AS I saw pictures of the Ambani bash, what I also saw were India’s who’s-who invited. Whatever said and done, all of them were success stories: Men and women who had fought hard to become achievers whether in business, in the film world or in politics. They all had a far of look in their eyes, jaw locked with resolve and face steely with determination. It must have been a tough fight becoming a success, but they got there, and if you and I were not invited, then we don’t have something they all have, and that is to ‘think big!’
When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 engine, he chose to build it with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the same. The plan was made on paper, but the engineers agreed to a man that it was impossible to cast an eight cylinder engine block in one piece.
“Produce it anyway,” said Ford. “Impossible!” they all cried, because they could not broaden their vision. “Just go ahead and do it,” ordered Ford. The engineers went ahead. At the end of a year Ford checked with the engineers and again was told they had found no way to carry out his orders. “Go right ahead,” said Ford, “I want it and I’ll have it. They went ahead and then as if by a stroke of magic the secret was discovered.
Ford thought big and won, what about you? Are you setting your sights too low? A woman was watching a man fish on a lake. She noticed that he was reeling in a lot of fish but he kept the small ones and threw the large ones back into the water! She couldn’t stand it any longer. She called over to him, “How come you’re throwing the big ones back?”
He answered by holding up a little frying pan. “I only got a small pan,” he cried out, “so only small fish fit it!” How silly, we think, but aren’t most of us holding up small frying pans? Every time we throw away a big idea, a magnificent dream or an exciting possibility, are we measuring it against a tiny pan?” Change the size of your frying pan, think big and see the difference. Henry Ford had a big frying pan; a huge gigantic one that brushed past objections of qualified engineers with small visions.
Author Brian Tracy reminds us that “you are not what you think you are. But what you think, you are!” Think big. Dream big. Pray big.. and look for big results. It all begins with changing the size of your thinking. Who knows, maybe you’ll be on an Ambani guest list next time, once you throw away your old frying pan..!
—Email: [email protected]
