The Magic of Thinking Big - Azara Feroz Sayed

The Magic of Thinking Big is a 50+ yr old bestseller by David Schwartz about being sucessful using the magic of thinking - the power of belief, attitude and action! It is funny to read the examples of $1000 salary or a handsome salary of $35,000 - one need to keep the perspective of this while reading the 50+ year old book.

David introduces by saying sucess is not determined by the size of one's brain as it is by the size of one's thinking. The size of bank accounts, size of happiness accounts, size of one general satisfaction account is dependent on size of one's thinking.

David talks about study human behaviour to know the rules of success using the fully equipped laboratory of human beings that is around us to study human action. The laboratory provides us with every possible example of human action. We need to observe and experiment - to know more about sucessful people, to know why people act as they do. To get insight into human action by asking questions as Why is XX so sucessful? Why is YY just mediocre? etc

David talks about "walk-watch", watching people walk, to know what is going on in their mind are they troubled, are they happy - one way to use the laboratory that we have at our disposal. I always thought Feroz did this to entertain me. He would try to build up stories on what is going on with the person.

One of the things that David mentions is that confidence determines how we fight our fears. Memory management is the most important thing for building confidence - depositing and withdrawing positive thoughts is the key to confidence. He talks about recalling pleasent experiences to boost confidence (refer post "Mastering your mind" on how this can be used to manage difficult situations). Feroz doesn't listens to news, songs, chat shows etc in the morning to ensure his postive rhythm is not disturbed.

With Feroz, I have learnt the importance of setting a high standard for others to follow. I helped Feroz with the logistics during one of the 'Interviewing Skills' session he conducted. During the session, Feroz tried to capture students responses to most of the aspects mentioned in the book, as part of the interview questions. Stressing students with questions during the interview to check how strong their beliefs were. He played back the video in the class - for the students to know what the interviewer is trying to know about the applicant and what would be the best response and yes importance of appearence!

I have used the review of the book at the site below and added some the ideas that I found interesting in the book
http://www.lifetrainingonline.com/blog/the-magic-of-thinking-big-part-i.htm

Believe You Can Succeed and You Will
Belief and wishful thinking are quite different. Wishful thinking will never spur you to action and as a result, your wishful thought will forever remain a wish. Belief works this way. Belief, the "I'm-positive-I-can" attitude generates the power, skill and energy needed to achieve results. When we truly believe we can do it, the HOW TO DO IT will reveal itself.

Without firm, unwavering belief that man can travel in space, our scientists would not have had the courage, interest and enthusiasm to proceed. Belief in great results is the driving force behind all great discoveries. Belief in success is the one basic, absolutely essential ingredient in successful people.

Disbelif is the -ve power. When the mind disbelieves or doubts, the mind attracts "reasons" to support the disbelief. Doubt, disbelief, the subconcious will to fail, the not really wanting to succeed, is responsible for most failures.

The size of our success is determined by the size of our belief. We can also consider belief to be the thermostat that regulates our accomplishments in life. If we take a look at one who is struggling in mediocrity, he believes he is worth little so as result, he receives little. Contrast this with the person who is advancing in life. They really belief they’re worth a lot, and again as a result they receive a lot.

A person is a product of his own thoughts. Believe Big. Let us adjust our thermostat forward. Let us launch our success offensive with honest, sincere belief that we can suceed. Believe big and grow big.

We know that our mind is a "thought factory", producing countless thoughts in a day. Production in our thought factory is under the charge of two foremen Mr Triumph and Mr Defeat. Mr Triumph is in charge of manufacturing postive thought. He specializes in producing reasons why we can, why we will etc The other foremen, Mr Defeat, produces negative, deprecating thoughts. He is our expert in developing reasons why we can't, why we are inadequate. His speciality is why-we-will-fail thoughts. They both are obedient and snap to attention immediately when required. The more work we give either of these foremen, the stronger they become. Eventually taking the entire thought-manufacturing process. To have strong belief, we need to ignore Mr.Defeat (refe "Taming the Gremlin" post) and strengthen Mr. Triumph.

As Tony Robbins says, Belief is to have faith when nothing in the our environment is supporting us. Generating the feeling of certainity. Operating with Strong Belief, is to operate from faith instead of fear. Belief is about creating certainity in face of fear. When we operate out-of-fear, we constantly focus on worst that could happen. We anticipate in advance and thereby avoid participating. The greatest way in the world not to achieve anything is to not to take the first step. Belief, is to have courage to put ourselves on the line by having faith - faith is the ultimate power.

While recruting, companies often look for candidate who aspires leadership for himself and his company - a determination to undertake a personal program of self development.

Cure Yourself of Exusitus, the Failure Disease
The distinguishing difference between a person who is going places and the individual who is barely getting by is the latter person’s habit of excuses. The more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses. But the fellow who has gone nowhere and has no plans for getting anywhere always has a boxful of reasons to explain why. Persons with mediocre accomplishments are quick to explain why they haven't, why they don't, why they can't, and why they aren't.
Much like any other disease, this disease of ‘excusitis’, as the author calls it, will get worse if not treated properly.

The problem is, once you’ve selected for yourself a ‘good’ excuse, you end up sticking to it. You then end up using that excuse to explain to yourself and others why you’re not making progress in that area of life; And each time you use that excuse, the more it gets ingrained into your subconscious and the more you begin to believe it is true.

Successful people on the other hand learn how to vaccinate themselves against excusitis instead fertilizing their minds with the seeds of confidence and achievement - making the most of the resources available with them as "the right attitude and one arm will beat the wrong attitude and two arms every time" and being grateful for having the available resources.

Poor health? Lack of education? Too old? Too young? Bad luck? Personal misfortune? he way my family brought me up? are some of the common excuses used by mediocre people. The four most common of this disease are healthy excusitis, intelligence excusitis, age excusitis and luck excusitis.

http://www.seniorsnetwork.co.uk/positivethinking2/excusitis.htm
1."But My Health Isn't Good." - Health excusitis is used as an excuse for failing to do what a person wants to do, failing to accept greater responsibilities, failing to make more money, failing to achieve success. Remind yourself often, "It's better to wear out than rust out."

2."But you've got to have brains to succeed." - Intelligence excusitis or "I lack brains" is common. Unlike most other types of excusitis, people suffering from this particular type of the malady suffer in silence. Not many people will admit openly that they think they lack adequate intelligence. Rather, they feel it deep down inside. Most of us make two basic errors with respect to intelligence: We under estimate our own brain power, and We overestimate the other fellow's brainpower. Because of these errors many people sell themselves short. They fail to tackle challenging situation because it "takes brains". What really matters is not how much intelligence we have but how we use what we do have. The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than the quantity of your brain power. Interest, enthusiasm, is the critical factor. With a positive, optimistic, and cooperative attitude a person with an IQ of 100 will earn more money, win more respect, and achieve more success than a negative, pessimistic, uncooperative individual with an IQ of 120. Just enough sense to stick with something-a chore, task, project-until it's completed, pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius calibre. Stickability is 95% of ability. Negative Thinking is the reason for some brilliant people's failures.
He has a very mediocre job (he's afraid of responsibility).
He has never married (lots of marriages end in divorce).
He has few friends (people bore him).
He's never invested in property of kind (he might lose his money).
These men use their great brainpower to prove why things won't work rather than directing his mental power to searching for ways to succeed. We can't do much to change the amount of negative ability, but we can certainly change the way we use what we have. Knowledge is power- when you use it constructively.
Closely allied to intelligence excusitis is some incorrect thinking about knowledge. We often hear that knowledge is power. But this statement is only a half-truth. Knowledge is only potential power. Knowledge is power only when we put to use - and then only when the use made of it is constructive.
The story is told that the great scientist Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile. Einstein's reply was, " I don't know. Why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?"
It is more important to use our mind to think than to use it as a warehouse for facts. The ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage of facts. When questioned Henry Ford responded, I don't know the answer to the question but can find a man in five minutes who can do that. The idea is to use the best available resources rather than making yourself a factman. What we want around are people who can solve problems, who can think up ideas. People who can dream and then develop the dream into a practical application; an idea man can make money, a fact man can't.
Never underestimate our own intelligence and never overestimate the intelligence of others. It's not how many brains we've got that matters, rather it's how we use your brains that counts. Reminding several times daily: "My attitudes are more important than my intelligence." using our brain to find ways to win. Remembering that ability to think is of much greater value than the ability to memorize facts. Using our mind to create and develop ideas to find new and better ways to do things. Asking, "Am I using my mental ability to make history or am I using it merely to record history made by others."

3."It's No Use I'm too old (or too young)." - Age excusitis, the failure disease of never being the right age comes in two easily identifiable forms: the " I'm too old" variety and the "I'm too young" brand. How old we are is not important, it's one's attitude toward age that makes it a blessing or a barricade. For too young, don't be age conscious, don't take advantage of new gold bars, get used to having older persons working for us. What matters really is how well we know our job. Age has no real relation to ability, unless we convince yourself that years alone will give us the stuff we need to make your mark. The cure for age excusitis is to look at our present age positively. Think "I'm still young," not "I'm already old." Compute how much productive time we have left. Life is actually longer than most people think. Invest future time in doing what we really want to do. Start thinking, " I'm going to start now, my best years are ahead of me." That's the way successful people think.

4. "But my case is different: I attract bad luck." - Luck excusitis - If luck determined who does what and who goes where, every business in the nation would fall apart. People who rise to the top in any occupation- business, management, selling, law, engineering, acting or what have you- get there because they have superior attitudes and use their good sense in applied hard work. Accept the law of cause of effect. Take a second look at what appears to be someone's " good luck." we'll find not luck but preparation, planning and success-producing thinking preceded his good fortune. Take a second look at what appears to be someone's " bad luck." we'll discover certain specific reasons. Mr. Success receives a set back; he learns and profits. But when Mr. Mediocre loses, he fails to learn. Don't be a wishful thinker. We don't become successful simply through luck. Don't count on luck for promotions, victories, the good things in life. Luck simply isn't designed to deliver these good things.

Build Confidence and Destroy Fear
Other than excuses, fear is another very real hindrance to success. It keeps you from capitalizing on opportunity; it wears you down physically, it also closes your mouth when you want to speak. Fear can even cause you to become sick. Fear — manifested in uncertainty and lack of confidence — explains why millions of people accomplish little and enjoy little. In one way or another fear keeps people from getting what they want in life.

So is there an antidote for fear? Absolutely. The cure is found in action. If indecision and postponement further breed fear, then taking action will kill it off. To conquer fear: Isolate fear. This is where we determine exactly what it is that we are afraid of. Take action. Every type of fear has some type of action which will counter-act it. When deciding what course of action to take, do not hesitate. Hesitation only magnifies the fear. Be decisive and act immediately.

self-conciousness can be a reason for fear at times. It is important for us to put people in proper perspective to get over self-conciousness.
- Get a balanced view of the other fellow - The other fellow is important as every human being is. We are important too. Think, we are two important people sitting down to discuss something of mutual interest and benefit.
- Develop an understanding attitude to the adult bully. Try to think, the adult bully is having some bigger problems and his behaviour towards us is the otcome of that big problem he is struggling with - making him feel inferior - and he is using us to get over it.
- Doing what's right keeps our confidence satisfied. As the guilt pulls down our confidence.

Being confident is another way of banishing fear. Confidence is not something that people are born with, it is developed; And developing it requires a little effort on our part. Much lack of self-confidence can be traced directly to mis-managed memory. Everyday we make thought deposits in our "mind bank". When we settle down to face a problem, ineffect we say to the memory bank, "what do I already know about the problem?". Based on our prior experience our memory bank provides info. If we have a repository of failures deposited as -ve thoughts rather than "learnings from an experience which didn't give us the results we were looking for but some other results for us to work on further" - failure is what the memory is going to provide us a response to us. This is like, if we put dirt in the car crank case every day, the fine engine will surely be messed up - unable to do what we want it to do. -ve thoughts create worry, frusteration, feelings of inferiority.

Before going to bed, recall the good things we saw people do, recall the little victories and accomplishments, count your blessings, go over the reasons why we are
glad to be alive - these will be the positive deposits. When driving or alone recall pleasent experiences, positive thougts - these will be the positive deposits too.

The best way to build confidence is the “fake it ’till you make it” approach. In other words, to think confidently, act confidently. Schwartz quotes the great psychologist, Dr. George W. Crane who said, “Remember, motions are the precursors of emotions. You can’t control the latter directly but only through your choice of motions or actions…Go through the proper motions each day and you’ll soon begin to feel the corresponding emotions!” This example can best be seen with smiling. It’s hard to feel sad if you try to smile as hard as you can. (Go ahead try it ;)) The same holds true with confidence. It’s hard to be shy and uneasy if you’re body is telling you you’re confident. Aren't these thoughts that Tony Robbins talks about in Changing State - to use physical changes to change our mental state.

Some physiological changes boost confidence
- Be a front seater
- Make eye contact
- Walk 25% faster - Throw shoulders back, lift head
- Speak up
- Smile big

How to Think Big
Schwartz explains how big we think ultimately determines the size of our accomplishments. But how can we enlarge our thinking? How do we think big? Maybe by looking at the traits of some big thinkers, we can figure out just how one can expand their thinking
- Big thinkers are really good at crafting positive, forward-looking, optimistic pictures in their own minds and in the minds of others. The words they choose are reflective of this and help others to envision a positive outcome.
"I'm sorry to report we've failed" to "Here's a new approach that I think will work"
"We face a problem" to "We face a challenge"
"We incurred a big expense" to "We made a big investment"
Using big, positive, cheerful words and phrases to describe how we feel ("Just Wonderful!"), to decribe other people, compliment people, to outline plans etc
- Big thinkers have trained themselves to not only see what is in their current reality but to see what could become their reality. Look at things not as they are, but as they can be. Visualization adds value to everything. A big thinker always visualizes what can be done in future. He isn't stuck with the present. The teacher who only thinks of Jimmy as he is - an ill-mannered, backward, uncouth brat - certainly will not aid Jimmy's development. But the teacher who sees Jimmy not as he is but as he can be, she'll get results. Asking questions like "What can I do to 'add value' to my work, home etc", "What can I do to 'add value' to my subordinates?", "What can I do make myself more valuable?"
- Big thinkers see themselves as part of a team. Success does not come alone but by working with others. They help in every way they can, even when there is no direct and immediate compensation. The fellow who shrugs off a problem outside his own department with a comment "Well, that none of my concern, let them worry it", hasn't got the attitude it takes for top leadership. Seeing the company interest as identical with our own. Probably only a very few people working in large companies have a sincere, unselfish interest in the company. But after all, only a relatively few persons qualify as big thinkers.
- Big thinkers do not get bogged down by trivial details or small failings. They learn to keep moving forward, keeping their eyes on the overall objective.
What causes quarells - Little, petty thinking causes arguments so let us eliminate petty thinking. Before complaning, accusing, reprimanding, counter attack in self defense, ask "Is it really important enough for me to get all worked up about". This question works like magic! Keep focus on the big objective while working with employees, marriage, neighbours
What does it to make a good speech - Knowledge of what we are going to talk abiut and an intense desire to tell it to other people as well as a burning desire for other people to hear it. Not letting your mind go over trivial thoughts about standing position, arm position, grammatical mistake but focus over the important task of delivering the speech. Don't fall in the triviality trap while making speeches, solving problems, think of things that really matter - things that make a difference. Don't become submerged under surface issues. Concentrate on important things.
- Big thinkers don't Short Sell - One of the biggest weakness is to sell ourselves short! We are truly bigger than we think! A assessment of our strengths and weaknesses with those we consider sucessful/failure will help us to know how truly big we are and this will be reflected in everything that we do.

How to Think and Dream Creatively
Creative thinking is nothing other than finding new and improved ways to do something. Success in any endeavor is dependent upon using creative thinking to discover these improved ways; And as with confidence, it can be learned.
Schwartz offers six steps to develop and strengthen our creative thinking ability:
Step 1: Believe it can be done. This is pretty self-explanatory. In order for us to do anything, we first must believe it can be done. Once we have that belief, it sets the mind in motion to find ways to accomplish it and paves the way for creative solutions. Belief releases creative powers. Disbelief puts the brakes on them. Eliminate the word "impossible" from vocabulary to help develop creative power through belief. "Man belongs where man wants to go"
Step 2: Don’t get paralyzed by tradition. Too many of us think that something cannot change because that’s the way it always has been and always will be. Instead, experiment. Be open to new ideas. Try out new ways of doing the same thing. Be progressive in all that we do. "Nothing grows on ice. If we let tradition freeze our minds, new ideas can't sprout" Be an experimental person. Break up fixed routines. Do something new - develop interest in distribution if in manufacturing
Step 3: Ask yourself daily, “How can I do better?” Self-improvement in all areas of life come when we ask ourselves this question and take the time to listen to what our mind presents to us. Absolute perfection in all human undertakings from building missiles to rearing children is unattainable. This means there is always room for improvement. Successful people know this and they are always searching for better way. . The successful person doesn't asks "Can I do it better?" they ask "How can I do it better?". Try to implement a weekly improvement program. All during the week make notes about ideas to improve at work, home. Every monday, set aside hours to review and prioritize ideas to be implemented". Each day in the mornings ask Qs "How can I do a better job today?", "What can I do to encourage my employees?", "How can I increase my personal efficiency?", "What can I do to improve my relationships at work, home?".
Step 4: Ask yourself, “How can I do more?” Asking this type of question forces the mind to figure out ways to find intelligent short-cuts. Capacity is a state of mind. How much we can do depends on how much we think we can do. When we really think we can do more, our mind thinks creatively and shows us the way.
Step 5: Practice asking and listening. Take advantage of leveraging others’ knowledge. Encorage others to talk. Test your own views. Listen to other's views. Successful people make profit by exposing ideas to other intelligent people.
Step 6: Associate and surround yourself with people who can help you to think of new ideas and new ways of doing things. Be part of professional group that provides stimulation in your own occupational area. Joining a group outside occupational interests helps to broaden thinking. A oak tree produces enough acorns to populate a good sized forest; yet only one or two acorns become trees the rest don't survive the hard ground, squirrels. The same is true with ideas if we are not on gaurd, the -ve thinking people(squirrels) will destroy them. Ideas require special handling from the time they are born till implemented.

You Are What You Think You Are
If you look around you, you might observe that some people command confidence, loyalty and admiration while others do not. If you look closer, the most respect are also the most successful. Why is that? Well, according to Schwartz, it can be distilled into one word: thinking. Thinking makes it so. Others see in us what we see in ourselves and we receive what we think we deserve.

If you think you are less than someone else, you are. For thinking dictates action. If you feel inferior, you’ll act that way and no amount of bluffing will be able to hide it for long. If you feel you’re not important, you’re not. It’s as simple as that.

On the other hand, when you think you are important, when you really think so; then others will think so too. It really comes down to this: “How you think determines how you act. How you act in turn determines: How others react to you.”

To gain respect of others, we must first think we deserve respect. And the more respect we have for ourselves, the more respect others will have for us.

Look important - it helps you think important . Our appearence talks and ensure it says positive things about you. Never leave home without feeling certain you look like the kind of person you want to be. Use clothing to lift your spirits build confidence. A psychology professor gave advice to students on last minute preps for final examination. "Dress up for the exam. Have your dress pressed. Shine your shoes. Look sharp becuase it will help you think sharp." Our physical exterior affects our mental interior. How you look on the outside affects how you think anf feel on the inside. An executive feels more like an executive if he is dressed like one. Our appearence talks to us and also to others. It helps determine what others think of us. In theory, it's pleasent to hear that people should look at man's intellect, not his clothes. People do evaluate on the basis of appearence. Our appearence is the first basis for evaluation other people have. And first impressions last, out of all proportion to the time it takes to form them. We look at some people and respond with "Hey Mac" and respond with "Yes Sir" attitude.

Think your job is important Job thinking tells a lot about a person and his potential for larger responsibility. How impotant a applicant thinks his present job is - even though there would be something that he doesn't likes - becomes an important considereation while recruitment as the applicant will take the pride to the next job too. Like appearence, the way we think about our work says things about us to superioirs, associates, sub-ordinates - infact everyone with whom you come in contact. Think, I am important. I do have what it takes. I am a first class performer. My work is important. Think about ways to make business better and progress faster - expect to be given a chance to present and implement ideas. A person who thinks his job is important, receives mental signals on how to do his job better. And a better job means more promotions, money, prestige and happiness. The way we think about our job determines how our subordiantes think towards their jobs. Think enthusiastically and show positive attitude, your sub-ordinates will pick-up the right thinking. Ask "Am I worthy in every respect of being imitated?" "Are all my habbits that I would like to see in my subordinates?".

Practice uplifting self-praise rather than belittling self-punishment. Build your own "sell yourself on yourself" commercial.
www.professorprosperity.com/2008/07/how_to_write_personal_aspiration_statments/
Tom Staley, meet Tom Staley - an important, a really important person.
Tom, you’re a big thinker, so thing big.
Think big about Everything.
You’ve got plenty of ability to do a first-class job, so do a first-class job.
Tom you believe in Happiness, Progress, and Prosperity.
So: talk only Happiness, talk only progress, talk only prosperity.
You have lots of drive, Tom, lots of drive.
So put that drive to work. Nothing can stop you, Tom, nothing.
Tom, you’re enthusiastic. Let you enthusiasm show through.
You look good, Tom, and you feel good. Stay that way.
Tom Staley, you were a great fellow yesterday, and you’re going to be an even greater fellow today. Now go to it, Tom. Go forward.”
Practice commercial loud in private at least once a day. It helps a lot to do this before a mirror. Repeat commercial forcefully with determination. Make blood travel faster through body. Get warmed up. Read it before tackling anything that demands courage. Read it every time you fell let-down.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=249133056&blogID=325390178
In all of life's situations ask yourelf, "Is this the way an important person thinks?" Then obey the answer.
1) Situation - When I worry
Ask Yourself - Would an important person worry about this? Would the most successful person I know be disturbed by this?
2) Situation - An idea
Ask Yourself - What would an important person do if he had this idea?
3) Situation - My appearance
Ask Yourself - Do I look like someone who has maximum self-respect?
4) Situation - My Language
Ask Yourself - Am I using the language of successful people?
5) Situation - What I read
Ask Yourself - Would an important person read this?
6) Situation - Conversation
Ask Yourself - Is this something succesful people would discuss?
7) Situation - When I lose my temper
Ask Yourself - Would an important person get mad at what I'm mad at?
8) Situation - My jokes
Ask Yourself - Is this the kind of joke an important person would tell?
9) Situation - My job or business
Ask Yourself - How does an important person descrive his job to others?

Manage Your Environment: Go First Class
Just as what we eat is reflected in the state of our bodies, what food we choose to feed our minds has just as powerful an effect on our thoughts, habits, attitudes, and personality. The food for our minds that Schwartz is referring to here is our environment.

It’s hard to deny it. Our environment shapes us, and makes us think the way we do. For example, prolonged exposure and association to negative people makes us in turn think negatively. Associating ourselves with people who think big will raise our level of thinking. Our success is largely dependent upon what and who we choose to surround ourselves with.

So when choosing friends, select those who are interested in positive things; friends who really want to see you succeed and willingly encourage you in your plans and ideals. Find those who have common goals and desires, having a support system makes all the difference when your own motivation is in the slumps. Find friends who breathe encourgaement into plans and ideals. If we select petty thinkers as your close friends, we 'll gradually develop into petty thinkers ourselves.

Make Your Attitudes Your Allies
Communication is a lot more than just the words we choose to speak. Someone may say one thing but you know that they mean something entirely different. This is what Schwartz means by ‘attitude.’ To understand someone’s attitude, we don’t listen for the words but instead discover it through expressions, voice tones and inflections. When our attitude is right, our abilities reach a maximum of effectiveness and good results inevitably follow. Need to make the following three attitudes allies in everything we do:
The attitude of I’m activated - To be activated is another way of saying you are enthusiastic about what you’re doing. To get enthusiastic about anything - people, places, things - dig into it deeper. If you ever hope to get someone else excited about something you must first be excited about it yourself. Results come in proportion to enthusiasm applied.
The attitude of You are important - Every person in the world has the desire to feel important. The desire to be important is man's strongest, most compelling non-biological hunger. Headlines that produce sales read like "Persons with distinctive tastes", "You want only the best", "Be the envy of everyone". If we can consciously and genuinely make others feel important, the world is our oyster. Customers will buy more, employees will work harder, others will cooperate more, and boss will do more to help you. Treating someone as second-class will never get us first-class results. Share praise. Don't hog it as when you share praise sub-ordiantes will know we sincerely appreciate their value. Never let anyone feel he is taken for granted. Appreciate everyone's contribution and how much it is important.
The attitude of Service first - We all understand that money is necessary for our survival. Without money we can’t buy the food, clothing, shelter and other things we need. We can’t fully help the poor or enrich our families lives. Money, then, is a desirable objective. However, putting “money-first” in our minds does not increase money. The seed of money is in fact, service. If you have an attitude of putting service first — always giving people more than they expect to get — you’ll create wealth. Put service first and money will take care of itself.

Think Right Toward People
Success depends on the support of other people. The only hurdle between what we want to be is the support of other. Salesmen depend on people to buy their product, writers depend on people to read what they are writing, and politicians depend on people to vote for them. If success is dependent upon other people’s support, how do we get others to support us then?
The answer can be summed up on one phrase, think right toward people. Schwartz relates former President Lyndon Johnson’s ten-point formula from to help you do this:
- Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing.
- Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you. Be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual.
- Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-going so that things do not ruffle you.
Don’t be egotistical. Guard against the impression that you know it all.
- Cultivate the quality of being interesting so people will get something of value from their association with you.
- Study to get the “scratchy” elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.
- Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, ever misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.
- Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely.
- Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.
- Give spiritual strength to people, and they will give genuine affection to you.

We need to improve the "likeability" factor as it is more important than "technical" factor. Being likeable makes it easier to succeed. Sucess is guaranteed if have mastered the technique of thinking only good thoughts about people. Adhere to the suggestions
- Recognize the fact that no person is perfect. Some people are more nearly perfect than others, but no man is absolutely perfect. The most human quality about human beings is that they make mistakes, all kinds of them.
- Recognize the fact that the other fellow has a right to be different. Never play god about anything. Never diskike people because of their habbits are different from your own or because they prefer different clothes, religion, parties etc We don't have to approve of what another fellow does but we must not dislike him for doing it.
- Don't be a reformer. Put a little more "live-and-let-live" into philosohphy. Most people intensely dislike being told "you're wrong". We have right to our opinion but sometimes it is better to keep it to ourselves.
- Recognize how dull it would be if all people were alike and everybody was perfect
- Recognize no person is all good and no person is all bad. The perfect person doesn't exist
- Recognnize that if we let our thinking go uncontrolled, we can find much to dislike in almost anyone. By the same, token, if we manage our thinking properly, if we think right toward people, we can find many qualities to like and admire in the same person
- Recognize that the person who does the most talking and the person who is the most successful is rarely the same person. Encourage others to talk. Listen and Learn
- Recognize that courtsey practiced in every relationship is the finest tranquilizer that can be used. No commercial preparation is 1/10 as effective in relaxing as the little things done for other people. Thinking right towards people removes frusterations and stress.
- Recognize the real test for thinking right towards people comes when things don't go exactly the way we want. How we feel when we are passed up for promotion? Or When criticized for job done. Dont blame others for setback. How we think when we lose will determine how long it will be until until we win!

Get the Action Habit
There is plenty of room at the top. There are many almost qualified people, but there is one success ingredient often missing. The abiity to get things done to get results. Prinicipal Executives looking for a key person demand answers to questions like "Will he do the job?", "Will he follow through?", "Is he a self-starter?", "Can he get results or is he just a talker?"

Ideas and thinking about something is not enough. Everything that we have in this world, from ships to skyscrapers to baby food, is just an idea acted upon.

If you take a comparative study of successful and average people, you’ll find that they fall into two classes. The successful are ones who are active. The average, the mediocre, the unsuccessful are passive. The active person does. The passive person is going to do but doesn’t

The test of a successful person is not an ability to eliminate all problems before they arise, but to meet and work out difficulties when they do arise. We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking actions. We can’t wait for everything to be 100 percent favorable before we take action. Most things that really mean anything require some leap of faith. Sure, perfection is highly desirable but hoping for the perfect set of conditions is to hope forever.

Make up your mind to do something with your ideas other than simply dreaming more about them. Ideas are important. We need to have ideas to create or improve anything. But ideas in and of themselves are not enough. Ideas only have value when acted upon.

People that get things done don't wait for the spirit to move them. Rather than thinking about the unpleasent features of the task, jump right in and get going without lot of deliberation so that you can return to tasks that you love to do

Now is the magic word of success, Tomorrow, next week, later, sometime, someday often are synonyms for the failure word, never.

Initiative is the special kind of action. Its doing something wort-while without being told to do it. The person with initiative has a standing invitation to join the high-income brackets in every business and profession. To develop the initiative habit
- Be a crusader. If there is something that we believe ought to be done, pick up the ball and run.
- Be a volunteer. Sometimes we don't vounteer due to be the fear of being laughed at, of being called an eager beaver, of being accused of bucking for a raise. It's natural to want to belong, to be accepted, to have group approval. But asking "Which group do I want to be accepted by the jealous group or progressive group" will help us with the choice. Volunteer for special assignments.

How to Turn Defeat Into Victory
It is not possible to win high level success without meeting opposition, hardship, setback. It is possible to use setback to propel us forward. Defeat is only a state of mind - nothing more.

Civil Aeronautics Administration studies setbacks to pave the way to safer air travel. Doctors use setbacks to pave the way to better health and longer life by using information provided in post mortem. Everyone follows the success principle : Salvage something from every setback

The difference between success and failure is found in your attitude towards setbacks, handicaps, and other disappointing situations. Here are five ways to turn defeat into victory:
- Learn from prior mistakes. When you have a setback, learn why it didn’t work, readjust, and then go on to win next time.
- Don’t just beat yourself up. Learn to be your own constructive critic. Look for your faults and weaknesses not with the intention of putting yourself down but to correct them. This is what being a “professional” is all about. Blaming others is destructive. We gain absolutely nothing from "proving" that someone else is wrong
- Stop blaming luck. This is a cop-out. Instead, research why something went wrong. Blaming luck will never get you where you want to go, it’s only another form of ‘excusitis.’
- Mix up persistence with experimentation. Try to stick to your goal but at the same time, if the route you’re taking isn’t getting you anywhere, try a new approach. Experiment. There’s no sense in banging your head against a wall.
- Remember that there is always something good about every situation. Look for it. This will keep discouragement at bay and help you to learn from all experiences.

Use Goals to Help You Grow
Goals are as essential to success as air to life. The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to go.

A goal is more than a wish or dream. It is a dream acted upon. Without goals, people just wander through life without direction or purpose. Goals are essential to success as air is to life.

Not only do goals give you a sense of purpose and direction, they also give you energy. Energy increases and multiplies when you set a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal. By surrendering yourself to your desires, and letting yourself become obsessed with a goal, you receive the physical power, energy, and enthusiasm needed to accomplish it.

Like the progressive corporation, plan ahead. We are in a sense a business unit. Out talent, skills, abilities are our products. We want to develop our products so they command the highest possible price.

Schwartz uses the common approach to goals. That is plan where you want to be 10 years from now but work on that plan month by month. Define a plan for how you want life to be 10yrs from now in work, home and social areas. The three department of life are closely related. Each depends on other to some extend. But the one department which has most influence over other department is work.
1) Work
· What income do you desire in ten years?
· What level of responsibility do you look for?
· What prestige does seek from your work or business?
2) Home
· What level of standard do you aspire to?
· What kind of residence do you want to provide for yourself and your family?
· What kind and where will be your next vacation?
· What level of income will you give away to charity?
3) Social
· What kind of friends do you desire to have?
· What social groups do want to join with?
· What community position do you look to hold?
· What worthwhile cause do you want to be champion of?

30 Day Implementation Guide
What not to do?
1) Putting things off till tomorrow
2) Negative language
3) Watching television for more then 60 minutes per day.
4) Gossip
Obtain those habits.
1) Examine your appearance each and every morning.
2) Plan your day's work a day before.
3) Complement people on every opportunity.
Increase value in your work place
1) Do a better jog for your employer
2) Learn more about the company you work for.
3) Make number of suggestions to assist your companies' production.
Increase your value at home
1) Show appreciation to you wife and the family each time they do something for you.
2) Do something special one a month for your family.
3) Set time aside each day to give you loved one each day.
Sharpen your mind
1) Invest two hours per week reading professional magazines or a book in your field.
2) Read one self help book.
3) Make four new friends.
4) Spend 30 minutes daily in quite undisturbed thinking

Invest in education. Real education, the kind of worth investing in, is that which develops and cultivates your mind. How well-educated a person is measuered by how well his mind is developed-in brief how well he thinks.

The most important qualification for an executive is the sheer decide to go ahead. John Wanamaker said "A man is not doing much until the cause he works for possesses all there is of him". Desire when harnessed is power. Failure to follow desite, to do what you want to do most, paves the way for mediocrity.

Surrender to goals. Let them posses us and give us the automatic instrumentation we need to reach the goal.

Use goals to live longer. No medicine in the world is a powerfule in bringing about life as is the desire to do something.

Evaluate everything you do with the question, "Will this help take me where I want to go?"

How to Think Like A Leader
Remember that achieving high-level success requires the cooperation and support of others. And gaining support from others requires the ability to lead. To help you in this ability, Schwartz offers four leadership rules or principles that can cause others to do things for us in the executive suite, in business, in social clubs, in the home, or anywhere else we may find people:
- Trade minds with the people you want to influence. Here’s the key: To get others to do what you want them to do you must learn to see through their eyes. Truly “walking in their shoes” will unlock the secret of how to influence others.
- Think: What is the human way to handle this? People have all different approaches to leading others. One way is to assume the role of dictator, making all decisions without consulting those affected and not listening to subordinates. Dictators don’t last long. Sooner or later unrest begins to happen and their subordinates begin to leave. Another technique of leadership is the cold, mechanical, “I’m-a-rule-book operator” approach. This type of leader does everything exactly according to the book. He fails to understand the spirit of the law and ends up treating his subordinates as machines. This cold, impersonal efficiency alienates his subordinates and fails to ever inspire them. The leader who manages to have tremendous success and results with his followers is the leader who makes them feel human. This type of leader genuinely thinks that everyone under his stewardship is both important and needed in the organization. This builds respect and trust and forms the foundation whereupon they can be inspired and motivated.
- Think progress, believe in progress, push for progress. To develop a progressive mindset, follow these two maxims: Think improvement in everything you do and think high standards in everything you do. Those who are constantly looking to expand, make things more efficient, develop new products and processes, and increase prosperity will naturally develop a following. People tend to follow after those who think, believe and push for progress.
- Take time out to confer with yourself. Like machines, we require a period of maintenance and a “tuning-up.” Check the lives of the great religious leaders like moses, jesus, buddha, mohammed spent time in solitude - away from distractions of life. Many people fail to tap their creative leadership power because they confer with everybody and everything except themselves. This is best accomplished when you take time out in managed solitude. In other words, find a moment every week where you can — in solitude — spend some time just thinking. This is a tool that all great users use. Use this time to confer with yourself, to discover solutions to personal and business problems, and generally tap into a higher consciousness that only solitude and moments of quiet can bring.

Conventional Wisdom v/s Peter Drucker - Azara Feroz Sayed

Came across the brilliant article posted below at http://sanjivspace.blogspot.com/2007/07/peter-drucker-management-beliefs-vs.html

Refer earlier related posts 'What makes an effective executive' and 'Rising to the top'

Conventional wisdom (CW) : Executives need to develop the ability to make many decisions rapidly and accurately.
Peter Drucker (PD): The effective decision-maker actually makes very few decisions. This is because he recognises that most problems he faces are generic. They are not unique, one-off events. He, therefore, establishes a rule, a principle or a policy to handle all such situations. He always assumes that the event that clamours for his attention is in reality a symptom. He looks for the true problem. He is not content with just doctoring the symptom. He then makes a decision on principle at the highest possible conceptual level. This does not, as a rule, take longer than a decision on symptoms or expediency. Because the manager solves generic situations through a rule and policy, he can handle most events as cases under the rule; that is, by adaptation. This is why he does not need to make many decisions.

For instance, when Alfred Sloan, Jr, took over General Motors in 1922, he was faced with a company struggling for survival with about half a dozen divisions each headed by capable but almost independent chieftains, all pulling in different directions.
Everyone before Sloan had seen the problem as one of personalities, to be solved through a struggle for power, from which one man would emerge victorious. Sloan saw it as a constitutional problem to be solved through a new structure, that is, decentralisation, which balances local autonomy in operations with central control of direction and policy. Sloan thus identified the generic problem, which was one of organisational structure, and solved it at the highest conceptual level through decentralisation.

CW: It is important for an executive to plan his work.
PD: As Drucker put it, the above advice sounds eminently plausible. The only trouble with it is that it rarely works. The plans always remain on paper, as good intentions. Effective executives, as Drucker observed, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning their time. They start by finding out where their time already goes (by recording how it is actually spent by keeping a time log). Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally, they consolidate their "discretionary" time into the largest possible continuing units. This three-step process -- of recording time, managing time and consolidating time -- is the foundation of executive effectiveness.

CW: When making staffing decisions, a manager must be alert to the weaknesses of a prospective candidate.
PD: The effective executive fills positions and promotes on the basis of what a man can do. He does not make staffing decisions to minimise weaknesses but to maximise strengths. This is because to try to build against weakness frustrates the purpose of organisation. Organisation is a specific instrument to make human strengths redound to performance while human weakness is neutralised and largely rendered harmless.

Drucker quoted the following example to illustrate his point. Abraham Lincoln, when told that General Ulysses S Grant, his new commander-in-chief, was fond of the bottle, said: "If I knew his brand, I'd send a barrel or so to some other generals." After a childhood on the Kentucky and Illinois frontier, Lincoln assuredly knew all about the bottle and its dangers. But of all the Union generals, Grant alone had proven consistently capable of planning and leading winning campaigns. Grant's appointment was the turning point of the Civil War. It was effective because Lincoln chose his general for his tested ability to win battles, and not for his sobriety, that is, for the absence of a weakness.

CW: Executives need to be good problem-solvers.
PD: While problem-solving is an important task, one must always keep in mind that an organisation obtains results by exploiting opportunities, and not by solving problems. All one can hope to get by solving a problem is to restore normality. At best, it can help eliminate a restriction on the capacity of the business to obtain results. The results themselves must come from the exploitation of opportunities.

CW: Entrepreneurs are a breed apart from other people with a different psychology and character traits.
PD: Entrepreneurship is not about character traits. It is not something mysterious -- whether a gift, talent, inspiration, or "flash of genius". Entrepreneurship is a purposeful task that can be organised. It is a question of behaviour, policies and practices rather than personality. It is a discipline that can be learned. What's more, entrepreneurship is part of every executive's job and needs to be mastered by any manager who wishes to be effective.

Blink - Azara Feroz Sayed

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3110851.cms

The article in timesofindia on intuition refers to the book "blink" (metaphor "a blink of the eye" for intuition) by Malcom Galdwell prompting me to read the book which was also suggested in one of our training sessions.

'blink' is about how experts make better decisions by making "snap judgements" (rather than studying "volumes of analysis") especially when confronted with complex situations or need for decisions under stress.

As per 'blink', it is alright to judge a book by its cover so long as we do so in an intelligent, informed, controlled manner. Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.

The power of knowing in the first two seconds (thin slicing),is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves.

Our unconscious reactions often have to compete with our emotions, our likes, dislikes, prejudices and stereotypes and these emotions can easily corrupt (prime) the ability of our unconscious.

Also there are instances when our intuition betrays us. This failure on part of our unconscious has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but on the few particular details on which we need to focus and manage (mind reading is an example).

As I was reading the book, I was wondering how the results of the numerous studies relating to "thin slicing", "priming", "mind reading" could be be applied to other aspects of our life e.g. customer service, recruitment, relationships apart from using them to manage our unconscious reactions

I have used the review from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/497 and have added ideas from the book that sounded interesting to me

In the introduction to Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he tells the story of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s purchase of an ancient kouros dating from the sixth century BC. The museum had scientists perform test after test on the kouros to make sure it was authentic. It was concluded that the statue was most definitely the real thing, being thousands of years old. When art historians, however, took one look at the statue they knew that something was amiss and, sure enough, after a few more tests it was determined that the statue was artificially aged. Gladwell’s book is all about that one look the experts took of the korous to know that it was a fake. Blink is all about the snap judgments we make everyday and how we can use those judgments to make better decisions. This incident also brings an important aspect relating to intuition - the experts from Getty Museum's wanted to own the kourus and hence were blinded to their intution - we sometime ignore our intuition and try to see what we want to see.

Our brain uses two very different strategies to make sense of any situation. The first is the one we are most familiar with. It's the conscious strategy. We think about what we have learned, and eventually we come up with an answer. This strategy is logical and definitive. This takes a long time (study of Iowa gamblers - takes 80 cards for decision). It is slow and needs lots of information. The second strategy operates quicker(study of Iowa gamblers - decision kicks in 10 cards). It operates below the surface of consciousness (a.k.a. adaptive unconscious - not to be confused with the dark unconscious decribed by freud) and provides messages thru indirect channels such as sweat glands in palms of our hands, feeling sommething is amiss, the hunch etc.

Adaptive unconscious is thought of, as a giant computer that quickly and quietky processes a lot of data that we need in order to keep functioning as human beings. The giant computer crunches all the data it can from the experiences we have had, the people we have met, the lessons we have learnt, the people we have met, the books we have read, the movies we have seen and so on and form a opinion When we walk out into the street and suddenly realize that a truck is bearing down on us - do we have time to think through all options - the unconscious makes very quick judgements based on very little information.

Just as a modern jetliner is able to fly on auto-pilot with little or no input from the human, comscious pilot - the adaptive unconscious does an excellent job of sizing up the world, warning people of danger, setting goals and initiating actions in a sophisticated and efficient manner.

Neurologist Antonio Damasio determinded that critical part of the brain, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which lies behind the nose, plays a critical role in decision making. It works out contigencies and relatioships and sorts through mountains of information we get from the outside world, priortitizing it and putting flags on things that demand immediate attention. Damage is ventromedial disconnects between waht you know and what you do like Addicts who can articulate very well the consequences of their behaviour but fail to act accordingly. People with damaged vetromedial were not able to sense the pricking of sweat in their hands or feel something is amiss - the push to make sure they did the right thing is missing in them.

We toggle back and forth between our conscious and unconscious modes of thinking, depending on the situation. When we decision to invite a co-worker over for dinner is a conscious. We think it over. We decide it will be fun. The spontaneous decision to argue with the same co-worker is made unconsciously.

We are innately suspicious of adaptive unconscious, of rapid congnition as we live in a world that assumes that the quality of the a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. When doctors are faced with a difficult diagnosis, they order more tests and when we are uncertain about what we hear, we ask for second opinion. We are conditioned with 'Haste makes waste', 'Look before you leap', 'Stop and think'. There are moments, particularly in times of stress, when our 'snap judgements' and 'first impressions' can offer a much better means of making sense of the world.

One of the amazing studies comes from a psychologist, John Gottman, at the University of Washington. Gottman brings young couples, who have recently married, to his lab and videotapes them for fifteen minutes. He leaves them alone and has them discuss anything that is a point of conflict within their marriage. Besides the camera, he also hooks the couples up to electrodes, which measure heart rate and how much they sweat, and also attaches a device to their chairs that measures how much they move around. Gottman then goes back and analyses the data and videotapes and is able to determine whether the couple will have a successful marriage. Gottman is a master of facial expressions. He has a numbering system that corresponds to every emotion a couple could possibly express in a conversation. Generally, if the negative emotions in the conversation outweigh the positive or neutral emotions the
success of the marriage does not look good. Although these results may look skeptical at first, Gottman has studied over three thousand couple and by looking at his fifteen minute videos has had a ninety percent success rate for determining whether a couple will still be together in seven years - all based on measiring the positive and negative emotions in 15 minutes of conversation.

Although Gottman’s work is conscious and deliberate, Gladwell notes that much of what he does is part of rapid cognition or what he refers to as “thin-slicing.” Gottman finds patterns(positive and negative emotions) in behavior based on very “thin slices” (15 minutes) of couple's experience rather than analysing individual life and life together over a week or longer. Galdwell ignores all the greater details or irrelevant information and simply focuses on the positive and negative emotions in the 15 minutes of conversation. Our unconscious is really good at this (ignoring irrelevant information and focusing on the thing that matters most) and it is a large part of the snap judgment calls we make everyday.

The study for calculating risk by determining which of the physicians covered by the company are more likely to be sued is one more very good example of "thin-slicing". Rather than examining physicians training and credentials and analyzing the records to see how many errors they have made over the past few years. It was found that the easier option was to simply listen to the tone of the voice used by the doctor while talking to the patient for two seconds - to determine the likely hood of the patient sueing the doctor. This 'thin slice" was selected based on the fact that if the doctor treats patients on a personal level - they will never blame the doctor even if the doctor is wrong - rest all of the other information is irrelvant. Isn't that brilliant - wouldn't it be wonderful if we learnt to 'thin slice' and apply it to other aspects of our life to run it more efficiently, apart from knowing that this is what our unconcious uses while making "snap judgements" - by always questioning is this the "thinnest" slice for such a decision that we can use routinely henceforth.

Another example of "thin slicing" is a study done by Nalini Amabdy where the teacher's effectiveness ratings provided by students based on 2 second videotapes of a teacher - with the sound turned off - matched with those provided by students who sat in the teacher's class for an entire semester. The example illustrates the importance of "thin slicing" in decision making i.e. focusing on the relevant information (2 secs video tape) needed to arrive at the decision and ignoring everything else (feedback over one semester).

Feroz uses "thin slicing" all the time with movies, books - he watches a movie for 10 minutes or reads 5 pages of a book and decides if it is worth his time. An example of the ability to extract an enormous amount of meaningful information from the thinnest slice of experience.

The chapter on Kenna's Dilema mentions about 'The Gambler' song by Kenny Roger. Me and Feroz are Kenny Roger fans but Feroz will never get tired of hearing his songs and the CD keeps playing for hours once it goes in.

Since the "snap judgements" are unconscious processes, it can be frustrating that we can not even describe why we feel or act a certain way when prompted by a stimulus. Gladwell believes that it is often detrimental to our judgments if we try to describe what is happening within our unconscious.

Galdwell gives the example of tennis coach Vic Braden. While working with professional athletes, Braden began asking players how and why they play the way they do. In his research, Braden discovered that none of the athletes he talked with were able to give him a consistent answer to his question. Braden then began videotaping star tennis players and digitizing their movements so that he could see, frame for frame, ever move they made, while, say, hitting a forehand. When asking players how they hit a forehand, Braden found that most said something about using their wrist to roll the racket over the ball. The videos, however, show that the wrist almost never moves until long after the ball has been hit. These players were making up stories to explain something that occurred within their unconscious. The results of these stories were coaches teaching faulty advice and beginners walking away with wrist damage.

Gladwell remarks that one of the things humans need to come to terms with is accepting our ignorance in many situations and learning to say “I don’t know.” Many of the outputs of our nervous system result from unconscious inputs, therefore making it often useless to try and explain ourselves.

Adaptive unconscious also involves a process called “priming”. Gladwell mentions the study of two Dutch researchers who had several groups of students each answer forty-two Trivial Pursuit questions. Half were asked to take five minutes to think about
what it would mean to be a professor and write it down, while the other half were asked to do the same with soccer hooligan in place of professor. The students who thought about professors ended up getting 55.6 percent of the questions correct, while the soccer group got 42.6 percent correct. The professor group wasn’t any smarter than the soccer group, but they were put in a “smart” mind frame before answering the questions.

The several studies provided on "priming" are interesting. Priming is the dark side of rapid cognition, a process that goes on within the adaptive unconscious that can change the way we think. Most of the time we are simply operating on auto pilot, and the way we think and act - and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment - are more susceptible to outside influences than we realize. If you were provided lot of info relating to old age - your walking style will be slighlty affected immediately as you get out of the session i.e. you are "primed" with the information - your conscious tells your body - I have picked some clues that we are in an environment that is concerned about old age and lets behave accordingly. There are times when we reach snap jusdgement without ever getting below the surface. The priming (powerful associations with certain words) that causes us to change our behaviour can also be related to people's appearence - their shape, color, sex, size. Warren Harding is considered to be one of the worst presidents of US. Many people who looked at Warren Harding saw how extraordinarily handsome and distinguished-looking he was and jumped to the immediate - and entirely unwarranted - conclusion that he was a man of courage and intelligence and integrity. They didn't dig below the surface. The way he looked carried so many powerful connotations that it stopped the normal process of thinking dead in its tracks. Priming is the root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. Knowing the circumstances when rapid cognition can lead us astray is important

When we make a split-second decision, we are really vulnerable to being guided by our stereo types and prejudices, even ones we may not necessarily endorse or believe

The studies on priming are done using Implicit Association Test Tool (IAT - url www.implicit.harvard.edu) based on the fact that we make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of ideas that are unrelated to us. The IAT shows that our unconcious attitudes maybe utterly incompatible with our stated conscious values. The IAT is also a predictor of how we act in certain kinds of spontaneous situations. To fix the effect of priming, the something that happens outside of our awareness - we need to consciously change the experiences that formed our first impressions - i.e. treating black people as equals in every way by exposing oursleves to their culture, becoming comfortable with them - taking active steps to manage and control the first impressions

Several of the examples in the study for "priming" relate to the attributes that are associated with blacks (part of Race IAT) and how that "primes" our judgements. Once again, made me thank God for not having to struggle as hard as some of our other fellow beings have to - to achieve anything based on the social "priming". We saw in the post on 'Taming the Gremlin' - how we can shut off the "priming" effect of the unconscious. The scary revealations provided by the IATs can certainly be used in many areas. To ensure the right person is recruited and not necessarily a 'tall leader' as we automatically associate leadership with imposing physical structure. To ensure excellent customer service is provided without judging anyone on the basis of their appearance.

One of the most memorable stories Gladwell tells relates back to the lesson of the korous and trusting gut reactions over vast amounts of empirical evidence. This story involves a man named Paul Van Riper and the Millennium Challenge War Games of 2002. Van Riper, an experienced Marine Corps commander, was appointed head of the Red Team; the enemy team in which Van Riper was a rogue military commander who had broken away from his government located in the Persian Gulf. He was to have a strong following of religious and ethnic loyalties and was harboring four different terrorist organizations (sound familiar?). The Blue Team (the United States) was given millions of dollars worth of high-tech gizmos and hundreds of military analysts, as well as significantly more troops. The Blue Team was given the equipment to know exactly where the Red Team was at all times, and supposedly all the information to know what the Red Team would do before they actually did it. The events of the games, however, did not go exactly as the Blue Team had expected. On the second day of the “war,” Van Riper used motor bikes to exchange messages rather than using satellite etc that the Blue team was expecting them to use. He sent a fleet of small boats into the Gulf to track the ships of the Blue Team. He than attacked them in an assault of missiles, sinking sixteen American ships before the Blue Team had a chance to strike. Being an experienced military man, Van Riper knew what all the analysts and technology whizzes working for the Blue Team could never understand: when making decisions under immense pressure, experts won’t logically and systematically compare all available information. That takes far too long. Experts know to thin-slice the situation based on experience, wisdom, intuition, a rough mental simulation, and react to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, this method did not sit well with the United States Military. Those in charge of the War Games “un-sunk” the lost ship and gave Van Riper a script to act from, in which the Blue Team, of course, won. After hearing this story, is it any surprise that shortly after when the U.S. declared war on Iraq, ensuring a straight-forward and quick victory, that troops are still being sent over and loosing their lives? Van Riper’s story provides a frightening example of what can happen when people in high places venomously ignore their snap judgments.

blink is about making sophisticated decisions at the spur of the moment. Basket ball is an intricate, high speed game filled with split-second spontaneous decisions. But the spontaneity is acheived by hours of practice as sponteneity isn't random. How good people's decisions are under high stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training, rules and rehearsal. We need to create conditions for sucessful spontaneity in advance.

A truly sucessful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. Deliberate thinking is wonderful tool when we have the luxury of time, clearly defined tasks. The fruit of this type of analysis can set the stage for rapid cognition. In good decision making, frugality matters i.e. reducing a complex problem to simplest elements. When we thin-slice, we understand the underlying pattern of the problem unconscioulsy i.e. we 'edit' the problem for frugality. We get in trouble when we are not able to 'edit' the problem. When people were provided choice of 70 jams - they were paralyzed with the choices and were not able to decide. Snap judgements are made in a snap because they are frugal. We need to have steps to get to the frugality of the problem for snap judgements to happen.

The ability to operate without having to explain constantly enables rapid cognition. This is a wonderful thought for managers to keep in mind when working with teams

People's first impressions are wrong as they mis-interpret their own feelings when presented with new and unusual information. It takes time to understand new information and to actually start appreciating it - till the time the information is understood it falls in wierd category. The new model of ergonomic chair was rejected by people in their first impression due to its different look and feel. People didn't have an history with the new model and hence it is difficult for them to imagine a future with it. There was nothing familiar in the ergo chair and hence the work 'ugly' was just a proxy for different. The problem with market research is that often it is simply too blunt an instrument to pick up this distinction between the bad and the merely different. Testing ideas that are truly revolutionary is another matter, and the most successful companies are those that understand that in those cases, the impressions of their consumers need interpretation. Their is a caveat, the first impressions of experts don't fall in this category i.e. experts like different things than most of the people. When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex. Experts know how to interpret and decode their snap judgements and first impressions.

It is not that if we have all the information, we can't lose. In the game of chess we can see the chess board, yet we don't win all the time. Managers try to know more and more about everything and this hinders them from performing optimally.

blink presents ideas relating to our spontaneity in making decisions relating to product. First of all the product is both the product and packing for people to make decision. Also the snap decision about products is a reaction to the evidence of taste buds, eyes, memories and imagination and is not related to one dimension. Hence it is important to service all the dimensions of the product. In the example of coke and pepsi - pepsi was busy working on branding while coke was busy on getting the sip test - it is important to remember that the product decisions are made not only on sip test. The triangle test - identify pepsi from three glasses two of which contain coke and one contains pepsi is a good example of how a good vocabulary of taste is needed to identify the pepsi glass and a shallow knowledge of colas won't do - we need to think about colas and become an expert on cola.

The practice of inferring the motivations and intentions of others is classic thin slicing. It is picking up on sublte, fleeting cues in order to read someone's mind.

Of course, there are cases in which using judgment can backfire. Take the case of the three police officers working in the South Bronx who came upon Amadou Diallo standing outside his apartment building at midnight. The officers immediately assumed that Diallo was a robber or drug-dealer due to the fact that he was out so late and black. When the officers yelled to Diallo to come talk with them he ran into the vestibule of his house trying to open the inside door. The officers say that Diallo began reaching into his pockets, pulling out what appeared to be a gun. The officers fired forty-one shots, mutilating Diallo’s body. When the three officers went up to look at they man they had just killed, it turned out that what had been in his hand was a wallet and not a gun at all. In this case Gladwell believes that the officers experienced a condition he calls “temporary autism,” in which a person under incredibly high stress (heart rate of 175) is unable to interpret facial expressions, or unable to “mind read.” Because of past experiences, when Diallo turned to run they panicked due to the heightened stress of the situations, the police were not able to make clear judgments about the situation, such as reading the fear on Diallo’s face for malice. Mind reading is an ability that increases with practice

We don't have much control over whatever bubbles to the surface from our unconscious. If we can control the environment in which rapid congnition takes place than we can control rapid cognition - we can prevent the people from fighting wars, polices from making mistakes etc

Working Hours - Azara Feroz Sayed

Currently, I am not leading teams and don't work long hours. This was a conscious decision taken - to take more responsibilities at home at the cost of giving up on responsibilities at work. Always keep wondering how could I have kept the balance - do try to lookup for a leader to model (NLP) while I read.

The below site features some of the leaders and how they work long hours which also is a pointer to their strong passion!
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/02/news/newsmakers/howiwork_fortune_032006/index.htm

One striking point was, most of them have assistants (next level of support) screening emails, documents. This 'next level of support' is a team that these leaders have been working with for, more than 10yrs and are trusted. In IT, these seems next to impossible. The single most thing that would have made my work life easier would have been delegation and 100% trust that the task delegated would be completed without followup. Why is this so difficult? Don't my manager count on me for that?

The IT leaders love their emails - couldn't believe that. I wish, I had the freedom to have a perpetual out-of-office active for my email saying 'There will be delay in responding to emails. If it is urgent please reach out to me or XXX'. I beleive an emergency cannot be resolved in email. Offcourse, at the same time ensuring, every call on the cellphone is a urgent one. Unfortunately, you don't have the luxury in a service industry where the out-of-office message could be going out to your customer and you need to be available to the customer all the time. Some of the managers I worked with - don't read their emails or rather read emails from a select few - I don't think we have that option! We certainly need to prioritize the time to be spent in browsing the content for some mails over time spent in understanding the contents and responding to those appropriately. It is better to let people know you are not reading emails all the time - to ensure nobody is waiting for a response back from you sooner. I wish, I could limit email time to every 5-15 mts break that AG Lafley takes for recharging himself.

Some keypoints I noted
1. From the feature on Hank Palson (the article is outdated - he is now ex Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs), I could see discipline is one way of controling your work life. Letting everybody know your business hours and sticking to it.
2. The key to controlling Bill Gross's (CIO, Chief Investment Officer - not Chief Information Officer - for Pimco) busy work day is a hour long spent in yoga in the middle of the day to clear the mind
3. For Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, it is a long day from 5.00am (catching up with Europe) till late in the night(catching up with Asia) on the day to day stuff. That would be tiring! The passion would be so strong to never feel the long work hours! Interestingly, he doesn't uses emails at all and believes in stayin in touch with people personally - congratulating them for the good work for the day or understanding the challenges. Can't imagine how it would have been for him with the recent 600 store closing for a person who works so closely on day to day operations.
4. Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault(France) and CEO of Nissan(Japan). Carlos believes in looking at a problem from a distance helps to create better ideas and recharging (spending time with family) helps to look at the problem from more distance with extra strength and creative ideas
5. AG Lafley, Chairman and CEO of P&G. He believes in recharging himself with 5-15 minutes break to talk to people, managing energy levels by eating small meals 6 times a day and in minimizing information onslaught

Playing it Safe - Azara Feroz Sayed

I could relate to this article in terms of Feroz's and my life.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lifestyle/Spirituality/Mind_over_Matter/Mind_set_Dont_play_it_safe/articleshow/2223732.cms

I fit in the decription of the "Playing it Safe" person in the article
Most of the world likes to play it safe. They go to their safe jobs, come home to their safe relationships, they drive safe cars, they invest money in safe corporations, they think safe thoughts, and they want nothing more than to feel safe and secure

Feroz fits the description of "Adventurer"
This other group lives for thrills. They don't just occasionally think outside the box, they actually prefer to live outside the box. This is a group who thrives on adventure, change, and newness. They love innovative new ideas, they like to explore new things, and push the envelope beyond its capabilities.

This group often does not feel understood nor supported by the mainstream population. They are not rebels, although they are often accused of being rebellious because they do not embrace the status quo. This group is not anti-anything. They do not require group consensus to be who they are. Young adults often think that by dressing badly or by misbehaving that they are somehow brave and different from whatever it is that they are opposing, but that is not revolutionary and different, that is just anger turned inside out. They are not making a point, they are not changing the world, they are simply behaving in a manner that causes people to shun them. That is not the group I am talking about today.

The aspect that causes anxiety in me due to this difference in us is - the aspect of breaking rules. Having grown up in an environment of accepting rules all the time - it is always difficult for me to even watch Feroz breaking the rules. In his college, Feroz puts in maybe 50% more time in creating course work for students, spending time with the students and that is because he looks at his work as an oppurtunity for creativity but would get himself into trouble over some of the administration rules such as being in college everyday at a certain time or his insistence on using green ink. Questioning Rules and Breaking those that do not make sense is what he believes in.

Could relate very well to the ideas in the post
Those who would keep things safe and comfortable become frightened and angry at these innovative new thinkers. They torment them, threaten them, mistreat them, ostracise them, and create a storm of ugliness to try and stop these people from simply sharing the gifts of their hearts that they were born to share with humanity.

Though the article refers to people who made difference to humanity. In my life, with Feroz, I have learnt that the ability to "not play safe" doesn't needs to be as profound - to create an impact on humanity - as described in the article. It can be done in simple and basic aspects of life - to live our life to the fullest - in our ability to live our passion - by simply saying "NO" to the clutter that stops us from doing it. At this point too, I can claim to be a mere audience to Feroz and have not taken 'The Dip' but can say that the effect of overturning areas where we are rigid in our thinking is not a easy one and needs lot of commitment (faith, courage to overcome fear, persistence). I can relate it to my expereince of being on the dive board for the first time and not jumping. I had all the knowledge about what to do and what not to do, my swimming instructor was there below to help me and I was holding to my Dive Safety Float too - but still took lot of time for me to jump off from the Dive board (and not pushed from the dive board by the instructor). I appreciate Feroz's patience with my feelings of anxiety in implementing the change of 'not playing it safe all the time'. I am taking my first baby step of learning to say "NO" at times, to create oppurtunities, that would help me to live my passion!

The Luck Factor - Azara Feroz Sayed

Luck exerts a dramatic influence over our lives. A few seconds of bad fortune can unravel years of striving, while a moment of good luck can lead to success and happiness. Luck has the power to transform the improbable into the possible; to make the difference between life and death, reward and ruin, happiness and despair.

Read the book "Luck Factor" by Richard Wiseman, head of a psychology research department at the University of Hertfordshire in England. It is an interesting read on the results of Dr. Wiseman's experiments on Luck conducted over 8 years with hundreds of people as part of the Luck project. The Luck Project scientifically explores why some people live such charmed lives, and aims to develop techniques that enable others to enhance their own good fortune. The main findings from the research have been published in the bestselling book 'The Luck Factor'

Lucky people meet their perfect partners, achieve their lifelong ambitions, find fulfilling careers, and live happy and meaningful lives. Their success is not due to them working especially hard, being amazingly talented or exceptionally intelligent. Instead, they simply appear to have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time and enjoy more than their fair share of lucky breaks.

Psychologists have studied how our lives are affected by our intelligence, personality, genes, appearance, and upbringing. Measuring intelligence and categorizing people’s personalities is relatively straightforward, but how do you quantify luck and control chance? Dr Wiseman began by carrying out a survey to discover the percentage of people who considered themselves lucky or unlucky, and whether people’s luck tended to be concentrated in one or two areas of their lives or
spread across many different areas.

The book describes a scientifically proven way of understanding, controlling and increasing our Luck. The exercises in the book provide strategies to improve our Luck Factor.

Over time, Dr. Wiseman built up a database of about 400 people from all over the UK, all walks of life, who considered themselves especially lucky or unlucky. The people in both groups were saying, "I've no idea why this is the case; I'm just lucky" -- or unlucky. Dr Wiseman didn't believe that for a minute. He thought there was something else going on. So in the Luck Project, he've had the volunteers take part in experiments, interviewed them, had them keep diaries -- all sorts of things -- trying to piece together why we have one group of people for whom everything would work out well and another group for whom things would be completely disastrous.

Dr Wiseman uncovered thar Luck is not a magical ability or gift from the Gods. People are not born lucky or unlucky, but they create much of their own good and bad luck through their thoughts, feelings and actions.

If you are not able to get your hands on the book - the short colorful booklet is must read for getting insights into 'The Luck Factor'. The PDF has good graphics and a color print will make a good read - and easier to pass it on to someone else as a gift http://www.theluckfactor.com/docs/ebooklet.pdf
I have pasted brief of the book at the bottom of the post.

The Q & A session with Dr Wiseman on some of the FAQs on Luck
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/72/realitycheck.html?page=0%2C1

Isn't there a distinction between chance and luck?
There's a big distinction. Chance events are like winning the lottery. They're events over which we have no control, other than buying a ticket. They don't consistently happen to the same person. They may be formative events in people's lives, but they're not frequent. When people say that they consistently experience good fortune, I think that, by definition, it has to be because of something they are doing.

In other words, they make their own luck.
That's right. What I'm arguing is that we have far more control over events than we thought previously. You might say, "Fifty percent of my life is due to chance events." No, it's not. Maybe 10% is. That other 40% that you think you're having no influence over at all is actually defined by the way you think.

What are some of the ways that lucky people think differently from unlucky people?One way is to be open to new experiences. Unlucky people are stuck in routines. When they see something new, they want no part of it. Lucky people always want something new. They're prepared to take risks and relaxed enough to see the opportunities in the first place.

How did you uncover that in your lab?
We did an experiment. We asked subjects to flip through a news-paper that had photographs in it. All they had to do was count the number of photographs. That's it. Luck wasn't on their minds, just some silly task. They'd go through, and after about three pages, there'd be a massive half-page advert saying, STOP COUNTING. THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER. It was next to a photo, so we knew they were looking at that area. A few pages later, there was another massive advert -- I mean, we're talking big -- that said, STOP COUNTING. TELL THE EXPERIMENTER YOU'VE SEEN THIS AND WIN 150 POUNDS [about $235].

For the most part, the unlucky would just flip past these things. Lucky people would flip through and laugh and say, "There are 43 photos. That's what it says. Do you want me to bother counting?" We'd say, "Yeah, carry on." They'd flip some more and say, "Do I get my 150 pounds?" Most of the unlucky people didn't notice.

But the business culture typically worships drive -- setting a goal, single-mindedly pursuing it, and plowing past obstacles. Are you arguing that, to be more lucky, we need to be less focused?
This is one of the most counterintuitive ideas. We are traditionally taught to be really focused, to be really driven, to try really hard at tasks. But in the real world, you've got opportunities all around you. And if you're driven in one direction, you're not going to spot the others. It's about getting people to have various game plans running in their heads. Unlucky people, if they go to a party wanting to meet the love of their life, end up not meeting people who might become close friends or people who might help them in their careers. Being relaxed and open allows lucky people to see what's around them and to maximize what's around them

Much of business is also about rational analysis: pulling up the spreadsheet, running the numbers, looking at the serious facts. Yet you found that lucky people rely heavily on their gut instincts.
Yes. You don't want to broadly say that whenever you get an intuitive feeling, it's right and you should go with it. But you could be missing out on a massive font of knowledge that you've built up over the years. We are amazingly good at detecting patterns. That's what our brains are set up to do.

What are some other ways you found that lucky people's minds operate differently?
They practice "counterfactual thinking." The degree to which you think that something is fortunate or not is the degree to which you generate alternatives that are better or worse.
Unlucky people say, "I can't believe I've been in another car accident." Lucky people go, "Wonderful. Yes, I had a car accident, but I wasn't killed. And I met the guy in the other car, and we got on really well, and there might be a relationship there." What's interesting is that both ways of thinking are unconscious and automatic. It would never occur to the unlucky people to see it a different way.

Isn't there something delusional about that approach -- sort of a modern version of Dr. Pangloss's "All for the best in the best of all possible worlds"? Suppose I said, "I just wrote this article, and the article stinks, and nobody read it. But hey, at least I have two arms."
What's so delusional about that? If it keeps you going in the face of adversity and softens the impact of the fact that no one read your article, and therefore you think, "Well, I can write another article, and I'm going to learn from the mistakes of the past one, and I'm going to keep on going," I think that's fine. It would be delusional if you took it to the extreme -- especially if you weren't learning from your mistakes.

But can we acknowledge that sometimes bad stuff -- car accidents, natural disasters -- just happens? Sometimes it's purely bad, and there's nothing good about it.
I've never heard that from a lucky person.

So if you buy that way of thinking, then there is no bad luck.
That's right. That's what was weird about conducting some of the interviews. Subjects would say, "I'm the luckiest person alive" -- and they'd come up with dreadful stories. They'd have the same life events as the unlucky person, but they'd look at them entirely differently.


The Four Principle for Luck Factor - Dr Richard Wiseman
Principle No.1: Maximise Your Opportunities - Make your luck
The way lucky people think and behave makes them far more likey than others to create, notice, and act upon chance opportunities in their lives. People who tend to think and behave in the same way are said to have the same personality. Dr Wiseman compared the personalities of lucky and unlucky people on 5 dimensions of personality: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness.

Agreeableness is a measure of the degree to which someone is sympathetic toward others and willing to help them. Lucky people scored no higher on agreeableness than unlucky people. Conscientiousness is a measure of the degree to which a person is selfdisciplined, strong-willed, and determined. There was very little difference in the conscientiousness scores of lucky and unlucky people. The groups did, however, obtain very different scores on the remaining three personality dimensions – extroversion, neuroticism and openness.

The differences explained why lucky people constantly encounter chance opportunities in their lives while unlucky people do not. Lucky people score much higher than unlucky people on extroversion, and there are three ways in which extroversion significantly increases the likelihood of having a lucky chance encounter – meeting a large number of people, being a “social magnet,” and keeping in contact with people. Lucky people dramatically increase the possibility of a lucky chance encounter by meeting a large number of people in their daily lives. The more people they meet, the greater opportunity they have of running into someone who could have a positive effect on their lives. Social magnets attract others because, without realizing it, they exhibit the types of body language and facial expressions that other people find attractive and inviting. Lucky people exhibit exactly the same pattern of behaviors. Upon reviewing video tapes of interviews with lucky and unlucky people, we found that the lucky people smiled twice as much as the unlucky people, and engaged in far more eye contact. The lucky people also tended to engage in three times as much open body language (point their bodies toward the person they are speaking with, uncross their arms and legs, make gestures that display open palms) as the unlucky people.Lucky people are also effective at building secure and long-lasting attachments with the people they meet. They are easy to get to know and most people like them. They tend to be trusting and form close friendships with others. As a result, they often keep in touch with a much larger number of friends and colleagues than unlucky people. This network of friends helps promote opportunity in their lives. Together, these actions result in a massive “network of luck” and a huge potential for chance opportunities. And it takes only one chance encounter to change a life.

People who obtain a low score on the neuroticism dimension of personality are generally calm and relaxed, and people who obtain a high score are more tense and anxious. Lucky people score much lower on neuroticism than unlucky people, and this makes a big difference. Because lucky people tend to be more relaxed than most, they are more likely to notice chance opportunities. The same principle applies when lucky people meet and chat with other people. They are relaxed and attuned to the opportunities around them. Lucky people see what is there, rather than trying to find what they want to see. As a result, they are far more receptive to any opportunities that arise naturally.

People who obtain a high score on the openness dimension of personality like a great deal of variety and novelty in their lives. They love trying new experiences, new kinds of foods, and new ways of doing things. They tend not to be bound by convention and they like the notion of unpredictability. People who obtain a low score on openness tend to be much more conventional. Lucky people score much higher on openness than unlucky people, and this greater openness can help promote chance opportunities in their lives.

Professor Wiseman provides examples of people whose lives are full of opportunities. He cites, for example, a 40 year old housewife Wendy who wins about 3 competition prizes per week and whose winnings have included major prizes such as significant amounts of cash and holidays. Her secret? – She enters a lot of competitions. Wiseman’s initial point here is that if she didn’t enter any competitions then she would have no chance of winning them.

Lucky people maximise opportunities by
a. building and maintaining a strong network of luck
b. having a relaxed attitude towards life
c. being open to new experiences in their lives

Principle No.2: Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings - Your Gut is right

Lucky people consistently place their trust in colleagues and clients who are honest and reliable, and they make sound choices when it comes to their careers and financial matters. Lucky people simply know when a decision is right. In contrast, unlucky people view many of their poor decisions as yet more evidence of how they are always destined to fail. Dr Wiseman found that lucky and unlucky people differed on a rather mysterious aspect of decision making, namely, intuition. Unlucky people often ignore their intuition and regret their decisions.

Wiseman indicates that his research results suggest that a large percentage of lucky people trust their intuitions when making decisions in four important areas of their life – careers, personal relationships, business and finance. He gives many examples, including one from his own life where he felt a gut feeling that something was wrong when being asked to hand over his credit card at a particular hotel for a booking despite having done this many times before. He chose instead to pay by cheque and subsequently discovered that credit card fraud had been committed by one of the hotel employees. He had avoided being one of the victims of this fraud through following his intuition, although he had no obvious reason to suspect the fraud might occur.

Wiseman also suggests that lucky people are more likely than unlucky people to take steps to boost their intuition such as meditating and this feeds into the recommendations he makes later in the book for how you can begin to increase your own chances of being the beneficiary of good luck.

a. Lucky people listen to their gut feelings and hunches
b. Lucky people take steps to boost their intitution

Principle No.3: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future will be bright. Over time, that expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because it helps lucky people persist in the face of failure and positively shapes their interactions with other people.

Good luck and bad luck, it seems, can sometimes become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you expect good luck, the suggestion is, you are more likely to receive good luck and if you expect bad luck you are more likely to receive bad luck. Wiseman also gives some examples of psychological experiments which indicate that people’s perceptions of their abilities can influence their capacities – for instance, in one experiment he alludes to, two groups of people were asked to press a switch the moment a light came on. The second group, but not the first, were told to imagine they were fighter pilots with very fast reactions. Remarkably the second group responded much faster than the first – they expected to do well and therefore performed better.

a. Lucky people expect their good luck to continue in the future
b. Lucky people attempt to achieve their goals, even if their chance of success seems slim, and perservere in the face of failure
c. Lucky people expect their interactions with others to be lucky and successful

Principle No. 4: Turn Your Bad Luck Into Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, they don't dwell on the ill fortune, and they take control of the situation.

In this section, Wiseman argues forcefully for a positive attitude towards difficulties and bad luck that besets you. He suggests that if you can adopt the belief that any ill fortune that besets you will in the long run work out for the best, then cultivating this positive attitude will help you to move forward and create a luckier future for yourself. In talking about this he seems to be highlighting a kind of resilience, resourcefulness and determination alongside positive belief which can help you. He gives a number of illuminating examples including one from his own life where, in his past career as a musician, his case with all his magic tricks was stolen when he was distracted in a restaurant. Instead of bemoaning his bad luck, he used the opportunity to work through the night to create new magic tricks, with the result that is performance was much better than it would have been and his new tricks later received awards.

a. Lucky people see the positive side of their bad luck
b. Lucky people are convinced that any ill fortune in their lives will, in the long run, work out for the best
c. Lucky people do not dwellon their ill fortune
d. Lucky people take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future