"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."
- Unknown

We're excited to announce that we're giving away a mug that has this awesome quote on it.

If you'd like a chance to win just post your favorite inspirational quote on our Facebook Wall before 5:00 pm on Monday, June 18th. We'll draw for a winner of this Great Thinking mug on Tuesday, June 19th! Good-luck!

It's a well known tidbit that Great Thinkers from the past to present have kept journals, diaries, notebooks and more to collect and reflect.

"Thomas Edison kept a personal notebook which included poetry and personal observations amongst his engineering and scientific notes. In fact he kept 3500 of them."¹

To help you make the dive into journal keeping, we're giving away this totally fun & quizzical journal from Barnes & Noble. There's a question for each day of the year, and a space for a one sentence answer. Best of all it's a 5 year cycle, so you can see what your answers were during a 5 year span to the same question.

We've posted one of our favorite questions from the journal on our Facebook wall. Simply answer the question on our Facebook Post (make something up if you don't want to share personal details) and you'll be entered to win the Q&A a Day, 5 Year Journal. Contest will close Tuesday, June 5th at 5:00 p.m. CST, so make sure to get your answers in before then! We'll draw for a winner first thing on Wednesday, June 6th and announce the winner on Facebook.

For a Q & A quickie take a look at some of the questions included!

1. When was the last time you went swimming?²
2. What can't you forget?²
3. Today were you a wallflower or a social butterfly?²

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¹  http://www.goalsgonesocial.com/ggs2/forms/notetoself.php
² Q&A a Day, 5 Year Journal; Potter Style, Crown Publishing Group

This week, we're giving away a copy of Dale Carnegie's famed book, How to Win Friends & Influence People. This book has been name dropped countless times, and while I haven't had the chance to read it, I knew there must be something to the chatter that's been around longer than my Grandma!

To make sure this was a Great choice I sent an email out to my co-workers and asked if they thought this book would qualify as a Great Thinking giveaway.

DC, our Network Administrator who hails from Sri Lanka, replied with convincing remarks:

"This book was certainly life changing. I read it when I was about 13, and it inspired me to come to the USA! I extremely admired the leaders that Carnegie wrote about and wanted to be in the same environment that brought them to be."

If this book can inspire someone to move across oceans, then I think it's something we should all (me included!) take some time to indulge in.

To accompany the book we're giving the lucky winner a pack of Thank You cards as I've been told one of Carnegie's principles is to "Give Honest and Sincere Appreciation."

So how can you win this self described "action book" and thank you cards?

Tell us one thing that you can do today that you had not planned to do at the beginning of the day. Add something to the list and ultimately to your accomplishments. Whether it's to take your dog on a walk, learn to say hello in German, print out a recipe for sushi or call a friend!

Whatever it is add it to your list & make it happen today! And to be entered into the contest share your item on our Facebook wall (if it's something personal you can make something up to post on our wall).

Everyone that posts something on our Facebook wall before this Sunday, April 29th at 5:00 PM CST time will be entered to win the book & thank you cards. We'll draw a winner first thing Monday!

Face fungus. Soup strainer. Cookie duster. Misplaced eyebrow.

Call it what you will, but the moustache has been a popular facial accessory for men for millenia. The countenance caterpillar has graced the faces of royalty and common man, and knows no prejudice. With that in mind, we celebrate the upper lip plumage this week with a fantastic giveaway!

Many Great Thinkers throughout time have sported excellent fluffy facial flair. The celebrated and eclectic artist Salvador Dali sported a well-oiled "vanilla bean" moustache. Albert Einstein's moustache was complemented by his shaggy mop and his brilliance. Magnum P.I. used his moustache and quick wit to solve crimes and win the girl. Would Sam Elliot be the iconic cowboy-personified without his walrus-esque wall of fuzz? The great academic Friedrich Nietzsche has the kind of moustache about which the amateur grower can only dream. Great Thinkers all, and so we take inspiration from them for this giveaway.

"What is my role in this moment in moustache memoir," you ask? It's easy. Now through this Thursday, April 12th at 6pm CDT, we want you to visit our Facebook page. Like the page, if you already haven't, and then post your best ORIGINAL moustache picture. Like the moustache, we won't discriminate; ladies are welcome to post pictures of creative moustaches as well. The idea is to get your wheels turning and pay photographic tribute to the timeless lip tickler.

Rules are that you may only post one contest entry on our page during the giveaway period, and the photo you post must be your own original shot. There are far too many awesome moustaches floating around the internet to let you simply grab someone else's revolutionary 'stache.

Here's an example from our own Toni Eftink (credit to Arevalo Photography):

"How can you possibly judge the best photo, when we all know that every moustache pic will be awesome," you query? We've got that covered, too. In fact, we've brought in independent counsel to take on that difficult task, but he is not without experience. 

Meet Dr. Moustachio*. Animal control officer, pizza delivery guy, World of Warcraft priest, adult furry fiction writer... A true man of the people. As a padowan to a Jedi, so was Dr. Moustachio to the Most Interesting Man in the World, and his training is never-ending. We're just fortunate that he could take time away from his global pursuits to judge our exciting competition. Once the contest has closed, he will study each of your entries and we will post our winner on Friday, April 13.

The winner will receive this excellent print, framed and ready to hang in your den, bar, study or wherever you feel you can appropriately show your love for the greatest of all points of physiognomy.

Great thinking begins with your creativity, so get the wheels spinning and the cameras snapping. We are looking forward to seeing what wonderful lip wigglers you come up with!

*Name changed to protect privacy and to keep fan clubs from popping up on Facebook

One way to get your ions aligned and firing on track is to get organized, so this week we're giving away this uber cool, industrial-inspired, office organizer as a part of our GREAT THINKING campaign.

So how can you win this puppy? You must be a photo hunting master! We've decided to let you take a peek inside the GREAT THINKING mind of project manager Darren Burgfeld by exploring his office. Take a look at the two photos below, and the first person to correctly post the five differences on our Facebook page wins!!* (You can view larger versions of the photos in the album entitled 'Photo Hunt' on our Facebook page.)

PHOTO 1:

PHOTO 2:

Happy Photo Hunting!

*Please ignore any difference in reflections as these are not intentional differences. Also, prize must be picked up at our office (no shipping on this one).

In our last blog post we asked you to tell us what GREAT THINKING meant to you. The first 10 fans to post a response on our Facebook page were entered into a drawing for a snazzy typography print that quoted a GREAT THINKING message from President Abraham Lincoln.

Today we put the names in a hat (ok it was a Dixie bowl) and drew a winner! And that winner is Jessica S. Congratulations!!! 

New billboards, ads and a social media makeover are all a part of our brand new campaign: GREAT THINKING Websites. And to top it off we'll be giving away all kinds of GREAT THINKING prizes on our Facebook page.

So what is GREAT THINKING? To us it means firing the sparks of innovation to lead evolution; constantly evolving.

Tell us what GREAT THINKING means to you on our Facebook page! The first ten fans to post a response on our Facebook page will be entered to win this framed typography piece that we snatched from Etsy (below). Beautiful type treatment and GREAT THINKING from President Abraham Lincoln. Doesn't get better than that!