Thinking Is Always A Good Thing
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 30, 2015
A couple of years ago I reviewed a book by someone I know called Paid To Think by David Goldsmith. Even though I liked the book and said so, David didn't quite like the review; hey, can't win them all.
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The main concept of the book is the power of thinking. In the introduction of the book, he talks about the value of thinking before taking action. I've always agreed with that premise in both business and life. Quite often, people react more than thinking about their words or actions, and it rarely ends up well.
There are a lot of people who look at athletes in certain sports and talk more about their being gifted and having great talent and instincts. It's rare that there's a lot of talk about how smart someone is unless the athlete isn't seen as a star athlete.
What people miss is that athletes are always thinking, along with coaches. Magic Johnson wasn't just a talented player who went out on the basketball court and performed... well... magic. What we saw in 48 minutes a night took hours, days, weeks, and years to get right. It's often not a solo event either. Without a lot of practice and getting others to think, all of those sneaky passes he used to throw would have gone un-caught because no one would have been expecting them to come their way.
Back in May I wrote an article talking about taking some time to think about a hardware problem I was having, where I was ready to have a kneejerk reaction an call the company to complain, and instead taking care of it myself. It saved a lot of time and consternation and kept repair people out of the house; that's always a win!
Last month I wrote an original article on LinkedIn where I talked about leadership lessons learned while trying to make my websites mobile friendly. That was a process that took me 5 months to figure out, which I did one night by finally just sitting at my desk with my hands away from the keyboard and thought about what changes I should think about doing, since I hadn't been able to find any solutions to my problem online. I was even able to share what I learned with others, which has made it a pretty popular post via search engines.
Thinking is imperative. You can't manage your life without thinking. You can't set goals towards your dreams or things you want to do or achieve without thinking. You can't fix anything going on at work without thinking.
Thinking is "doing". I know people who fear that it looks like they're doing nothing if they're sitting at their desks thinking. I respond "who cares what people think; at least they're thinking".
I know a lot of people who have had great success because they took the time to think about what they were going to do. I can't say I know anyone who's had long term success without thinking (winning the lottery doesn't count lol). If you do, please share a name and I'll count myself as wrong. If you don't... then think about my thought on thinking... and be sure to let me know what you think. 🙂
I like what you said about Magic Johnson. Recently I have been thinking…(see what I did there?…) about the Harlem Globetrotters and the recent loss of Meadowlark Lemon. I always loved watching the Harlem Globetroppers. I watched everytime they were on TV and I had the joy of seeing them several times in person. They always made me smile. Anyway, point is, someone had to THINK about that concept. Lemon was super smart as a business man. What many never knew was that Meadowlark Lemon was talented enough to be a professional basketball player but he chose to go the route of entertainer instead. He enjoyed a long and successful career as a Globetrotter. Always reinventing the role he and his teammates played. Always thinking.
What do you think Mitch?
I think you’re correct in saying he could have played in the NBA, but he got so much more worldwide fame as a member of the Globetrotters and, strangely enough, was probably more respected for what he did than they did at that time. He’s been missed as a Globetrotter for decades; he’ll be missed as a person now.