When I was 15, my father handed me The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz and told me, “I read this book when I was your age, and it changed my life forever — read it.” Of course, I didn’t listen. A few years later, though, before I started attending this university, I decided to pick it up and see what it was about. My father was right, and since reading this book, I have approached my life completely differently — for the better. The book is based on the notion that “who you are” starts with who you believe yourself to be. If you think about it, quite literally every action you’ve ever taken is a good summary of what you have accomplished so far in life. To that point, your actions are the physical manifestations of your thoughts. The bottom line here is if you think big, you’ll act big and you’ll do big things.
It’s frustrating to hear my classmates say something like, “I just want to graduate and get a job, then I’ll be happy,” because by saying something like that, you set the limits of what you can accomplish. Do you think Steve Jobs or Bill Gates merely hoped to get a job while they were changing the world from garages? I have my doubts. The point of this book is to point out flaws in your thinking that diminish your own potential and to show you how to think on a grandiose scale. We all have the potential to change to world; whether or not we do so is a question of how we think. Even if you fall short, the connections you’ll make and the experiences you’ll have will make getting a job the least of your concerns.
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