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Continue unfolding and expanding our minds is a must for accurate analysis. This unfoldment will open a door that leads to all the power needed to bring success. Look at these examples-
For thousands of years, men made ships of wood, and of nothing else. They used wood because they believed that it was the only substance that would float, but that was because they had not yet advanced far enough in their thinking process to understand the truth that steel will float and that it is far superior to wood for the building of ships. They did not know that anything could float which was lighter than the amount of water is displaced, and until they learned of this great truth they went on making ships of wood.
In a similar manner, most men thought that only the birds could fly, but now we know that man can not only equal the flying of the birds, but he can excel it. Also, men were not aware for a long time that the great open void known as the air is more alive and more sensitive than anything that is on the earth. They did not know that the spoken word would travel through the ether with the speed of a flash of lightning, without the aid of wires. How could they know this when their minds had not been unfolded sufficiently to enable them to grasp it?
Process of Accurate Analysis
There are two fundamentals involve in the accurate analysis process. First, to think accurately you must separate facts from mere information. There is much “information” available to you that is not based upon facts. Second, you must separate facts into two classes; namely, the important and the unimportant, or, the relevant and the irrelevant. Only by so doing can you think clearly.
All facts which you can use in the attainment of your goal are important and relevant; all that you cannot use are unimportant and irrelevant. Search diligently and you will discover that the people who have acquired the habit of combining and using the important facts which affect their line of work at all levels. Far from working harder than you, they are perhaps working less and with greater ease. By virtue of their having learned the secret of separating the important facts from the unimportant, they have provided themselves with a sort of fulcrum and lever with which they can move with their little fingers loads that you cannot budge with the entire weight of your body.
“Accuracy builds credibility.” – Jim Rohn
The Motto of Accurate Thinker
Observe that this man usually begins his conversation with some such term as this — “I see by the papers,” or “they say.” The accurate thinker knows that the newspapers are not always accurate in their reports, and he also knows that what “they say” usually carries more falsehood than truth. If you have not risen above the “I see by the papers,” and the “they say” class, you have still far to go before you become an accurate thinker. “I do not believe that I can afford to deceive others — I know I cannot afford to deceive myself!” This must be the motto of the accurate thinker.
Look, once more, in the circle of your own associates and find a person who appears to accomplish more with less effort than do any of his associates. Study this man and you observe that he is a strategist in that he has learned how to arrange facts.
The man who knows that he is working with facts goes at his task with a feeling of self-confidence which enables him to refrain from temporizing, hesitating, or waiting to make sure of his ground. He knows in advance what the outcome of his efforts will be; therefore, he moves more rapidly and accomplishes more than does the man who must “feel his way” because he is not sure that he is working with facts.
The man who has learned of the advantages of searching for facts as the foundation of his thinking has gone a very long way toward the development of accurate thinking, but the man who has learned how to separate facts into the important and the unimportant has gone still further.
#1 Proof of Success
In as much as this is an age in which money is looked upon as being the most concrete proof of success, let us study a man who has accumulated almost as much of it as has any other man in the history of the world — John D. Rockefeller. In history, criticism follows the most successful people in one way or another.
Mr. Rockefeller has one quality that stands out, like a shining star, above all of his other qualities; it is his habit of dealing only with the relevant facts pertaining to his life-work. As a very young man (and a very poor young man, at that) Mr. Rockefeller adopted, as his definite chief aim, the accumulation of great wealth. Without entering into Mr. Rockefeller’s method of accumulating his fortune other than to observe that his most pronounced quality was that of insisting on facts as the basis of his business philosophy. Some people say that Mr. Rockefeller was not always fair with his competitors. That may or may not be true, but no one (not even his competitors) ever accused Mr. Rockefeller of forming “snap-judgments” or of underestimating the strength of his competitors. He not only recognized facts that affected his business, wherever and whenever he found them, but he made it his business to search for them until he was sure he had found them.
#2 Proof of Success
Thomas A. Edison is another example of a man who has attained greatness through the organization, classification, and use of relevant facts. Mr. Edison works with natural laws as his chief aids; therefore, he must be sure of his facts before he can harness those laws. Every time you press a button and switch on an electric light, remember that it was Mr. Edison’s capacity for organizing relevant facts which made this possible.
Every time you hear a phonograph, remember that Mr. Edison is the man who made it a reality, through his persistent habit of dealing with relevant facts. Every time you see a moving picture, remember that it was born of Mr. Edison’s habit of dealing with important and relevant facts through accurate analysis.
(Excerpt from ‘The Law of Success: In Sixteen Lessons’ by Napoleon Hill)
