On the path of winners By Bayo Ogunmupe Acquire skills of the affluent

On the path of winners

 By Bayo Ogunmupe

Acquire skills of the affluent

The value of originative thinking cannot be overstated. It can do many things for you. Originative thinking can generate revenue, solve financial problems and create opportunities for you. It will take you to a new level personally and professionally. It can change your life. Consider these things you need to know about changing your thinking.

One, originative thinking isn't automatic. A change in thinking doesn’t happen on its own. Good ideas rarely go out in search of someone. If you want a good idea, you have to search for it. To become a great thinker, you have to work at it. Once you begin to think originatively, the good ideas keep coming to you. Two, originative thinking is difficult. The only people who believe thinking is easy are those who don't have the habit of good thinking. Nobel Prize winning physicist, Albert Einstein, one of the greatest thinkers who ever lived, asserted, "Thinking is hard work, that's why so few do it."

Three, author of Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill observed_ "More gold has been mined from the thoughts of man than has ever been taken from the earth." When you become an originative thinker, you are investing on yourself. Gold mines tap out, stock markets crash, real estate investments go sour but the originative mind is like the diamond mine which never runs dry.

Four, originative thinking is the best gift you can give others. Well over 90 percent of the human race go through life without originative thinking. Henry Ford stumbled on it, using it to improve not only his own life, but the lives of all in his motor company. Learning to think is the greatest investment you can bestow yourself.

But one person cannot change the life of another. You alone can change your life. Only when you make the right changes in your thinking do other things begin to turn out right! Thus in order to attain what you desire, you must visualize yourself doing it. Otherwise you will never attain what you don't see yourself doing.

As you strive to change your thinking, tell yourself these things. Change is personal so I need to change. Change is possible so I am able to change. And change is profitable so attaining my goal will become the reward of originative thinking. Your old age or circumstances don't affect your adoption of originative thinking. But when you change your thinking, it will change your beliefs. And the corollary to a change in your beliefs is that your expectations will change. Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Devos says that the only obstacle standing between a man and his ambition is often the will to try and the faith to believe that it is possible. Indeed, a belief isn't just an idea you possess. It is an idea that possesses you. Thus, the first and most important step toward success in life is the expectation that we can succeed.

However, changing your expectation changes your attitude. Your expectations have a tremendous impact on your attitude. Negative expectations are a route to failure. Which is why successful people produce excitement, desire, conviction, commitment and confidence. Those are characteristics which help a person to achieve success. What follows is that a change of attitude changes your behaviour. Since moods affect the way you act, when you are happy you exude energy and kindness. Our emotions are driving forces of our lives. What is an attitude? An attitude is the true nature in us. It is the true reflection of our past experience. It is more honest and consistent than our words. Our attitude is the thing that draws people to us or repels them. It is the librarian of our past. It is the prophet of our future. An attitude is a mood or predominant emotion sustained over time. That which holds our attention determines our actions. Your behaviour mirrors your heart.

Changing your behaviour changes your performance. Don't ever be too impressed with your goal; be impressed with your goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving onto higher performance always requires originative changes. But if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, it isn't really change. And finally, changing your performance changes your life. Progress always requires change. With consistent change in performance, you have the power to change your life. To achieve a change of performance you first change your thinking. You have to think at the level of billionaires in order for you to become a billionaire. If you want to live on a new level, you have to think on a new level. Adopt originative thinking to change your life.

Our champion for today is Elinor Ostrom the American economist who received the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics for her analysis of economic governance. She was the first and only woman to win the Nobel Prize in this category. Her work was associated with the new institutional economics and marked the resurgence of political economy. Born Elinor Claire Awan in August 1933. She was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Leah Hopkins and Adrian Awan. Her father was Jewish while her mother was Protestant. Her parents became poor when her father left her mother.

Ostrom received a B.A honours in Political Science at UCLA in 1954, MA in 1962 and PhD in 1965. She married political scientist Vincent Ostrom in 1963. In 1973, she and her husband founded the Workshop in political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. The workshop examined the use of collective action, trust and cooperation in the management of common pool resources. Her approach to public policy known as institutional analysis has been considered sufficiently distinct as a separate school of public choice theory. She authored many books in organizational theory, political science and public administration. At Indiana University, Ostrom held the rank of Distinguished professor and was Bentley Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the workshop. She was also the founding director of the Centre for The Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University.

Ostrom's work emphasized the role of public choice on decisions influencing the production of public goods and service. Her field studies carried her to Africa and irrigation systems management in Nepal. She has argued against any singular panacea for social ecological system problems. In 2009, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics for her analysis of economic governance. She shared the award with Oliver Williamson for their separate work on economic governance. Ostrom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2011 and died of the disease in June 2012, at the age of 78. She was survived by her husband Vincent Ostrom who died shortly afterwards in the same month. On the day of her death, her last article: 'Green from the Grassroots' was published in Project Syndicate.