Where is That Horse?
Successful people are optimistic. If you expect failure, that is what you will get. If you expect to succeed, you are far more likely to achieve success. Many people go through life looking for things to criticize or complain about. Others can find something positive in nearly every development.
They are like the little boy that President Reagan liked to tell about. When he got a large pile of manure for Christmas, he began digging into it. “With all of this manure,” the boy said, “there has got to be a pony in there somewhere.” A POSITIVE ATTITUDE will not remove all challenges from your life, but it will be of tremendous help in overcoming them!
About the time I turned twenty, I started falling into a deep state of depression. It seemed to me the depression came from looking at what was around me and realizing it was the same thing over and over and over again and doing this until I was sixty five and then retiring and soon after that, dying. I had been seeking to become a success, but found that was empty. The whole thing seemed to shout out to me about the emptiness of life and what it had to offer. I had a great job, I was making great money, for even at the age of twenty, some 46 years ago, I was making over one thousand dollars per week. But this did not make me happy.
What had happened was I found myself without a purpose and on top of that I found myself thinking pessimistically, that is, I found myself thinking about all of the bad instead of the good. I found myself thinking of all the negative instead of the positive. I spoke negative instead of positive. I thought negative instead of positive. My thoughts were about defeat, and failure. My speech was negative. I found myself saying such things as, “I am starving to death.” “That is killing me.” “That scared me to death.” “I am not capable of doing it.” I am too afraid to try.” I do not think I can.” The list goes on and on. The issue is, I started seeing things through different eyes.
The eyes of an innocent child see things differently. They see all things are possible. They believe all things are possible. Somewhere along the line that changes in us and in many cases it is never reversed. These people go through life believing all the bad will happen to them. They speak of all the bad happening to them and most of the bad does happen to them.
Fortunately for me, I was married to my lovely wife who believed in me. I had a praying Mom and Grandma and Aunts that prayed for me and I wound up finding a person to which I could hitch my wagon and get on the right track. His name was Jim Rohn. Taking on the philosophy he taught helped me to change from a pessimist to an optimist. He said things like: “You can have more because you can become more.” “Success is not to be pursued, it is to be attracted by the person you become.” “Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are.” “A formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” “Leadership is the challenge to do something more than average.” “Learn to be happy with what you have while you pursue all you want.” “You don’t get paid for the hour, you get paid for the VALUE you bring to an hour.” Don’t just let your business of job make something for you, let it make something OF YOU.”
Little by little as I listened and studied I become a person of optimism. I began to believe as I once had in the past, “All things were possible.” You can do the same.
Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…
Respectfully,
Rick Cox