Big Thinking
One of the highlights of my trip to Germany was a visit to a secret test track at BMW.
It was miles and miles away from their main headquarters, located beside a cornfield in the middle of the country. As soon as we arrived our cell phones were confiscated. “We can’t allow any pictures, yah?”, our lead instructor, Stefan said in heavy German accent but with a smile on his face.
The next four hours consisted of driving M3’s (learning how to drift) as well as a range of cars (everything from an X5 M to the latest M5 to a 6-series coupe and a big old 7 series) on their 5-mile “Autobahn replication” track.
It’s was ridiculously easy to get the M5 up to 270km/h. It felt like you were on a slow Sunday drive. What a car.
Finally, after our hours of being like kids in a candy store, it was time to rap-up. As parting gifts, we all received some hats, a shirt, and a notepad.
The notepad is the only thing that I kept. And these days I use it every night at the end of my work day in my “Big Thinking” session that I include as part of my daily plan.
Using the BMW notebook has significance, but you associate BMW with big success. It’s important to use these little mindset tricks to keep your mind focused on the big opportunities and the finer things in life – even when you might be going through a dip in progress.
(That’s another reason why you need to hang around more successful people and even treat yourself to the ‘rich life’ now and again…so that you remember there is another side to the world…and it’s not all about negativity and socialism like you see in the daily news. You need to be reminded of the incredible rewards you can earn when you add MORE value to the world.)
And so each night at 5:50pm, after I shut down my computer for the night, I pull out my BMW book and turn to a blank page and let my mind run free and think of BIG things.
While I do my daily Big Thinking journaling at night, I also write down any Big Ideas I get first thing in the morning before writing this column.
After all, you know my thoughts on thinking big and creatively first thing in the morning, especially on Saturdays.
Thinking is important…and a lot of people get so busy that they just don’t think and plan. But it’s essential to moving ahead. I love this quote from
Dave Kekich:
“An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined – and integrated thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in business and in life.” – Kekich Credo #44
As silly as it sounds, make sure you are scheduling in Strategic Thinking during your day (preferably in the AM or at the end of the day…or when you are away from your desk and in a more creative environment).
Think BIG.
And so that is your 10-minute task today. Right now. Get a cup of coffee or tea or a Red Bull or whatever suits your caffeine fancy, and get into a creative zone and THINK BIGGER.
Do this daily.
Then at the end of the week, review each day and keep the best ideas and put them on one page (throwing the others away).
This is where you’ll find your big goals, your massive product ideas, and thoughts that seem borderline crazy <= those are the ones to go for.
Here’s a big goal that I came up with: I want to get a $1.5 million book deal in 2013. One of my friends recently got a $1 million deal for two books, but I think with our big ETR Transformation Contest audience, I’ll be able to prove of greater value.
The ETR Transformation Contest itself is a big idea. Another big idea is the ETR product I’m planning to create to go along with the contest.
On and on my BMW Big Thinking book is packed with 10 big ideas each week about the contest, new products, connections, and more.
Big thinking is mandatory.
Think BIG.
Dream big.
Implement big.
Achieve BIG. Go big.
Start today,
Craig Ballantyne
“No dream is too big. It takes almost the same amount of time and energy to manage tiny projects or businesses as it does to manage massive ones…and the massive ones carry with them proportional rewards.” – Kekich Credo #40