The Art of Not Thinking
The Art of Not Thinking is my new book that will be coming out in 2012.
the art of not thinking
Here is a sample of what The Art of Not Thinking is about:
Chapter 1- Why Do Smart People Not Think?
Calvin Coolidge says “The world is full of intellectual giants and emotional midgets”. The world is consumed with the notion that we need to think our way into success. People turn to books and seminars trying to learn “the secret”. Parents all want their kids to get straight A’s, go to college, get a good job, and be a “normal” member of society.
I am 29 years old as I write this and I recently found out my wife and I are having a baby girl! At a social gathering a friend and I were discussing how I don’t want my girl to be “normal”; normal is boring, normal is forgettable, normal is average, the normal people secretly wish they were like the abnormal people. We all want to be the best and we want the best for our families… However it is fascinating how hung up we are with being the best at the wrong things. For example grades… I work at the 155 year old Southwestern Company, we interview over 10,000 people per year for various jobs. The number one thing we look for in a candidate is previous successful work habits, the last thing we look for is someones GPA. I think Michael Thompson said it best “The truth is that many indifferent students do extremely well in business because the set of skills required to be a good student does not match the set of skills to be a success in the world,” says Michael Thompson, a University of Chicago-trained psychologist and co-author of the bestseller, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. He likes to quote the old line: “School is a place where former A students teach mostly B students to work for C students.” It may be an over generalization, but it has “more truth than educators are comfortable with,” he says.
Thinking is a good thing to do at the right time. The problem is that most people don’t think when they should be, and they are thinking when they shouldn’t be.
Stay tuned for more of The Art of Not Thinking…
March 19, 2011 at 7:50 PM
Congratulations on expecting! That’s wonderful news!
This is something that caught my eye and I just had to read it. I completely agree with you. It’s fascinating how our minds work…I look forward to reading more of this. It does truly blow my mind, and it’s good stuff. There is definitly room for literature on the subject.
March 21, 2011 at 6:41 PM
Thanks for the feedback Kayla! I’ll keep cranking it out! I’m excited for the book to hit the shelves next year. 🙂
March 20, 2011 at 12:07 PM
I love it! This is so right on! I want my girls to do something out of the box, but society keeps telling them the opposite. For career day, my 8th grader went as a princess because she was tired of dressing up as something normal.
Now what’s this about you expecting a baby?! Congratulations!
March 21, 2011 at 6:39 PM
I thought I already told you! 🙂 Thanks for the feedback.
March 21, 2011 at 1:00 PM
As a person who over-thinks about everything I fully believe this book could be a life-changer. When can we expect this to hit shelves?
Congrats for your new family member! Any names picked out yet?
March 21, 2011 at 6:39 PM
Thanks Bryan! My goal is by April of 2012. I already have all the chapter outlines and rough out line… but I’m only about 25% of the way there. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
March 21, 2011 at 5:17 PM
great stuff Dustin, I dig it man, this book will be a winner. I can’t agree more buddy!
March 21, 2011 at 6:37 PM
Thanks Ron! That motivates me to crank out the book faster!
March 25, 2011 at 11:06 AM
That is so true!
My old history teacher said in school that my lazy bum wouldn’t amount to much in life. I remember thinking: “When I become successful I’ll buy her a car to thank her for not believing in me. I’ll show her.”
I intend to keep that promise if the theory about C students is correct and right now it seems to me that it is 🙂
Although by that logic I’d probably have to buy cars for half the faculty! Oh boy.. 😀
March 27, 2011 at 5:17 PM
Thanks for sharing this story! I had a similar experience with an 8th grade Math teacher. It’s funny how no one really knows how successful someone will be until they are tested by life… not a teacher! 🙂
July 29, 2011 at 9:08 PM
WOWDustin I am glad you took the time to think this out… thinking during times when action needs to occur messes up most of us if we are not prepared in our head to do the opposite… anway just read napolean hill’s book that just came out after being locked away because of the fears of other people and hill himself because he gave into the fear. What the book mentions
July 29, 2011 at 9:17 PM
What the book mentions is key to understanding why we as a people do not know how to think as we should… give the book a read people… I can’t say I agree with hill’s non biblical belief sytem but this does not phase me much because most people neither trust nor follow what the bible says… the key issue here hill let’s us all know ln this book precisely why we as a people cannot think clearly as we were designed by infenit intelligence to do. Powerful… napolean was indeed a rare genuis ahead of his time…
July 29, 2011 at 9:26 PM
Oh great to hear you got a new book dustin… I got two copies of your last one… great stuff… really in many ways beyond great I prefer your personality book above anyother I have seen.
July 30, 2011 at 4:09 PM
Charlie,
Great to hear you enjoyed “Think and Grow Rich” I debated about naming my next book “Think and Grow Poor”, I agree his world view is distorted… especially in the last quarter of the book, but as they say “take the best and leave the rest”. Feel free to forward on my blog and link to my book to anyone you think might enjoy it as much as you. 🙂
August 17, 2011 at 4:59 AM
Oh, what I meant was the Napolean Hill book “Outwitting the Devil” It was in manusript form for 70 years, and it was released two months ago by the Napolean Hill Foundation.