to manage our
natural resources, we should teach them on how on how they can think creatively on how to use the natural resources effectively and efficiently
“Acknowledge that the space you occupy in this world is in exact ration to the quantity and quality of the service you render for the benefit of others plus the mental attitude in which you render it”
I have learnt that rendering services to the people with positive mental attitude is how to show that we care for the life’s created by God.
“Defeat should be accepted merely as a test which permits you to discover the nature of your thought and their relation to your definite purpose”
I have learnt from this quote that, how we handle defeat will determine weather we are shinning star or shooting star. I learnt that no one who has attained success has not met with some form of defeat comparable with the scope of his or her success. Defeat is a indication that we are moving in the right direction.
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?
No
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?
No
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.
I suggest that this book should be given to every student that is entering university in my country, because I have found out that majority of them lacks most of these principles, especially the habit of definiteness of purpose. Because these make them to do all kind of evils things to cope within the university system, instead of focusing on what they want.
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others ? 7
E. What is the overall rating you would give it ? 8
Real Magic
Assessment By Ogunnaike Oladimieji (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
We can all experience real magic in our life because it starts from the thought that form in our mind. This is buttress by the quote from Hermann Hesse, “There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself”.
It is the world within that rule outside world, not until we become spiritual being with human experience, we cannot experience real magic, and we can only enter our spiritual world with mind i.e. our thought.
He made to know that the universe and all that is in it is on purpose. Our life has a big divine mission, and getting our life to purpose is crucial, because it is the only place where we can begin to
manifest miracles. Meanwhile, why are we going to go from formlessness
to form and show up in this human body, only for us to live for a period of time and then go back into formlessness without devoting our life to worthy course?
The essence of this statement is that we all have grand mission to accomplish in this life, our ability to enter the spiritual realm and discover this mission because we can’t see it in physical realm it is when we can discover it, work on it that will experience miracle in our life.
According to the author, we are all capable of achieving perfect equilibrium of the mind i.e. experience real magic, if only we can commit to our own inner transformation.
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.
Living a purposeful life
When our life is filled with purpose we go beyond outcome in life and we find our self-unconcerned about what is in it for us in any problem we encounter. Our thoughts; feelings and behaviour are focus more and more in the fulfillment of our purpose. We go beyond success, achievement and performance as indication of our life’s mission. Instead every moment is lived fully and lovingly. Material possessions cease to dominate our thought, which is not to say that they disappear. They simply cease to be the focus of life. Instead our purpose take hold and we gain a sense of joy and inner harmony knowing that we are divinely fulfilling our reason for being here on earth.
Getting to purpose gives courage to face obstacle and make things that we previously believed to be so significant lose their value, we believe we are divinely limitless and giving becomes more important than getting because giving is in alignment with our purpose.
Getting purpose shift our energy from suffering and waiting for what to learn from the outcome of a problem to purpose. It make us to believe that every and anything that happen us is some kind invisible force running through our physical life that connect it all together which makes it to look like it has being order by God.
I learnt that when we get at purpose, we experience a kind a harmony that comes from not having to strive for something else. In short, we are lighten up, figuratively and literally; this comes from the new knowing that enables us to go about our life’s work free of worrisome thoughts.
Be willing to learn Learning is what make us to be in form, but this learning can not be possible without a teacher, since teacher is everywhere, we the student only need to willing and ready to learn. Our willing and readiness to learn is what is very important to me because teachers appear in various forms, our teacher might be a tape that some “accidentally” leave in our car and that we “accidentally”
play at just the right time.
This idea explains that we experience new idea, knowledge and real magic once we are willing and ready to pass through that experience. This idea is actually true because I have experience it before when I first read the Book title ‘Richest Man in Babylon’ when I was about 22 years of age, I could not understand what the book was saying because I wasn’t ready to use the lesson contain in the book. In 2011 to be precise after I started my business, I ask a friend of my how can I raise money for some of the machine I needed for my business, he asked me to go and read the same book so that I will learn how to save money. To my surprise I read this book and I understand what the author is saying because am actually ready to apply the lesson of this book to my business and private life.
Becoming Spiritual being
Real magic can only be experience when we become spiritual being.
Becoming spiritual being gives us opportunity to enter into inner mind, soul and discover our purpose in life.
Becoming spiritual being also exclude us from being distracted by the physical material possession which as dominate our life and make us to commit different atrocities.
Being limitless and forces that empower others when we become spiritual being is the reason why this idea is important to me.
I learnt that I’m becoming spiritual being, when am not being limited by my five senses, which actually means that I can enter my theater of imagination and being guided by divine order.
Non-being limited by our five human sensory provide more opportunities for growth and development and more opportunities to
avoid unnecessary difficulties.
Our Belief Bould Us
I learnt that anything thing we want to do or achieve or conguer start from our mind. If we can conceive it in our mind, then it can be brought into the physical world. For us to tackle any problem in life, we need to build our mind and belief that we are limitless, most of the people who became world greatest actually belief from the onset that greatness is within them. This shows that is all the matter of our belief system and limitless of our mind.
Importance of Meditation
Meditation is nothing more than quietly going within and discovering that higher component of our self.
This idea is important to because, I learnt it gives us an opportunity to go within and to come to know our invisible self. It allows us to empty ourselves of the endless hyperactivity of our mind and to attain a state of calmness.
It also teaches me to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned, to slow our self down and ultimately when we adopt it as a way of life, to be able to go to that peaceful place anytime.
Big Lie
I learnt the five misbelieves that makes up the big lie that was thrust upon us from our earliest moments of consciousness. We find them familiar and we continue to use them as justification for our lack of self-growth, transformation and become illusion to us.
Following are the five big lies stated by the author:
1. I can’t help the way I am; I’ve always been this way.
2. It my nature; I inherited who I am and it can’t be changed
3. My personality is controlled by my chemistry and metabolism
4. My family is responsible for my personality
5. I can’t escape my culture and time
Our belief in this statement make us to see miracle as something that is not possible and we will always believe that we are limited in one way or the other and there is scarcity everywhere.
These statements act as a saw that cut our prosperous life journey and make us not to fulfill our purpose in life.
To overcome the big lie we need to equip our self with new, empowering belief. And we must come to know that we can choose the life we want to live and choose to make our life into a grand, ever rever-evolting work of art. The key is in changing our thought.
The Power of Thought
I learnt that whatever thought we have can and will be spread to those around us. Our thoughts create either prosperity or scarcity in our life. It created either joyous or miserable relationship. It also creates our personality, and the very physical circumstances of our life. Those same thoughts affect others around us.
This thought is what Ralph Waldo Emerson refers as the ancestors of every action because that is what rules our life. After reading this book I actually belief that the letter writing by the Author to the next generation in 2088 to be precise, about the power of thought is true.
I believe and confirm that
· The power of thought is enormous
· Out of thought comes the entire direction of our lives
· We become what we think about all day long.
· In the dimensionless world of thought into from with the power of mind
· Thought is a formless energy, which comprises our essential humanity.
· Our lives are what our thoughts create.
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 one and overall important lesson I actually learnt from this book is how to use my thought, because that is what I will use to control my life. This will actually help me in programming my thought in a way that will work for me, not against me and to teach people around me how important is there thought in any circumstances they are.
4.Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“The whole theory of the Universe is directed unerringly to one single individual- namely to you”.
Without you, which is our thought that is housed in our mind, there won’t be any action which dominate our physical world. It is this our thought that create what we want in our physical world (reality).
“Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Albert Einstein.
Imagination is more important than knowledge because most of the things we know and experience cannot be possible without passing through our theater of imagination. Imagination rules the world because that is where every great action and invention starts. Isaac Newton would not have develop the law of gravity if he had not first imagine the falling of apple and what lead to the fall in his mind.
“I am convinced that suspending disbelief is the first step in setting one’s mind for miracle making”.
If there is anything we must do to experience real magic i.e. miracle in our life, it is suspending of disbelief and doubt, that is when miracle is possible in our life and people around us. Our doubt of existence of miracle is what bar us from entering or becoming spiritual being with human experience and with out becoming spiritual first, we cannot experience miracle in our life. I even learnt from the book that having an open and suspending our disbelief allows to experience new visit as, while our closed mind and willingness to shed our disbeliefs keeps us trapped in our old ways of thinking and feeing.
“If you can conceive it in your mind then it can be brought into the physical world”.
As man thinketh so shall he be. The St. John of the cross poem also interest me.
If you would come to taste all things, then do not seek to taste anything. Continue in the book-pg. 108 The lesson learnt from this is that we are already complete, already whole, and that nothing external to ourself in the physical world can make us any more complete. It explain that all what we need is within us, what we just need is within us, what we just need is to search our mind which house our powerful thought.
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal.
This actually explains the importance of mediation in our life.
“Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him”
Any situation we are facing does not actually define the kind of person we are, but what define us is our feeling, attitude toward that situation. If we don’t have money today and belief we are poor, that means we are not having any money to spend that actually make us to be poor, but our belief of that situation of poverty. I totally align with what the author said that poverty is a state of mind, not non-possession of cash.
What we mostly need to do is to change perspective toward any problem that confronts us and those problems will disappear. Even according to the author, sickness and healthy is state of mind, it has to do with belief about these when we experience it.
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?
No
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?
No
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.
No
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 8
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9
How To Win Friends and Influence People
Assessment By Ogunnaike Oladimieji (Nigeria)
1.What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
What the author trying to convey is that are some century proofed technique and rules that can make us to be a good human relation expert if we sincerely abide it.
This technique covers fundamental technique of handling people. Six ways to make people like us, how to win people to our way of thinking and how to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment.
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.
Criticism
We human being are always approval seeking being, any circumstances or situation we seek for approval but receive criticism, we always reply or result to anger just as much as we thirst for approval, we dread and hate condemnation. I have learnt from this idea that criticism are like homing pigeons. They always return him, because we human being dread condemnation. We always blame anther person or situation for any of our shortcomings and make people to belief that the situation is be beyond our control.
It has being pointed out by the author that criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually make him strive to justify himself. The typical example of these is the Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley and Albert Fall story, despite the atrocities they have committed they still blame the society for their inability to control there anger and emotion.
Apart from the fact that people will not naturally blame themselves for any of their shortcoming, it is important to note that criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment. A typical example of this statement is the story of Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, but because of bitter criticism he give up forever the writing of fiction. Also criticism drove Thomas Chesterton, the English poet to commit suicide.
Criticism almost cost the great Abraham Lincoln his life, when he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by the name of James shields, in an anonymous letter published in the spring field journal in 1842.
All these examples goes on to explain that criticism is injurious to our precious pride, hurt a sense of importance, and arouse resentment to the person will criticize.
I experience how criticism hurt sense of importance, when I was bitterly criticize by senior member, of my club due to some shortcoming in discharging my role as a sectary of the club, I felt crazy and hurt when I heard every thing they said that I even threat to leave that position and be an ordinary member of the club.
But must importantly, I have leant form this ideal that the best way handle and relate with people without hurting their sense of importance is to speak ill of no man. And note that it is only fools that criticize.
Appreciation
Sigmund freed said that every thing you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to great. And John Dewey one of America most profound philosophers phrased it a bit differently. He said that the deepest urge in human is “the desire to be important”
Every body want to be appreciated, and we can do anything to look for this appreciation.
It was this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dickens to write his immortal novel. This desire inspired Sir Christopher Wren to design his symphonies in store. This desire made Rockefeller amass millions that he never spent!
Even George Washington wanted to be called “His Mightiness”, the president of the united state and Columbus pleaded for the title “Admiral of the Ocean and viceroy of India. “Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not addressed to her Imperial Majesty” Victor Hugo aspired to have nothing less than the city of Paris renamed in his honor. Even Shakespeare mightiest of mighty tried to add luster to his name by procuring a coat of arms for his family.
Since all these people and many more do some unnecessary and important thing just to fell important and be appreciated this means that all human being needs to be appreciated not condemned. I leant from this idea that we should always try to give honest and sincere appreciation to people effort.
Importance of Listening
Listening as being classified as an important aspect of learning. It makes sense for man of wisdom to listening than talking in an uncertain situation. But it is painful that average people on earth are always interested in what actually concern them (want, problem) to what is important to other people. That is why is stated in the book “A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. Also, a boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquake in Africa.
Apart from the fact we gain more knowledge and fact when we listening with rapid attention, we boost the ego of the person we are listening, by making him feel important and finally the person see us as a good conversationalist. This actually explains the problem Jillian F. Detmer, a customer to New York Telephone Company who cursed customer Service representative .
Making Other People Feel Important
From the book, there is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But the very instant we break the law, we shall get into endless trouble. The law is to always make the other person feel important. This ideal is so important that Zoroaster taught it to his followers in Persia twenty-five hundred years ago, Confucius preached it in China twenty-four centuries ago. Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism, taught it to his disciples in the valley of the Han. Buddha preached it on the Holy Ganges five hundred years before Christ. The sacred book of Hinduism taught it a thousand years before that. Jesus taught it among the story ills of jeda nineteen centuries ago. Jesus summed it up in one thought probably the most important rules in the world; “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”.
The first way of making others feel important is by given sincere appreciation. Appreciating people’s effort in a situation goes on to boost the ego of that person and the person want to retaliate or return the gesture.
I can still remember how I was appreciate by a bank customer representative when I went to make enquire about the savings account I feel like a king that day; and this even prompt me do come back the second day and open the account.
Also, little courtesies like “won’t you please?” “Would you mind?”
“Thank you” oils the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life and, incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.
Mr. Adamson make George Eastman of Kodak fame fell important before the can be able to secure the contract of $90,000. Also Claude Marais, a restaurant owner in Rouen, France, use this principle and saved his restaurant from the loss of a key employee. I belief this idea will work for me, because I have learnt the importance of making other people feel important and how it boost the ego of other people.
Admitting Fault
This is another ideal that is important to me, I have learnt that admitting our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm, will not only produce astonishing results on the other party, but it is a lot more fun, under the normal circumstances, than trying to defend oneself.
Importance of Praise
Praise is like a balm use to rub people with broken bone, it heals the bone. Praises encourages us to strife for meaningful things in life despite disappoint and failure. Praising always boost peoples ego to achieve worthwhile goals, even when they are financially poor. A typical example is the story of Enrico Caruso, who was advised by his class teacher that he couldn’t sing. But due to his mother praise, encouragement he became the greatest and most famous Opera singer of his age Charles Dickens life changes because of the praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print.
Also the great contemporary psychologist B.F. Skinner’s has show by experiments with animals and with humans that when criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good thing people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention.
This idea is important to me because I have learnt that abilities wither under criticism; they blossom under encouragement. In order to spur people on to success we must be hearty in our approbation and lavish in our praise.
Winning Argument
I have learnt that the best way to win an argument is by avoiding it. Because in any argument we win, we made the other person feel inferior and hurt his pride. Ben Franklin support this when he said “If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.” Also Buddha said “hatred is never ended by hatred but by love,” and a misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic desire to see the other person’s viewpoint.
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?
This has given me tools and some technique in relating with people diplomatically i.e. without offending and boosting my own feeling of importance. Be genuely interested in people, appreciation and admitting mistake quickly are some of the idea that will help my business. After reading this book I discover that I didn’t always have genuinely interest in my customer. But, this book has equipped me with this idea and with different example from great people; I have learnt two to use this idea.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“Come to think it over, I don’t entirely agree with it myself. Not everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn what you think on the subject”.
This Elbert Hubbard answers to people who criticized his write up intrigue me. I have learnt that the best way to handle people without offending is admit the idea, view without any criticism. There is no human being on earth that will see this reply and will not feel important.
“If you come at me with your first doubled, I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, ‘let us sit down and take counsel together, and if we differ from each other, understand why it is that we differ, just what the points at issue are, ‘ we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, the point on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and candor and the desire to get together, we will get together”. Woodrow Wilson’s.
This statement best explain how we should relate with our enemy and make them become our friend. It is true that it is actually impatience that makes us to view issue in different way. This word is important to me, because I have learnt that the best way to make our enemy become friend is by relating with them, as our relating with them, as our friend, listening to their view and opinion and being hearty in our approbation and lavish in our praise to toward them.
Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you
consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the other person the purpose or direction of your conversation, governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were the listener, and accepting his or her view point will encourage the listener to have a open mind to your idea’. Dr. Gerald S. Nirenberg in his book getting through to people listening and considering others people idea is the only passage of achieving cooperativeness.
“Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise”. Jess lain.
This quote important to me, because I have learnt giving sincere praise to people’s effort is the only way we can spur them in to success.
“Assume a virtue, if you have it not” – Shakespeare.
This actually imply faking it until we made it. I use this when I first started my business. I present my company to people as a register and creative business outlet and today am on that line. This quote actually follow the old saying “Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him.” But give him a good name and see what happens! I have learnt from this quote that we should always give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Am also impress by father forgets story and I have learnt from this story that before condemn and criticize we should always put people in our shoe. And ask ourself how are we going to feel when criticize.
“As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation”. –Hans Selye.
We human being are approval seeking being, any time we given an approval or praise we always feel motivated and want to do more. I learn the importance of praising people from this quote rather condemnation.
“A great man shows his greatness, by the way he treats little man”.- Carlyle.
It is the individual who is not interested in these fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is form among such individual that all human failure spring.” – Alfred Adler I have learnt from this quote that in other to impress and influence people around me I must be genuinely interested in them.
“A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”- Chinese proverb.
This quote explains the importance of keeping smiling face, since first impression last longer.
“Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.” -Lord Chesterfield.
“Men must be taught as if you taught them not and things unknown proposed as things forget.” – Alexander Pope.
“You can teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” – Galileo
“One thing only I know and that is that I know nothing” – Socrates.
All these quote goes on to explain that we will make enemies if we try to proof to people that we known more than them, and that they are wrong.
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?
No
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?
No
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.
No
A. How interesting was it to read? 7
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 8
E. What is the overall rating you would give it 8
Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude
Assessment By Ogunnaike Oladimeji (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
Success through a positive mental attitude instruct me on exactly what to do and how to do it in order to tap the power of my sub-conscious mind and put them to work for me. It also explains how to constructively use, neutralize, control or harmonize with our passions, emotions, instruct tendencies, feelings, moods and habit of thought and actions.
The author explains that our mental attitude can either be positive or negative. A positive mental attitude is often comprised of the “plus” characteristics symbolized by such words as faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness and good human sense. According to the author, a person with positive mental attitude aims for high goals and constantly strives to achieve them, while NMA is a negative mental. It has opposite characteristic to PMA.
According to the author, it was PMA that help S.B puller overcome the disadvantages of poverty. It was PMA that motivated Tom Dempsey, despite his crippled leg, to kick the longest field goal ever kicked in a professional, football game. And it was certainly a positive mental attitude that enable Henry J. Raiser to build a liberty ship every ten days. This made us to understands the importance of PMA.
Finally, the author explains that if we can begin applying the plus characteristics of positive mental attitude and make it a part of our life and the pay off will be success, health, happiness, wealth or whatever definite aims we many have in life.
What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why?
2. 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.
.
The Power of Something More
This is actually rejecting failure by keep finding solution to our problem through positive mental attitude until will find solution, for example, there once was a song writer who wrote a song but couldn’t get it published. Georgia Cohen bought it and added something more. The something more made George M. Cohen a fortune. He merely added three little words: Hip, Hip, Hooray! Thomas Edison tried more than ten thousand experiments before he developed a successful incandescent lamp. But after each defeat he kept searching for something more until he found what he was looking for. Also the medical preventative for polio was unknown until Dr. Jonas Edward Salk used principles of universal law that were previously not applied by the medical profession for the prevention of this dreaded disease. All these example mention above point to the importance of searching for more information or solution to any problem or challenge we encounter from the author, we can find our something more through writing our idea and thought down and thinking over it, we can engage in deductive reasoning, and use cosmic habit force. This idea is important to me because, it explain the importance of thinking in other to provide solution to any problem will ever encounter
Importance of Honesty
Honesty is one thing for which a satisfactory substitute has never been found. It is something, which reaches deeper into a human being than most traits of personality. Honesty, or the lack of it, writes itself indelibly into every word one speaks, into every thought and deed, often reflect itself in one’s face so that the most casual observer can sense the quality of sincerity immediately. The story is told about the father of the famous philosopher Emmanuel Kant. When he was an old man, he made a dangerous journey by foot through the forests of Poland to his native country of Silesia. One the way I he was accosted by a band of robbers who demanded his entire valuable. Kant’s father turned over all the he had as the robbers repeatedly demanded, “Have you given us everything?” each time, the old man replied “All” They allowed to proceed threatening to kill him if he revealed their dead.
After hurriedly walking several hundred yards down the road, the man felt something hard strike his shin. He suddenly remembers that he had sewn a gold piece into the hem of his robe several years ago. At once he hurried back to the robber and said to them, “ I told you what was not true: it was unintentional. I was too terrified to think. Here, take the gold in my robe? To the man’s astonishments, none of the robbers made a move to cut open the hem of his garment. Rather, one went to his saddlebag and handed him back his purse of money. Another restored to him his book of prayer and still another restored him back his other belongings and still another helped him back on his horse. In the end, the robbers asked him for a blessing before he rode away. This story gives more explanation to how it is good to be honest in any situation we find ourself. Mark Twain observed, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. This idea is important to me because I learnt that honesty should be our first principle.
Clearing Cobwebs From Out Thinking
The greatest and most complex computer we can think of in this world is the brain. It is said to contain about l00 million nerve cell that begin to die at birth. Our brain has two major parts, the conscious and the sub-conscious minds. The conscious mind control and guides the sub-conscious mind. Our mind cannot be physically seen or touched; it is the computer program that is written in our brain. Computer operator have a saying “Garbage in, Garbage out” (G.GO). In other words, since our minds store information, we draw our conclusion from the material feed into it.
We are living in a world where whatever we think about eventually becomes a reality in our life. Whether we like it or not we must think. Our environments are full of things that put thought into our minds. Books and magazines, radio, television and even suggestion and criticism. So, since it is a fact that we must think and it is another fact that whatever we think of become reality, then, there is a need to clear the cobwebs of negative thinking from our mind. One of the cobwebs of our thinking is to assume that we act from reason alone when in reality every conscious act is the result of doing what we want to do.
Power of Autosuggestion or Conscious Auto Suggestion
There are over 400,000 Children born out of wedlock in the united state each year, and over a million and a half teen-agers enter penal institutions for car theft and other crimes. These personal tragedies could in many instances be avoided if at the parent learn how to employ suggestion properly, and (b) if there sons and daughters were taught how effectively to use spiritual self-suggestion. Though the proper use of suggestion, the young people could be motivated to develop inviolable moral standard through their own conscious autosuggestion. And they would know how to neutralize or repel the undesirable suggestion of their associates in an intelligent manner.
How to Attract Wealth
I found out that we can attract wealth any where we are, even on sick bed, we can engage in study, thinking and planning time as George Stefek did. And one of the ways we achieve this is by never under estimate the value of a book. Books are tools, which provide inspiration which can launch us into a bold ad new programme and which can also light the dark days that many such program entails. Every individual has 1440 minute in a day, if we can invest one percent of that time in a study, thinking and planning session, we will be astounded at what those fourteen minutes can do for us. For it may surprise us to find that when we develop this habit we will receive constructive ideas almost any time or anywhere we might be. One thing I have learnt from this point is that we should assume that we are washing our time when we take time out for thought, because thought is the foundation upon which all else is built by man. And we just should be certain to use two of the greatest, yet simplest working tools ever invented tools use by a genius like Thomas Edison a pencil and a piece of paper to record the data after our thought. Another requirement to attract wealth is to learn how to set our goals. It starts from writing down our goal, giving ourself a dead line, set our standards high and to aim high. After this we should start the goal by taking first action on it. I also learnt that our attitudes which can either be negative or positive determine whether we repel or attract wealth. The story of Oscar is narrated, a graduate of( m-1) who destroy what he had invented dust because be had being frustrated. And this show that negative mental attitude (anger, frustration) repel wealth. This detail is very important because I learnt that to attract wealth, we have to learn from people experience, set goals and take action on our goals.
Power of learning to see
What is worse than being born blind, it is to have sight without vision. Learning to see invoice looking beyond our physical eye, it entails learning to see with our mental eye. In other to see opportunities and possibilities in our life we will have to take the trouble to develop our mental vision (eye), because without this we might be affected by lack of hope and vision paralysis. A story is narrated in the book about how Darbaymem, Mr. A. E. Cumley and Mr. L. I Thompson who saw a mineral collection displayed in the town all because one day these two young men not only observed with their physical eye, but took the trouble to see with mental sight.
Being able to see into the future is one of the most spectacular accomplishments of the human brain and is a learned skill that must be exercised. We look to learn how to work at our world with fresh eyes – seeing the opportunities that lie all about us, but for the chance there. According to the author, the two major distortion of our mental vision are two opposite extremes – nearsightedness and far sightedness, just like the weakness of our physical vision. (Sight). The person who is mentally nearsighted is opt to over look objects and possibilities that are distant. He pays attention only to the problems immediately at hand and is blind to the opportunities that could be by thinking and planning in terms of the future. We are nearsighted if we could not make plans, form objectives and lay foundation for the future. A typical example of a person that is nearsighted is the teacher of Thomas A. Edison. Who could not take time to study himself and know his abilities, capacities and talent?
On the other hand the mentally farsighted person is opt to overlook possibilities that are right before him. He does not see the opportunities at hand. He sees only a dream world of future, unrelated to the present. He wants to start at the top rather than move up step by step. A mentally farsighted person could not have done what Thompson and cumley did if his mental vision were distorted. For he is the man who can see only far-off values while the advantages that lie at his feet go unclaimed. I learnt that being able to see into the future is one of the most spectacular accomplishments of the human brain, this is supported by Dr. Samuel Renshaw who says that “most of the process of seeing is not done by the eyes at all, the eyes act as hand which reach ‘out there’
and grab meaningless ‘thing’ and bring them into the brain. The brain then turns the ‘things’ over to the memory. And it is not until the brain interprets in terms of comparative action that we really see anything.
The Power of Magnificent Obsession
This actually means given willingly without expecting any thing in return. I have learnt from this idea that when we share more,we have more with us. I have also learnt that there is something infinitely better than making a living. It is making a noble life by given to people willingly, and this might be money, love, a smile to every one, a kind word, a pleasant response; appreciation; good thought; cheer; encouragement; hope; honor; credit; and so on.
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?
This book has help me in approaching the issue of my life with Positive Mental Attitude.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
No
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?
No
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?
No
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.
No
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? 6
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 6
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 7
Giant Steps
Assessment By Ogunnaike Oladimeji (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
What the author is trying to cconvey is that there are some principles that need to become part of our before we can bo successful.
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.
Power of Our Decision
Each of us is endowed with innate resources that enable us to achieve all we’ve ever dreamed of-and more. The flood gates can be opened by one decision, bringing us joy or sorrow, prosperity or poverty, companionship or solitude, long life and early death. Mahatma Gandhi made the decision to use non violence as a means to help India’s people regain control of his country, and set in motion an unexpected chain of events. Also, Rosa parks made a decision to defy an unjust law that discriminated against her on the basis of her race, which has lead to the equal right of every American whether white or black. According to the author, although we cannot always control the events in our lives, but we can always control our response to them by the kind of decision we decide to take. What I learnt from this idea is that the decisions we make any time always determine our success.
Using and Pain And Pleasure To Our Advantage
I have learnt that what we link pain to and what we link pleasure to shape our destiny. Each of us has learned and adopted a unique patter of behaviors to get ourselves out of pain and into pleasure. Some people do this by drinking, smoking, overeating, or verbally abusing others. Others do it by exercising, conversing, But one of the miracles of being human is that we can decide what causes us pain and pleasure. Nature has a way of speaking to us through pains and failure, but average human being do not want to go through pain before pleasure, which actually prevent us from acquiring knowledge that we can use to change the course of our life. So in our way of moving from pain to pleasure, me must move positively. Smoking and drinking as a way of moving away from pain will cause more pain. Also using sleeping inducing drug like velum will not remove the pain, we will find out that while we are sleeping our problem or pain is waiting for us. Also procrastination is one of the most common ways people use to avoid pain.
I have learnt that the best way to move from our pain to pleasure is by using SEED. SEEDS means: Situation, Evaluation, Emotions, Do, Self-esteem. (The technique explain in the book called Psycho-Cybernetics, 2000), by Maxwell Maltz. This will help us to analysis our pain and we will discover our how to move away from this pain into everlasting pleasure.
The Power of Belief
According to the author our belief guides us in making decisions about how to avoid pain or gain pleasure quickly. It is our beliefs that determine what we try or fail to accomplish in our lives. For thousands of years it was know that no human could run four-minute mile; it was physically impossible. Yet Roger Bannister shattered this belief when he ran a 3:59 mile. Following in Bannister’s stride and believing that they, too, could do it, within one year several others duplicated his feat. What make this to be possible is that they use their power of belief.
According to the author, Beliefs make the difference between of lifetime of misery and one of joyous contribution. It separate a Mozart from a Mansion it cause some individuals to become heroes while others resign themselves to wondering what could have been. This explains that how we use our belief system will determine if we are going to succeed or fail in life. For example, I have develop one strong belief since when am in primary school (elementary school) that I am going to liberate my parent and entire family members and influence my generation; this belief still work for me anytime an face with any problem and I remember this belief, and am always ready to face the challenge, because I will sum it up that these challenges or problem I can face and solve are like the fee am going to pay to achieve my strong belief.
I have learnt that our belief is nothing more than a feeling of certainty about what something means. But, according to the author, while an Unshakable sense of certainty can help us accomplish great things, it also has the potential to blind us to the very information that could change our life forever, because our certainty is provide through “reference experience” so as we use past experience to determine our certainty of what something means in our life, we can also future reference by using our power of imagination. I also learnt that there are three different level of certainty; Opinion, belief, and conviction.
Opinions can be shifted easily, as they are based on transitory perceptions. Beliefs are much-stronger because they’re based either on many experiences or on experience with more emotion attached to them. It’s still possible to destabilize this certainty with new questions. A conviction on other hand, is buttressed by such high emotional intensity that the person holding it not feels certain, but can actually become enraged and/or blinded to any rational discussion if the conviction is even questioned. So, this convictions can be incredibly empowering or unbelievable destructive.
Importance of Questioning
According to the author, Questions are the laser of human consciousness. Quality questions create a quality life. Businesses succeed when their decision makers ask the right question about product lines or markets or strategic planning. Relationship flourish when people ask, the right question about where potential conflicts exist and how to support each other rather than tearing each other down. Communities benefit when leaders ask the right questions about what is most important and how. Citizens can work together toward shared goals. This idea is important to me, because I have learnt that good and quality question, provide a straight forward answer on how we are going to take a challenge and give us direction.
Importance of Word
According to the author, words have the power to start wars or create peace, destroy relationships or strengthen then, provide hope or despair. And if we can intentionally adopt a new set of words that we use when reacting to an event or situation, we could transform our emotional patters (i.e. how we are going feel towards that issue or situation). It means changing the words we use in any situation in orders to change the emotion we feel toward that issue. This power to instantly transform emotions, to loner or heighten their intensity is referred to as “Transformational vocabulary” by the author. It means to simply adjust the words we consistently use to describe our emotions and sensations in order to immediately change how we think, feel and live. According to the author, “this is one of the simplest yet most powerful tools for changing anyone’s life in an instant”. Just has a person with impoverished vocabularies lives emotionally impoverished lives, people with unhealthy vocabularies lives unhealthy lives?
Our Value
A value is an emotional state we feel is very important either to experience (because of the pleasure we believe it will bring) or avoid (because of the pain we associate to it). According to the author, pleasure value are known as moving forward values; they include such emotions as love, joy, freedom, security, passion, and peace of mind. And pain values (e.g. rejection, depression, loneliness) are known as moving-away from values.
Our values must be clarified because it is what determines if we are going to move forward or backward. This explain that we must be able to clarify and rank our moving-toward and moving-away from value, because one can move us forward and second one dragging us back at the same time. For example, trying to achieve the pleasure of success without risking the pain of rejection would never work, because we cannot achieve any success without failure and rejection, even rejection, failure, setback is simply a price we pay to achieve success. John C. Maxwell. What I learnt from this idea is that we must clarify and rank what gives us pain and pleasure, so that we will not be taking two steps forward and one step backward in any goals we set.
Becoming A Hero
According to the author , a hero is a person who demand more from himself or herself than others would expect; also a hero is someone who defies adversity by doing what he or she believes is right in spite of fear. I learnt from this idea that the first way of becoming an hero is by contributing to others people cause or affair without expecting anything in return.o you. Use personal examples from your own life.
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?
This has helped me with “do it now” approach, I have being able to tackle some challenges which have being pushing me away because I did not ask the right question. The morning power questions gives me courage, happiness and hope that things are getting better and that am in the right direction, and the evening power questions gives me rest mind when I have being able to prove to myself that I have contribute my quota to people happiness, development and boosting their feelings of important.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“A powerful agent is the rest word. Whoever we come upon on of
those intensely right words… the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt”. Mark Twain.
I have learnt that the words we use always determine the kind emotions we feel toward that word. In order to make our self-happy we should use or chose the right word in any situation.
“The mark of a true champion is consistency”.
Consistency is what turn failure to success, a person with consistent mind never believes that he fails and it is this sprit that lead to success. Consistency is what made the great Abraham Lincoln to beloved the president of the United State of America, it also this consistency that made the Thomas Edison to built light bulb after countless attempt, Also Jonas sacks, Wright Broths, also use this power. This quote is important to me, because it shows that for we to be, a champion we must be consistent in our approach to issues of life.
“Never spend more than 10 percent of your time on the problem, and always spend at least 90 percent of your time on the solution”. I learnt that finding solution to our problem should always be our priority in life.
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?
No
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?
No
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.
No
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 8
C. How easy was it to understand? 9
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8
Unlimited Power
Assessment by Ogunnaike Oladimeji (Nigeria)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
The main idea is that we can produce any result in our life once we are ready to follow some principles about life that are explained in the book.
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.
i. Importance of Strategy
According to the author the critical point to effectively model the result of successful people is to understand their strategies. The word strategy is used to describe the entire factor like the kinds of internal representations, physiology (internal, experience, belief, system), and the required syntax that work together to create a particular result (action of model). According to the author, there are strategies for producing just about anything in life: the feeling of love, attraction, motivation, decision of being attracted to someone etc. Since there is strategy for almost everything in life, so, for us to be successful in our endeavor, all we need is to figure out our strategy so we can produce the desired outcome or result. And we must be able to recognize other people’s strategies so we can know exactly what they react to.
This idea is important to me because I have learned that for us to produce our desired outcome or result in any action we want to take, we must be ready to learn the syntax of the strategy that has being in existence for that particular action and we can do this when we first elicit other people strategy. I have also learnt that success, happiness, motivation, ecstasy, selling, athletics learning, seduction; all have strategy, which actually enlighten me that I can actually produce what I want anytime.
Strategy will also help in decipher people thinking most especially in my business.
The knowledge of learning the buying strategy will help me to predict the kind of product or design my potential customer are going to like, which will in return increase my sales.
ii. Precision Model
Precision model enable us to avoid vague and generalization phrases which is know as verbal fluff. It is a guide to overcoming some of the most pitfalls in language, according to the author. This ideal is important to me because I have learnt how to question some of my vague phrasal use in generalizing some of my experience in life. I have also use it to challenge the “I can’t” that I uses sometime. The two hand picture draw and explain by the author also educate and alert me on how to recognize vague phrase and erroneous generalization
iii. Power of Mirroring
According to the author, it is one of incredible way to build rapport with anyone. It helps us to enter other people world and see, feel and experience what they do.
I have tried to work with this and it performs wonders. This idea is important to me because I was able to get one important tool of creating and starting relationship with anyone, it is the act of mirroring their facial expression, hand gestures, tonality and phrasing, posture, breathing, pattern, body language and other distinguishing moment.
iv. Power of Anchoring
According to the author anchoring create a consistent triggering mechanism that will automatically cause us to create the state we desire in any situation without having to think about it. It is a way to ensure that we always have access to our greatest resources.
Anchor is a sensory stimulus linked to a specific set of states. An anchor can be a word or a phrase or a touch or an object. It can be something we see, hear, feel, taste or smell.
This idea is important to me because it teaches me how to change reaction to thing automatically without wasting much time. I have learnt how to change or collapse my negative thought about people without any stress of confrontation and talking.
v. The Seven Lies of Success
The seven belief explain by the author is important to me, I can say indeed they are foundation belief system of excellence. For any human being that want to excel in life, must be ready to model these belief and make it to be part of his /her life.
Everything happen for a reason and a purpose and it serves us. This explains that we must see possibilities in every situation. The time taken in crying over the split milk is enough to turn around the problem / setback and look for possibility in it. The story of Marilyn Hamilton explains this belief in details. If I have to say, one most important thing I have learnt from this book, it is the belief that everything happen for a reason and a purpose and it serves us there is no such thing as failure.
This point to the fact that anybody that want to achieve greatness in life must not dwell on the failure of his/her life. According to the author, we should see failure to great journey in life.
Whatever happens, take responsibility. This explains that we must belief in ourselves that we create our world. Any failure or successes that happen to us must be regarded as our out come that is we must take responsibility for it, instead of putting it on somebody else.
It’s not necessary to understand everything to be able to use everything. This stresses the important of modeling the qualities, action and behavior of great people to achieve what we want in life rather than going through the trail and error process. People are your greatest resources. This explains that without people support, we can not achieve our goals in life. So we must respect and appreciate anybody we come in contact with.
Work is play. This explains that we should do what we love. There is no abiding success without commitment. All the fact in this book will be useless without our commitment to achieve our goals in life. The power of commitment is what well determined if we are going to fail or be great.
vi. Empowering Beliefs.
According to the author, beliefs are preformed, pre-organized approaches to perception that filter our communication to ourselves in a consistent manner. It determines how much of our potential we will be able to tap.
It is any guiding principle, dictum, faith or passion that can provide meaning and direction in life. It is like commander of the brain. When we congruently believe something is true, it is like delivering a comment to our brain as to how to represent what is occurring. After reading the chapter five of this book I have indeed discover that first pillar or guiding principle of success is to belief that we are going to succeed despite the circumstances and without considering the environment we are, because beliefs are the compass and maps that guide us toward our goals and gives us the surety to know we will get there. Our belief must be fired against all circumstances, because without it or ability to tap into them, we can be totally disempowered.
This idea is important to me because, I have learned the importance of belief, apart from learning where belief come from and what formed our belief, I have learnt importance of belief, which if apply to our life, we are not going to witness or encounter any limitation in our life.
vii. The Power of Ultimate Success Formula.
The formula knows your outcome, that is, to define precisely what we want, tacking action, developing the sensory activity to recognize the kind of responses and result we are getting from our action and to note as quickly as possible if they are taking us closer to our goals or farther away and finally which is to change our behavior until we get what we want is very important to me because it present the process of success in simplest form.
I have already being using this process before reading it in this book; it has being working for me. For example, after setting my goals about my business this year 2012, which is to bring more development into it, I have being searching for funds to finance some of the project, I found out that banks will not be any help because of their higher interest rate and the procedure that I must run my account for particular period of time with the money I don’t have so after dissolving this, I have shifted my focus elsewhere to source for this fund. This alternative is not easy, but I have to keep searching.
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?
One important idea I have learnt in this book has done more to open my eye on what success is all about and how to emulate it with power of modeling. It taught me that success, courage happiness has process to be follow before achieving it. From this, the first person I want to model on he handle frustration and failure is Abraham Lincoln.
Concerning my carrier, I want to model Andrew Kissinger, Collin Powell on strategic decision making, courage and how they hold their life.
After selecting these people I have decided to get their autobiography or biography on audible.com so that I would be able to learn their strategy and model it.
Mirroring is another idea that will help my business. It has taught me how to enter the inner world of my customer so that I can decipher what is making them to think in a particular way and how direct or change their attention.
4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.
“Eye are windows to the soul looking at people eye.”
This gives us a lot information about the representational system people use at a specific time: Visual, auditory or kinesthetic.
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?
No
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?
No.
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.
No.
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 7
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8