Your mind is busy. Give it something to build.
Thinking for Results · Christian D. Larson, 1912
In 1912 Christian D. Larson called this thinking for results: no thought without a purpose, and every purpose aimed at building something worthwhile. This audio course takes his short book into ordinary days, from a sharp email to the call you keep putting off.
A busy mind is not yet a clear one
On the way home you replay the meeting. That part should have been shorter. At that point you should have pushed back. Somewhere near your front door you find the perfect reply to one remark, and the person who made it is long gone. Twenty minutes of thinking, and tomorrow looks exactly as unclear as it did when you left.
Larson saw the same habit more than a century ago. The average person, he wrote, “thinks at random and therefore lives at random.” His answer is direction: before you begin a line of thought, decide what it is meant to build. He was certain that a person who learns to think this way can change himself and “master his own destiny,” and that certainty runs through every page of the book.
From Thought to Action
The first 4 episodes, free.
The introduction and the first lessons of the course, exactly as they sound in the app. No sign-up.
Keep going with Thinking for Results
The complete course has 29 episodes and 165 minutes of audio. One purchase per book, no subscription.
See all 29 episodesThe full course is coming to the App Store with Audeno.
What you will explore
Calm that leads into action
Larson’s list of right states of mind begins with peace, and he says at once that straining for it will not bring it: peace comes fastest when you stop trying to be peaceful. Then he adds poise, a calm readiness to work. The first lessons take this to a sharp email and a phone call you keep postponing, and you may notice that you can feel a little nervous and still begin.
Wanting more without punishing yourself
Larson pairs aspiration with contentment and gratitude: keep reaching, and see what the present already holds. The course brings this to familiar moments: someone else’s brilliant presentation, help you barely noticed, a mistake already fixed that you keep reproaching yourself for. On that last one his advice is short: “Forgive everybody, even yourself.”
One purpose for the present
Larson asks for something definite to work for now, and for your whole attention on it. Do your present work so well, he writes, that it becomes a stepping stone to something better. The lessons carry this into a day of crossed-off tasks that went nowhere, and into seven open tabs beside a nearly empty document.
Seeing past the first impression
The last part of the book turns to possibility. Larson held that a person’s mistakes do not constitute the person, and that to a mind moving forward a disappointment is always an open door to something better. The course takes on the harder moments too: a drawing that failed, a project shut down after months of work, a rejection that feels like a verdict on the whole idea.
Is this book for you?
- A sharp email arrives, and you are composing your reply before you reach the end of it.
- A five-minute call has sat on your list for days. You are not even nervous any more, and you still have not made it.
- Every task is crossed off by evening, and you still could not say where the day was going.
The state you act from
- ↗Free
A Thought Should Change Something
Introduction · 4 min · A busy mind is not always a clear mind. Meet Larson’s book and the central question of this course: what does a thought change in the action we take next?
- 01Free
Why “Calm Down” Doesn’t Help
Lesson · 5 min · A harsh email makes you want to send a harsh reply. Explore how to avoid adding a demand for instant calm to the tension you already feel.
- 02Free
Calm and Ready to Act
Lesson · 6 min · The worry has passed, but the important call still hasn’t been made. Discover how calm readiness differs from simply feeling less anxious.
- 03Free
Finding Common Ground Without Losing Yourself
Lesson · 6 min · One trip, two very different ideas of a vacation. Find a way to coordinate your actions without asking the other person to change their whole personality.
- ↺In the full course
One Difficult Conversation
Review · 5 min · The renovation is delayed again. Bring calm, readiness to act, and coordinated action together in a conversation where you badly want to blame someone.
- 04In the full course
Getting Better or Looking Better?
Lesson · 6 min · Someone else’s brilliant presentation makes you doubt your own. Distinguish the desire to make an impression from the desire to genuinely learn.
- 05In the full course
Notice First, Then Say Thank You
Lesson · 5 min · After a successful meeting, someone else’s help can quickly fade from memory. Explore why gratitude begins with noticing a specific contribution.
- 06In the full course
Optimism That Sees the Problem
Lesson · 5 min · The exhibition opens tomorrow, but some of the work won’t arrive. Learn to see the problem honestly while still looking for available solutions.
- ↺In the full course
Three Ways to See One Attempt
Review · 5 min · Dinner for friends didn’t turn out like the photograph. Bring growth, gratitude, and optimism together so one disappointing result doesn’t erase the whole evening.
- 07In the full course
Supporting Someone Without Taking Away Their Strength
Lesson · 6 min · A friend is turned down after a job interview. We look for support that acknowledges his feelings and leaves him involved in his own life.
- 08In the full course
Strength Without Controlling Others
Lesson · 6 min · You have handed over a task, but you keep correcting every detail. Where does responsibility for the result end and unnecessary control begin?
- 09In the full course
Correcting a Mistake Without Punishing Yourself
Lesson · 6 min · The incorrect file has been replaced, but the self-reproach goes on. We separate responsible correction from an inner punishment that teaches nothing.
- ↺In the full course
Protecting What Is Beginning to Grow
Review · 5 min · Your sister shows you her first video, and you immediately see the weaknesses. We revisit support, preserving her ownership of the work, and helping with a specific improvement.
Where your thoughts are headed
- 10In the full course
A Purpose Is Bigger Than a To-Do List
Lesson · 5 min · Every task is crossed off, yet you feel no direction. We distinguish being busy, reaching an immediate result, and understanding what that result is for.
- 11In the full course
A Wide World, a Clear Direction
Lesson · 5 min · Seven interesting tabs and a nearly empty document. How can we stay curious without losing the direction we have chosen?
- 12In the full course
What You Think While You Work
Lesson · 6 min · You want to get on with painting the chair, but the preparation you might overlook determines the result. We explore how a thought can help the work itself.
- ↺In the full course
A Day That Didn’t Fall Apart
Review · 5 min · A library gathering needs to be ready by evening, but different tasks keep pulling attention away. We bring purpose, a broad view, and constructive work together in one day.
What helps you move forward
- 13In the full course
Faith Needs a Method
Lesson · 5 min · Picturing applause feels good. What changes when you give just as much attention to imagining how you will prepare for the talk?
- 14In the full course
You’re More Than One Unsuccessful Attempt
Lesson · 5 min · An unsuccessful drawing doesn’t tell us what kind of person you are. Learn to distinguish a particular attempt from a final verdict on yourself.
- 15In the full course
Give a Desire a Direction Instead of Shutting It Down
Lesson · 5 min · Someone else’s success can touch your own wish to be seen. Explore how to give that desire a direction without making other people serve it.
- 16In the full course
When Experience Doesn’t Bring What You Hoped For
Lesson · 5 min · A project has been shut down after months of work. What can experience help us understand, even when it doesn’t bring the reward we expected?
Beyond the first impression
- 17In the full course
A Possibility Isn’t a Promise
Lesson · 5 min · One person sees a cluttered room; another sees a future workshop. Distinguish a possibility, a way to test it, and a promise no one has made.
- ↺In the full course
After a Rejection
Review · 5 min · Oksana receives a rejection and feels as though her entire idea has been dismissed. Return to self-worth, experience, and possibility without rushing to make the hurt go away.
- 18In the full course
What to Take from an Old Book, and What to Test
Lesson · 6 min · We can accept an old book too readily or dismiss it completely. Find a careful way to read Larson while keeping your own judgment.
- ✓In the full course
Returning to What Helps
Closing · 4 min · Return to the conversation from the beginning of the course and bring its foundations together. The aim is a clearer next decision, rather than a perfect life.
A Conversation After the Book
- ?In the full course
Calm That Helps You Act
Conversation · 8 min · Imagine the listeners staying after a talk about Christian Larson’s Thinking for Results. The book has closed, but the conversation continues. Someone wants the central idea made clearer. Someone else remembers a difficult workday. Let’s begin where fine words can lose their connection with ordinary life: how thought becomes action, and why Larson begins that movement with calm.
- ?In the full course
Growing Without Fighting Yourself
Conversation · 8 min · Now the questions in our imagined room become more personal. Why do we compare ourselves with others? How can gratitude live alongside the wish for more? Can forgiveness coexist with high standards? These subjects connect in Larson’s book. He wants the desire for something greater to nourish a person, rather than turn life into an endless inner trial.
- ?In the full course
A Purpose That Gathers the Day
Conversation · 8 min · Do we need one purpose for an entire lifetime? How do we work when so much around us is interesting? Can our present work lead toward something greater? This conversation brings Larson’s idea of purpose into an ordinary day: open tabs, an unfinished document, other people’s requests, and the wish to make something whole at last.
- ?In the full course
Seeing More Than What Has Happened
Conversation · 8 min · Toward the end of a conversation, the questions can become quieter. What if effort has not yet produced a visible result? How do I see myself after failure? What does Larson mean by the real truth about a person? Let’s give these questions room. Here his confidence in inner possibility becomes especially vivid and draws the whole book together.
In the author’s words
A few lines from the book. The full text is read in the app.
Peace of mind comes most quickly when we do not try to be peaceful, but simply permit ourselves to be normal.
The present is rich with many things of extreme value if we only train ourselves to see them.
While the present remains there must be something definite to work for now, and that something should receive your undivided attention.
Thinking for Results
Christian D. Larson was an American writer, teacher and publisher, born in Iowa to Norwegian parents, who wrote dozens of books about the mind and the will. He wrote Thinking for Results in 1912, a short book with one demand at its centre: that thought should have a purpose. His portrait of people who turn their attention away from their work “every few moments,” wishing they were doing something else, needs no updating.
8 chapters · about 23,000 words
The full text of this book is read in the app, in the countries where Audeno is available.
Contents
- Thought and Action
- Peace and Poise
- Harmony
- Aspiration and Gratitude
- Purpose and Attention
- Constructive Thought
- Human Possibilities
- Four Essentials
Get the full course
From Thought to Action: Thinking for Results
Free
- The full text of the book
- Every quote, with its place in the text
- The introduction and the first three lessons
- Texts offline; each lesson stays on your iPhone after its first play
One purchase, $4.99 in the US
- All 29 episodes of the audio course
- Every language the course has, now and later
- Restore on any iPhone with your Apple Account
- No subscription
Coming soon to the App Store in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Ukraine. Until then, the free episodes are here on this site; the full text of this book is read in the app.
Questions
What is Thinking for Results about?
Larson names four essentials for thinking that produces results. Think from right states of mind, among them peace, poise, harmony, gratitude and optimism. Think only the thoughts that serve your present purpose. Use the kind of thinking that builds the larger and the better. And think the real truth about things, which for Larson means their possibilities rather than their surface. The course is built on these four foundations.
How long is the course, and what is free?
There are 29 episodes: an introduction, 18 main lessons, five review episodes, a closing lesson and four conversations after the book. That comes to about 2 hours 45 minutes in English and just under 3 hours in Ukrainian, with episodes of roughly 4 to 9 minutes. The introduction, the first three main lessons, the full text of the book and its quotes are free in the Audeno app for iPhone. One purchase, 4.99 USD in the US and adjusted by country, opens the whole course in English and Ukrainian and in any language added later. No subscription, and the course can be downloaded for listening offline.
What does the purchase open?
The complete audio course of this book, all 29 episodes, in every language it has now and every language added later. One purchase at the App Store price, $4.99 in the United States, adjusted by country. No subscription.
Can I listen offline?
Yes. Each lesson downloads the first time you play it and then stays on the iPhone; a course you own can be downloaded whole for listening with no connection. The text and quotes are inside the app.
Also in Audeno
Thinking for Results
In 1912 Christian D. Larson called this thinking for results: no thought without a purpose, and every purpose aimed at building something worthwhile. This audio course takes his short book into ordinary days, from a sharp email to the call you keep putting off.
Coming soon to the App Store. Until then, the free episodes are here on this site; the full text of this book is read in the app.