In a 2013 study of the presidents of the 500 fastest-growing small companies, reported on in Inc. Magazine, the researchers discovered that the predominant quality of the executives was an incredible level of optimism regarding their companies, their products and services, and the futures of their enterprises. This optimism was not only infectious, permeating throughout their organizations and creating high levels of energy and imagination among the staff, but it also seemed to generate a continuous stream of ideas to help their companies become more successful.
An attitude of optimism can be developed and maintained in two different ways:
1. Think and talk about what you want and how to get it most of the time. Optimistic people think about their goals morning, noon, and night. They look at their world as being full of opportunities and are always asking how to achieve any goal or solve any problem.
2. Look for the good in every person or situation. Optimists are convinced that within every problem there is a solution. They believe that if they have a clear goal, they can also find a way to achieve that goal. When things go wrong, as they always will, optimists look for something good or beneficial that they can gain from each negative situation.
The Language of Optimists
A characteristic of optimists is that they never use the word problem. Instead they neutralize that negative word by simply calling a reversal or a difficulty a “situation.” They say, “We have an interesting situation facing us today.”
Whereas a “problem” conjures up feelings of fear and loss, the word situation is neutral. You wrestle with a problem, but you simply deal with a situation.
An even better word is challenge. If a problem is something that you struggle with and that suggests setback and lost time or money, a challenge is something that you rise to, a situation that brings out the best in you and the people around you.
From now on, when something goes wrong, you can simply respond by saying, “We have an interesting challenge facing us today.”
The best word of all is opportunity. When you begin to look into every problem or difficulty for the opportunity that it might contain, you will be absolutely astonished at how many opportunities you will see that you would have missed completely if you were bogged down in what initially appeared to be a problem.
One of the most important questions to ask when you have a problem of any kind is, “Why is this a problem?”
Because of the power of your superconscious mind, very often a reversal or a setback is sent to you as a “gift” to tell you that you are going in the wrong direction. Always look into any problem or difficulty as though it were an opportunity sent especially to you at this time to enable you to be more successful in the future. This way of thinking is the way of the superior executive.
Seek the Valuable Lesson
You can remain optimistic in the face of any situation if you “seek the valuable lesson” in every reversal or setback. One of the great cosmic truths is that within every setback or difficulty, there are lessons that will help you to be even more successful in the future.
Here’s an exercise: Identify your biggest single problem or difficulty today. Imagine that it has been sent to you as a gift, containing a lesson that you need to learn to move ahead more rapidly in that area of your life or business. What is the lesson?
Feed Your Mind
To become a complete optimist, you need to “feed your mind” on a regular basis with positive ideas, information, knowledge, and conversations with positive people.
Just as you become what you think about most of the time, you become what you feed into your mind most of the time as well. If you eat healthy, nutritious foods, you will have a healthy and vital body. If you feed your mind with positive materials, you will have a positive and more intelligent and creative mind to work with.
When you develop this way of thinking in the face of every difficulty, you will be astonished at the excellent insights and lessons that you derive from every difficult situation in your life. Very often, the lesson you learn will be the key to your later success.
Positive thinking, positive speaking, and positive visualization—they are the catalysts that enable your superconscious mind to work at a faster and higher level than ever before.
Whatever you think about on a continuing basis you start to attract into your life. Like a magnet attracts iron filings, if you talk and think negatively, or if you worry about future events, you activate the Law of Attraction to bring those events into your life as well. Be careful.
Your superconscious mind requires clarity and commitment, conviction and desire. It is activated by intense emotion, the very best of which is desire. The more you intensely desire to be or have or do or achieve something important, the more rapidly your superconscious mind works to bring you insights and ideas that will help move you faster toward your goal, and move your goal faster toward you.
1. Resolve today to become a complete optimist. Think and talk only about the things you want and how to get them. Look for the good in every situation. Seek the valuable lesson in every difficulty, and continually feed your mind with positive “mental protein,” in the form of books, audios, DVDs, and conversations that are positive and life-enhancing.
2. Use the language of optimists. Avoid words that give negative connotations and replace them with words that energize and highlight solutions over problems.