How to Transform Your Thinking and Your Life

by Jim Rohn

The key to make life really unique and worthwhile is to share. It has a certain unique magic of its own. This is what I learned in sharing ideas:

If you share an idea with 10 different people, they get to hear it once and you get to hear it 10 times. Share ideas—share with your family, share with the people around you, share with other employees, share with your colleagues.

When one person shares with another, two things could happen. If you share with someone else, they could be transformed—you may have dropped in at the right time. This may be their moment. They've got three numbers dialed into the lock already, and if you say it well and say it right, you can be the fourth number that they can dial into the lock of their personal experience. The door will come open, and there will be opportunity they never saw before. The person who hears could be transformed.

But here's what else is exciting. The person who speaks could also be transformed. 

Guess what we're all looking for… transformation for our new life—the new life tomorrow, the new life this month, the new life next year, the new life this year. 

One day, the caterpillar says, “I think I was made for more than crawling on the ground.” So the caterpillar climbs the tree, attaches himself to a leaf and spins the cocoon. Who knows what disciplined effort it takes to spin a cocoon? But something inside the caterpillar says, “I was designed for something more than being just a caterpillar.”  

And then when the cocoon is ready and it opens up, out comes a butterfly that flies away, maybe singing, “I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky! I used to be a caterpillar on the ground, now I can fly.”

I'm asking you to go through such a metamorphosis. I'm asking you often to go through a period where you say, “New skills, new things are waiting for me,” and part of this will come if you'll translate for other people what you feel in your heart and in your soul. As awkward as your language might be at first, don't hesitate to do it.

Sharing makes room for more. Key question: If this glass is full of water, can it hold any more? And the answer is yes. Yes, if you pour some out. So jot that down. If you want more, you've got to pour out what you've got, and then you have the opportunity to receive more.

Now, unlike the glass that remains the same size when you pour some out, it’s not so in conscious human beings. Your capacity will increase the more you share. You'll get bigger and bigger and bigger. 

Why the self-interest wish to be bigger? Here’s why… to hold more of the next experience. Some people can't hold much happiness because they're too small. Their thinking is too small, their activity is too small, they're too small in their ability to share—they're just too small. They can't hold much.

But the bigger you get, the more you will receive. When happiness is poured out, you'll get more. When joy is poured out on the nation, you'll get more. When bounty is poured out from the economy, you will get more.

Now some people are not only small, but they have their glass turned upside down. It’s hard to get anything in. But here's what you've done in reading this: You've come with an open mind, an open consciousness—you’re ready to receive.