Everyone loves a positive person. But if you are thinking about plopping down $100 to attend a seminar on success, let me save you that $100. The speaker will tell you to expect good things, keep your chin high, and to only see the sunshine, and never the rain.
A positive spirit goes a long way. But success is about more than assuming the best, then sitting back until it happens.
In his classic book, Good to Great, Jim Collins asked James Stockdale about the prisoners who didn’t survive their captivity in North Vietnam. According to Stockdale, it was the optimists who didn’t make it. Why? They were perpetually disappointed by false expectations.
The key to a big win is not to wait on it, but to create it.
An eight-year-old baseball player was asked by another kid who was winning the game. He said, “We’re ahead!” When the other boy said, “But the scoreboard says we’re down, 20-0,” the first boy said, “Yeah, but we haven’t batted yet!”
We all love that kind of optimism. But the truth is, his team was still down, 20-0.
The solution? Admit reality – then go do something about it.
Recovery Step: The Bible says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Embrace reality. Then do something about it.
