As a Man Thinketh- James Allen

As a Man Thinketh was written in 1902 by James Allen.  It is considered one of the founding works of the New Thought movement.  I have always been a bit skeptical of New Thought books, but I thought it was worth a try.  It is a quick read, seeing how it is an essay, and can be downloaded for free.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

 "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts" (pg. 5)

This idea is fundamentally important for life and especially business.

"As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them." (pg. 5)

"A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts." (pg. 6)

I really like this idea.  I have always been a strong believer in the idea that we are what we take in.  If we read high quality literature we will become a high quality thinker.  By associating our thoughts will the most successful and inspirational minds of all time we will begin to act and respond to different problems as they would have acted and responded.

"Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace." (pg. 6)

"As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contain within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills." (pg. 7)

"Man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind." (pg. 8)

"The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves" (pg. 10)

"Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound" (pg. 12)

"Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possession, is the measure of wrong thought." (pg. 15)

"Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance." (pg. 16)

"The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins are sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreams." (pg. 27)

"Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become." (pg. 28)

What I enjoyed most about this read was the hope it gives the reader.  Everyone loves to hear that they can achieve anything.  The difficulty of course lies in doing what is necessary to achieve your dreams.  Allen talks about how men need purpose to find the motivation to achieve their dreams.  We need something that we are working towards in order to organize and focus our thoughts and actions.

This essay was a good wake-up call for me.  It made me think about what am I working towards and evaluate the thoughts that I entertain daily.  I hope to be able to have more construction and focus thoughts leading to greater productivity and achievement in the pursuits that I have deemed worthy of my time.

(All the page references are from the Project Gutenberg EBook downloaded for free from iTunes on the iPad)

How the Mighty Fall- Jim Collins

This weekend while camping in the Grand Tetons I had the chance to read How the Might Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins.  If you are familiar with Jim Collins you will know that he writes on the subject of business management.  I have gleaned a lot of useful information from reading some of his other books (Good to Great, Built to Last) and would highly recommend them to anyone wishing to learn more about what factors are key to having a successful business organization.

How the Might Fall strays from Collins typical focus on excellence as he focuses on what factors lead to failure.  The book as a whole was interesting and entertaining.  The main theme of the book is that there is a general process of failure (5 Stages) that companies go through.

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Collins explores each stage and provides examples of companies that illustrate each stage.  The book does a great job explaining what habits leader should avoid in order to stay successful.

Since I am not currently leading an organization and am still in school I tried to apply the principles as much as I could to my life.  I have seen the same pattern of failure in different areas of my life.  After having success in a particular area I find it easier to become undisciplined in my continued pursuit of more.  You could almost say that I get "high on my success".  After a while my confidence is such that I deny the chance of failure.  Then because of my neglect of the principles that led me to success I have to grasp for salvation by altering my life.  But at that point I have lost my edge in my particular area and it is too late to regain my success as others pass me by.

My main take-away is: In order to avoid failure in anything, one must stay continually focused on those ideas and habits that are proven to lead to success.  When hard times come reverting back to those successful principles will turn you from failure to success.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book I do have some complaints.  The book seemed rushed and lacked the usual amount of data for which Collins is known.  That might be in response to what people want to read because I do understand that reading through pages of numbers and ratios can be boring. I also would have liked to see him talk more about the recent banking and financial crisis.  He did mention that he did not have sufficient time to include those companies in the book but I was pleased to see several appendices dedicated to the subject.

Overall I highly recommend How the Might Fall for anyone interested in business looking for a quick and entertaining read. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the book.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to provide an organizational medium for my exploration of business and investing.  I hope that through this blog I will be able to better organize my studies and find powerful guiding principles in the business world.  It will be a learning journey for myself and hopefully for others.  The main planned content of the blog to this point will be my thoughts on books and articles that I have recently read relating to business and investing.  I hope that readers will want to include their own insights and ideas.  If only one thing can be accomplished through my writing of this blog, I hope it will be the providing of stimulation thoughts and ideas to myself and others.  -Jacob Goodfellow