One thing that Achor mentions in this chapter is that our minds consist of a Jerk and Thinker. The Jerk being the emotional aspect of our brain which is ready to act first and think later, while the Thinker is the more rational part of our brain which rationalizes the situation and helps us think before acting. Most of the time when we get stressed or overwhelmed the Jerk part of our brain starts to take over. I can relate to this as a person who works in customer service. Customers will come in and be in the wrong, however, since the customer is always right, they get away with most of it. There are some moments at work where I would love to say something to the customer which might not be very customer service like, however, I have to refrain from it. This is the Thinker part of my brain trying to make sure that I do not do something which could potentially get me in trouble.
Another thing which Achor talks about how we can achieve more by growing throughout our Zorro circle. We must first achieve and have control over our small circle, then we start to expand our circle. Achor states that reaching for the stars is a recipe for failure due to the fact that people try to reach their far out goal all at one time. However, I do not agree with this statement completely. Reaching for the stars is something which can be done, however, there needs to be steps to get there. We need to make our path to the stars easier by following these steps, and pretty soon the stars won’t be out of reach. It is fine to set big goals, but they should be attainable. Since it is such a large goal to complete at once, there needs to be smaller goals set and achieved in order to reach the larger goal. Achor best describes it as smaller successes leading up to bigger achievements. I feel like this is something that I have to work on. I am very indecisive about many things. I find it hard to focus on what I want to do and am still mostly unsure about what I want to do in my future. I feel that by using Zorro’s circle method, I can figure things out, by looking at the smaller things which will help me out with the major things that I might want to accomplish.
