Change your thinking, change your life? By John C. Maxwell

Can changing your thinking really change your life? Consider this: I’ve studied successful people for forty years, and though the diversity you find among them is astounding, I believe they are all alike in one way: how they think! That is the one thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.
The good news is that it’s possible to learn how to think like a successful person. But before we can learn from a good thinker, we need to know what they look like. You often hear someone say that a colleague or friend is a “good thinker,” but that phrase means something different to everyone. To one person it may mean having a high IQ, while to another it could mean knowing a bunch of trivia or being able to figure out whodunit when reading a mystery novel.
I believe that good thinking isn’t just one thing. It consists of several specific thinking skills. Becoming a good thinker means developing those skills to the best of your ability. In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras describe what it means to be a visionary company, the kind of company that epitomizes the pinnacle of American business. They describe it this way:
A visionary company is like a great work of art. Think of Michelangelo’s scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or his statue of David. Think of a great and enduring novel like Huckleberry Finn or Crime and Punishment. Think of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare’s Henry V. Think of a beautifully designed building, like the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You can’t point to any one single item that makes the whole thing work; it’s the entire work—all the pieces working together to create an overall effect—that leads to enduring greatness.
Good thinking is similar. You need all the thinking “pieces” to become the kind of person who can achieve great things. I believe that those pieces include eleven skills, which I’ve listed below. After each is a question you can ask yourself to measure your own thinking:
1. Cultivate Big-Picture Thinking
Am I thinking beyond myself and my world so that I process ideas with a holistic perspective?
2. Engage in Focused Thinking
Am I dedicated to removing distractions and mental clutter so that I can concentrate with clarity on the real issue?
3. Harness Creative Thinking
Am I working to break out of my “box,” exploring ideas and options, so I can experience creative breakthrough?
4. Employ Realistic Thinking
Am I building a solid foundation on facts so that I can think with certainty?
5. Utilize Strategic Thinking
Am I implementing strategic plans that give me direction for today and increase my potential for tomorrow?
6. Explore Possibility Thinking
Am I unleashing the enthusiasm of possibility thinking to find solutions for even seemingly impossible problems?
7. Learn from Reflective Thinking
Am I regularly revisiting the past to gain a true perspective and think with understanding?
8. Question Popular Thinking
Am I consciously rejecting the limitations of common thinking in order to accomplish uncommon results?
9. Benefit from Shared Thinking
Am I consistently searching the minds of others to think “over my head” and achieve compounding results?
10. Practice Unselfish Thinking
Am I continually considering others and their journey in order to think with maximum collaboration?
11. Rely on Bottom-Line Thinking
Do I stay focused on the bottom line so that I can gain the maximum return and reap the full potential of my thinking?
Based on your answers to the questions, where are you strongest? In what kind of thinking do you need to grow? Develop in any of those areas, and you’ll become a better thinker. Master all that you can—especially the process of shared thinking, which helps you compensate for your weak areas—and your life will change.
For specific guidance on developing as a good thinker, my book, How Successful People Think, devotes a chapter to each of the above skills. A companion workbook is also in the works.

SAVE YOURSELF; CHANGE THE WORLD

Change the World, by first plugging-in NOW!
Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
- Sir William Osler

Everything in life happens for a reason. We all seem to agree with that statement. It is however important to know that it is not a priority for us to know why it is happening at that particular moment in time. The most important of all is to plug-in completely, whole-heartedly & unreservedly in that moment. Live in the moment as opposed to for the moment for nothing in life occurs by chance. In cognition of this, the reason will reveal itself to you in due time & in that moment you will realize that you were experiencing that situation to equip you to one day, change the world!

- David Wainaina Kuria

What to do when you feel alone? Call on God! (Excert "Friendship with God)

What you can do if you are imagining that you are alone is to come to Me.
Come to Me in the depths of your soul. Talk to Me from your heart. Companion with Me in your mind. I will be with you, and you will know it.

If you have been making daily contact with Me, this will be easier. Yet even if you have not, I will not fail you, but be with you the moment you call to Me. For this is My promise: Even before you call My name, I will be there.
That is because I am always there, and your very decision to call My name merely elevates your awareness of Me.

Once you are aware of Me, your sadness will leave you. For sadness and God
cannot exist in the same place, because God is Life Energy, turned up as high as it will go, and sadness is Life Energy turned down.

Therefore, when I come to you, do not turn Me down!

Every time you have a hunch about something and ignore it, you turn Me down.

Every time you receive an offer to put an end to bad feelings, or cease a conflict, and ignore it, you turn Me down.

Every time you do not return the smile of a stranger, walk under the awesome wonder of a night sky and don’t look up, pass a flower bed without stopping to behold its beauty, you turn Me down.

Every time you hear My voice, or feel the presence of a departed loved one, and say it’s just your imagination, you turn Me down.

Every time you feel love for another in your soul, or feel a song in your heart, or see a grand vision in your mind, and do nothing about it, you turn Me down.

Every time you find yourself reading just the right book, or hearing just the right sermon, or watching just the right movie, or running into just the right friend, at Just the right time in your life, and write it off to coincidence or serendipity or “luck,” you turn Me down.

And I tell you this: before the cock crows three times, some of you will deny Me.

How to Help God (excerpt from "Friendship with God" CWG books)

Now here is how you can help God. Live your life deliberately, harmoniously, and beneficially. These three ways of living you can accomplish by using the gifts I have given you: creative energy, gentle wisdom, and pure love.

Creative energy has been placed by Me in your entire being, and in everything that proceeds from it. Thoughts, words, and deeds are the Three Tools of Creation. When you know this, you can choose to be the cause of your experience, rather than being at the effect of it.

Life proceeds out of your intentions for it. When you are aware of this, you can live your life deliberately. The things you think, you think deliberately. The things you say, you say deliberately. The things you do, you do deliberately.
When you do something and people say, “You did that deliberately!” it will not be an accusation, but a compliment.

Everything you do, you do on purpose—and your purpose in every moment of your life is, indeed, to live the grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. When you use creative energy, you help God be more of what God is, and seeks to experience of Itself.

Gentle wisdom has been placed by Me in your soul. When you use this gift, you live harmoniously in any situation. Your very Being is harmony itself.
Harmony means feeling the vibration of the moment, of the person, place, or circumstance you are now experiencing, and blending with it. Blending does not mean matching. Singing in harmony does not mean singing in unison. It does mean singing together.

When you sing in harmony, you change the way the entire song is sung. It
becomes a new song, a different song. This is the song of the soul, and there is none more beautiful.
Bring a gentle wisdom to your moments. Watch it change them. Watch it change
you.

You have that gentle wisdom within you. I have placed it there, and it has never left you. Call on it in times of difficulty and stress, in times of decision or enmity, and it will be there. For when you call on it, you call on Me. When you use gentle wisdom, you help God be more of what God is, and seeks to experience of Itself.




Pure love has been placed by Me in every human heart.
It is that which I Am, and which You Are. Your heart is filled with this love to overflowing. It is bursting. Your whole Self is permeated by it. It is composed of it.

Pure love is Who You Are.

When you express pure love, you give yourself the direct experience of Who You Are. It is the greatest gift. It looks as if you are giving a gift to others, and you are giving it to your Self. That is because there is no one else in the room. It only looks as if there is. Pure love allows you to see the truth.

When you come from a place of pure love, you live a life that is beneficial to
everyone. You make sure that everyone benefits from your having been here. “Kindness” becomes an important word to you. Suddenly, you understand its deeper meaning.

Kindness means not only goodness, it means sameness. You realize when you live in pure love that you and all others are of “like kind.” You are truly kin, and now, suddenly, you see that when you express pure love you are expressing kindness.
This is what it means to be a kin-dred spirit. This is what it is to know a Oneness with all things. And when, in any circumstance or situation, you use pure love, you help God be more of what God is, and seeks to experience of Itself.
You help God when you help yourself to God. So have a big helping. Help yourself to as much of God as you like. For this is the food of life, by which all things are nourished.

Take, and eat of this, for this is My body.

You are all members of that One body. And it is time, now, to re-member.
I would not tell this to you if it were not so.

This is the greatest truth, so help Me God.

Mind Vs. Heart - The conversation

In the abruptness of life precious moments, when I am entangled with the busyness of my mind,
My Heart begins to call…
“When is my turn going to come?” “When are going to let me be your light?”
(Be my light? Your turn?)
Heart Continues: “You keep running ; reasoning and questioning, keeping the mind first”!
“When are you going to let me help you?”
“I am Here!” – “Speaking to you with my feelings”.
“relaying to you honest answers to your deep inquisitions.But you rarely
let me guide you.I have always been here , ready to help you, help us make way through the maze but…”
(PAUSE)
(What?)
Heart continues: “…But you seldom do; save the moments when its all said and done that you vow to start listening to me”.
(Guilt feelings start welling up in me)
“That’s the soul sharing my pain and gently letting you know”
“ Its okay ; I understand. But if there is one thing I may ask of you to promise me…..”

(Uhuh..)

“TRUST ME!”

(But I do)

“Yes, But not Always”

(Okay)

“No,seriously..”

(I am Serious)

“Trust me. For I know you”

(Okay. I will try)

“Don’t try. Trust Me”.

“Don’t think about trusting me.Thats the mind telling you about me. Let me tell you about me, which is you.Always and in All ways.God lives here and when I say that I know you; Trust Me, I know You!”
“So promise to trust me?”

(PROMISE)

Thank you.