The title of this blog post is the name of a book that I just finished reading. It was recommended by a blog I read, though I no longer remember which one. It’s a basic self-help book by David Schwartz about believing in yourself. However, it’s clearly written for people in business and especially for salespeople. Note how I said salespeople there. One of the first things I noticed in the book was how it was pretty much geared toward men. In reading the first few chapters, I noticed that women were only talked about as wives for business men. This made me look at the publication date and unsurprisingly, it was 1959. I decided to continue to read and just made a mental note remember that date when I found little things that bugged me.

The good news is that I already do many of the things that the book recommends. I’m a big planner and I do think I look at myself critically and try to improve. I know I only have one life, so I try to make it the best I can. One of the points the author makes though is about luck. He doesn’t think luck has anything to do with success and I think it has a lot to do with it. Granted, I have to remind myself he wrote it in 1959. At that time I guess that heads of businesses were more concerned with regular employees and their progression than people are now. And how hard-working employees would be suitably rewarded and promoted. I almost laughed out loud when I read his line about how companies all have 10-year plans. I’m thinking that a lot of business people now are more concerned about the share price in the next quarter, much less the next year.

Would this be a book that I recommend to people now? Probably not. There are definitely better books to read about living a good life, which think is more important than thinking big. I’d probably recommend “A Guide to the Good Life” by William Irvine and “Turn the Ship Around!” by L. David Marquet. These cover the same information as “The Magic of Thinking Big”, but in a way more relevant to life today.