Monday Motivation 1/17/2000

Thinking

Face it. It's a pre-canned world.

All around us, there are people who will tell you what to think. Some of them will do it for free, while others have the audacity to ask you to pay them for it. Some do it in books, others in church, others on the web (like me).

What matters is that you don't blindly choose to follow others, at the expense of making your own thought.

"Sure," you may say. "I think about all this stuff. I never allow myself to believe all the pre-cast, pre-planned, already salted and seasoned stuff that people try to shove down my throat. I'm a deep thinker."

If you are, congratulations. Most of us try to think about what we have shoved at us, like we chew our food thoroughly, even when it's fast food. It's also too easy to let our guard down and accept as truth something that needs a bit of digestion. Some of us don't do much thinking of our own at all. Like a baby bird, we want all of the stuff we're "fed" pre-chewed.

Think about yourself. How many buzz words have crept into your vocabulary during the last year? Do you now speak of "rightsizing," rather than "layoffs?" How many times have you allowed your speech to include the phrase "thinking outside the box?" Does it occur to you that if you were truly thinking outside the box, that you probably wouln't use a phrase like that?

Well, you're not alone. I allow buzz words from the latest consultants and popular speakers to enter my vocabulary, as well. I try to think about what they're saying. I try to apply what I learn. Sometimes, I have learned so much from the ideas of others, that they go on to form an entirely new frame of reference. (Sorry...I guess that's a buzz word as well.)

Thomas Watson of IBM had his famous "think" signs. The reason why they worked so well is that few people actually do think.

Be one of the few. Think.

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