The Magic of Thinking Big in a Nutshell - Summary (David Schwartz)

Thoughts, whether positive or negative, are strengthened when fertilized with constant repetition.

Stop making excuses and just do what you got to do.

• Don’t sell yourself cheap. Focus on your resources.
• Use big, bright, and cheerful words when you talk.
• Expand your vision: see what can be, not just what is.

Most people focus on the little and banal things when they have to make a speech.

The only most crucial thing that a good speaker should know is the knowledge of what he will speak about, and an intense desire to tell it to other people.

All successful speakers have one thing in common: they have something to say and feel a burning desire for other people to hear it.

1. Think that it is possible.
2. Eliminate “impossible”, and “will not work” from your vocabulary of thought and speech.
3. Be progressive in anything you do.
4. Ask yourself every day: “How can I do better?”. There’s no limit to Self-Improvement.
5. Train yourself to ask and to listen. Big people monopolize the listening. Small people monopolize the talking.
6. Expand your mind.

Looking important helps you think important.

Your appearance talks to you and to others: make sure it says: “Here is an important person: smart, prosperous, and trustworthy.”

The difference between success and failure lies in one’s attitude towards obstacles, handicaps, discouragement, and other disappointing situations.

1. Get a clear solution on where you want to go. Write your ten-year plan: your life is too important to be left to chance.
2. Be absorbed in your desires.
3. Let your primary focus be your autopilot.
4. Reach your goal one step at a time. Consider every constructive activity you do as a step towards your goal.
5. Make thirty-day-goals. Daily effort always pays off.
6. Make deviations in your decisions.
7. Invest in yourself. Invest in education. Invest in idea-initiators.

1. Swap your mind with the people you want to influence. Look at things through their eyes.
2. In everything you do, show that you put other people first. Give other people the kind of treatment you enjoy receiving.
3. Think about progress, believe in progress, and push for progress.
4. Planned loneliness pays off. Use it to unleash your creative power.