The president of a large office supply company explained the problem this way: “How do I get the complainers in my company to stop whining and start looking for solutions?” He went on to explain that he had two types of people working for him, Complainers and Thinkers.
The Whiners are often highly intelligent, dedicated employees who work long hours. But when they come into the manager’s office, they almost always complain. “They’re great at finding fault with other managers and telling me what’s wrong with our system,” the president says, “but they drain me because they’re so negative that I end up trying to make them feel better. Afterward, I get depressed.” The Thinkers, on the other hand, have a different way of coming into the office with problems.
“Thinkers come to me with ideas,” he says. “They see the same problems that Whiners see, but they’ve already thought of possible solutions.” Thinkers, in other words, have taken ownership of the company, and are creating the future of the company with their thinking. The Whiners have stopped thinking. Once the problem is identified, and their reaction to it is justified, the thinking stops.
Thinkers have taken their reactions to the company’s problems past their emotions, and into their minds. And because they have formulated some solutions, the nature of their meetings with managers is creative. These are brainstorming meetings. Managers enjoy these meetings because they stimulate their minds as well. Both parties leave the meeting feeling intellectually energized, and managers look forward to their next meeting with Thinkers.
The Whiners have left their reactions to their company's problems on an emotional level. They express resentment, fear, and worry. The manager's problem in such meetings is that he is dealing primarily with those emotions, so he ends the meeting with his own feelings of despair.
When you commit to self-motivation as a way of life, you will fall into the realm of the Thinker. Your thinking not only creates your motivation, but it also creates your relationships, your family, and the organization you work for, because they are all part of you. You are more valuable to your organization with this thinking orientation, and you are more valuable to yourself.
Consistently Execute Your Mission
Since I was a child, I have had a recurring dream that I start each day facing a mattress. The more I push on this mattress before my day begins, the more it curves in, and the more energy-efficient the mattress springs become. The more the mattress indents with my pushes at the start of the day, the higher it will rise when I lie down on it to sleep at night.
I will lie on this mattress at night and see how high my dreams will take me. How high I fly will always depend on the curves I put on the mattress during the day. The impression I make. How impressive I am. The difference I make.
So after thinking about the dream the other day, I decided to take a step. I decided that the recurring dream was my subconscious choosing to tell me something important. Something about the difference that walking makes. Something about the oxygen that it pushes into my system.
Walking would be an action I could do while awake. Walking would push more oxygen into my lungs.
I would be more like the great football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, who lived to be 103. Amos Alonzo Stagg was asked how he lived to be so old (the average life expectancy during his lifetime was 65) and he said, “I have, for most of my life, engaged in running and other vigorous exercise that forces large amounts of oxygen into my body.”
I increased my walking just to see what would happen if my lungs were my mattress. I started to feel happier. I started to enjoy life more. I started to feel more motivated. As I walked, I wondered: What if spirit lives as an aura around us? What if spirit is a cloud of energy that exists around and outside our bodies, ready at any moment to be inhaled? Drawn directly into the soul? What if when you take a deep breath, you draw in your own spirit? And you receive the energy to act—the energy to blow one of your problems out of control.
What if the solution to your problems outside of you was inside you? Deepak Chopra quotes an anonymous ancient Indian sage who identified a near-fatal human superstition: “You believe that you live in the universe when in fact the universe lives inside you.” Many modern scientific books now refer to the human brain as the “three-pound universe.” When the body moves, so does the mind. So does the inner world. When you walk, you set your mind to whether you want to be or not.
We soon realize that the mind and body are connected. When the Greeks said the secret of a happy life is a healthy mind in a healthy body, they were on to a powerful truth.
I try to talk myself out of it many times a week. I’m too tired to exercise. I have an injury. I haven’t been getting enough sleep. I have to listen to my body! I’m going to cut short the important time they need with my kids if I selfishly go for a walk.
But I am always better when I choose to walk. I am even better in my relationships with my children, because walking brings me to the soul. That is why I cannot leave it. I cannot pretend that it has nothing to do with this subject, because that is how I draw the truth to me. I draw the globe to me under my feet by walking. As the world turns, the lies come out of my mind, into space. As the body gets healthy, so does the mind. It is true. And the songs in my head keep the rhythm going: FatsDomino. Ricky Nelson. Ten Years After. I walk in. Yes indeed. I am going home.
There is something about walking that combines opposites. Opposites: activity and relaxation. (This paradox is what creates whole-brain thinking.) Opposites: in the world and alone. (Alone, but walking out there.) This combination of opposites activates the harmony I need between right and left brain, between adult and child, between higher self and animal. Great solutions emerge. Truth becomes beauty. You have your own path too. Yes, it is. It may be dancing or swimming or running or racquetball or boxing or aerobics, but it is all the same. These are all ways to move the body like a fun toy and oxygenate the spirit in the process.