When I ask you whether you think in pencil or ink, I am asking you to look inside yourself. Look into the way you perceive the world and everything around you. Pay attention to what causes you to believe the things that you hold true.  We all know the sky is blue and hold it to be true. Do you think it could be possible for someone to convince you that they sky is, in fact, purple and not blue? On the other hand, would you not even humor someone with the opportunity to convince you that the sky is purple because you can clearly see with your own two eyes that it is blue? We all would like to think that we would at least give someone a chance to teach us something new, but the truth is, most of us wouldn’t. We don’t care to see things from another light because we believe that the light we see it in is the only light something can be seen in.  It is very important to realize what side we stand on because the way we think determines our entire lives and futures.

In order to create a better future for ourselves, we have to see things in a way that we have never allowed ourselves to see them before. We must learn to think in pencil in order to be able to add to, erase, or edit parts of our thinking as necessary. We have to be willing to listen to things that may contradict what we know and have always known to be true.

Let’s take, for example, the belief, “If you work more, then you’ll get more.”  This is a common belief among people today and you may have found it to be true in your own life. I mean, it makes sense.  If you work 40 hours instead of 20 hours, then you’ll make twice as much money! No one would argue with this, but what if someone told you that you didn’t have to work more to make more. You could even work less and make more. If you have your beliefs written in pen, then no one will be able to convince you that this is possible, but if your beliefs are written in pencil, you will be able to make some changes where necessary to accommodate this new way of thinking.

As it turns out, the belief, “If you work more, then you’ll get more.” is true ONLY IF you’re thinking in small terms.  If you are thinking of and imagining someone doing the same job for the rest of their lives, it is absolutely impossible for them to make more without doing more, unless they get a raise (but we all know how hard raises are to come by nowadays.) However, it also turns out, that no one gets paid by the amount of hours they put in, they get paid by the value they bring to their work.  If you really want to increase the amount you get, you need to increase the value that you bring.  If you double or triple your value, you will make twice or three times as much money in the same amount of time. It’s a simple as that.

No one’s belief system is perfect or logical, and this is why we must all think in pencil in order to be able to make adjustments and corrections as necessary. Just because we think in pencil doesn’t mean that we have to make changes every time someone presents us with new information, but at least it gives us the ability to do so. It is very important that we use discretion and don’t just change our beliefs to anything and everything that comes our way.  However, in order to get the good life, we can not make the mistake of living our lives in ink, rendering us unable to alter our belief systems as necessary to achieve our dreams.