The potential of our success makes [others] face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts

We will be ridiculed for declaring ourselves to be big thinkers. To declare anything is to take a chance, to put ourselves on the line, to risk failure. . . . 

When we take risks, we scare other people (and most of all ourselves), because those others see the glimmer of possibilities that they are not even reaching for, because the potential of our success makes them face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts.

We will be put down for our efforts. Others will revel in our failures along the way. In the German language, there’s even a word for it: schadenfreude. To feel pleasure at someone else’s misfortune. Small, small thinking.

We may lose faith in ourselves at points along the way. Worse, we will be intentionally thwarted by small thinking people who fear big thinking because it threatens their comfortable power base.

Together we will find our warrior core, our inner strength, the root of big thinking, and nothing and no one can thwart us. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 36-37]