CHAPTER 1
Trade Being Your Own Worst Enemy to Become Your Own Best Supporter
âGet busy living, or get busy dying!â âMorgan Freeman as âRedâ in The Shawshank Redemption
Every book has a beginning, so letâs start where every book ought to beginâwhatâs in it for you?
Iâm assuming that you picked up this book because you want practical insights you can use right away to better your life on and off the job. You want to be affirmed for what you do well, and you want to be better for having invested the time in reading this book.
You also read self-help books to know that youâre not alone. You want to know that youâre not the only one who struggles with making life work, and you want a few new, tried-and-true insights that you can use to make your lifeâs journey just a little more satisfying and successful.
âI prepare for the tough times by reading biographies. It reminds me that famous people never had it easy. Their lives are all stories of people who had to overcome obstacles over and over again. In his first court experience, the judge told Richard Nixon that he was the worst prepared lawyer heâd ever seen. George Patton was dyslexic and graduated last in his class at West Point. They persevered; I have to persevere!â
âRandy Voeltz
Weâre facing some challenging circumstances, and people are looking for positive answers. Every age has its share of struggles, but when the tough times hit, they have a way of getting everyoneâs attention.
Facing continued downsizing and more layoffs, a manager at one of my leadership training events added a sharper edge to an enduring clichĂ©: âWhen they hired me, I was promised a rose garden. But they forgot to tell me that these rosebushes have some pretty nasty thorns. I hope youâre going to provide some pruning shears to help me find a way out of this mess!â When youâre encountering difficult situations, you want answers. When life gives you a headache, you want something to take away the pain, and you want to avoid getting another one!
Although youâll find plenty of useful answers and practical advice in this book, getting advice is probably not your primary problem. Youâve received more than your share of good advice from other authors, friends, teachers, and passing gurus. The challenge lies in making that good advice work for your life and your career. Thatâs why this book wonât coddle you; itâll challenge you with some unsettling truth telling thatâs designed to help you transform your attitudes, relationships, habits, and choices. Those changes will help you experience the optimism advantage. But for optimism to work, you have to do the work to think and act differently!
Truth #1: Life Is Difficult
The first truth in the great game of life is worth memorizingâlife is difficult! So get over it. No sweet-talking politician, fairy godmother, or genie is coming to sprinkle stardust or grant three wishes. Embracing optimism is about embracing self-reliance, personal responsibility, and the work of changing your thought patterns and your actions. It doesnât mean that youâre denying reality; itâs simply about positively coping with that reality to succeed in the face of lifeâs challenges.
If youâre lucky, you had parents, teachers, and bosses who cared enough to let you experience the natural consequences of your choices. They expected a lot from you. They also encouraged you, but they didnât give you grades you didnât deserve. They let you win and lose on your own. They made you cope with your own falls and failures and earn the rewards you received.
Protective cocoons may work for caterpillars, but they donât work for people. Shielding children from all of lifeâs natural pains and setbacks doesnât allow them to gain the confidence that they need to cope with the even bigger challenges they will face later in life. In the great game of business, there is no eighth-place trophy for a salesperson who loses a critical account to a competitor. If the quality of your product or service is substandard, you donât get a passing grade. You lose the business.
So if you think optimism means adopting a Pollyanna mind-set where everything turns out right, then youâve got the wrong idea. Thatâs simply self-help hype! True optimists have earned their positive attitude from a proven track record of overcoming real obstacles. They did it the old-fashioned way; they earned confidence one obstacle, one challenge, and one victory at a time!
âWhat lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us.â
âOliver Wendell Holmes
If you are to become a true optimist, start by being a realist. Accept that life is difficult, and then get busy learning as much as you can about the challenges you face. Why? Because youâve overcome problems in the past, you have every reason to believe that youâve got what it takes to overcome whatever problems life deals you.
Life Is a Self-Help Project, but Youâre Not Working on It Alone
Developing maturity at any age is all about realizing that life is essentially a self-help project. Now, thatâs a good thing, because itâs your life. How you define success, nurture your own education and career, respond to your problems, and make your choices allows you to shape your life the way you want it lived. Thatâs both a lifeaffirming opportunity and a personal responsibility, but, as you realize, it also comes with your share of frustrating challenges. As an optimist, youâd want it no other way.
But optimists are not alone, and neither are you. Contacts in your local community, family, professional network, and fellow members of your faith community can help you make your way on lifeâs journey. Although all of these people can support you, itâs up to you to develop and tap those resources. Optimists donât merely settle for the relationships that find them. To claim your own optimism advantage, you need to realize who matters, who never did, who shouldnât anymore, who still does, and who you want to add to your team. The bottom line is simple: Seek out relationships that encourage and support the person you want to be.
Self-reliance doesnât require you to discount or dismiss the importance of others. Itâs simply about building healthy relationships that work for both parties. If you give value, you usually get value. Good relationships are like deposit systems in many ways; you tend to get back what you put in. Perhaps it doesnât always happen immediately, or in exactly the way you expected, but when you find a way to do your part to serve others, people have a tendency to serve you back. When you help a small, struggling customer when they are growing, they may just remember you when theyâre big and profitable. In short, take time to cultivate the right relationships, and youâll soon become more optimistic and accomplish more on and off the job.
Optimists Everywhere Claim Their Version of the American Dream
For people of every age and in every country, the optimistic belief that they can have a dream and make it happen has become a powerful source of hope and motivation. As the United States has become the influential nation that it is today, the importance of self-reliance in achieving personal dreams has been reinforced over and over again. The history of our country is ripe with stories of individual Americans who took risks, overcame challenges, bounced back from setbacks, and earned their own version of the American Dream.
This in no way limits the dreams of other world citizens. After I mentioned the American Dream at a leadership presentation in Singapore, an apology seemed appropriate for what some might label a clear diversity disaster! But a manager from Hong Kong addressed my concern when he announced to all in attendance: âPlease remember that the American Dream is not just your dream; itâs the worldâs dream. The world looks to America and hopes that they, too, can have the freedoms and the opportunities you can easily take for granted. You have no need to apologize for referring to the American Dream. Please protect it for all of us.â
âChildren everywhere need the encouragement to dream big dreams. Iâd like to think we could help them do just that. I love hearing the excitement in their voices when they realize they can do something new.â
âTiger Woods
Throughout the world today, free, optimistic people everywhere share a version of that dream. Many do everything within their power to come to America to achieve it. Some wait years for a visa; others cross treacherous borders. In America, the gate swings in, because opportunities still remain. You certainly donât meet a lot of people trying to get out!
Rest assured that no matter what the country, hope is a sweet-sounding word in any language. Even in the toughest economic times, some world citizens find ways to do quite well. Instead of watching the negative drone of bad news, people with an optimistic attitude and a compelling dream get busy taking advantage of available opportunities. Instead of worrying about the global economy, they get busy making an impact on their own personal economy one day at a time.
This book is full of hope, optimism, and suggestions on what you can do to live your dreamsâdreams that donât always involve big paychecks or newspaper headlines. Many millionaires who were B and C students were the ones who had the guts to start a small business, live in a nice little house, and save more than they spend. They live frugally and are very self-confident and selfsufficient.
Challenge yourself to become one of these dreamers. To deliver on that dream, youâre going to have to get down to work! Success does come, but often, it doesnât come easy!
Choose Learned Optimism over Learned Helplessness
If this is getting a bit too optimistic for you to believe, then maybe youâve already fallen victim to what has been called the depression of our age, learned helplessness. This depression comes from the belief that nothing you can do will better your situation. Modern-day living has a way of reinforcing how little you control and making it far too easy to become a victim.
Victims feel that they canât do anything to make a difference in what happens to them. Since they have no confidence in their own ability to cope with adversity and earn their own success, they avoid seemingly useless constructive actions, preferring instead to wait for fate to deal its hand. Both their headaches and their happiness come from what happens to them, instead of as a result of their own actions. Victims look for ways to blame those who contribute to their pain.
âEverything can be taken from a man but one thing . . . to choose oneâs attitude in any given set of circumstances.â
âViktor Frankl
Optimists are the opposite of victims. With positive attitudes built on a personal track record of overcoming adversity, they believe in their own ability to achieve their goals and overcome whatever obstacles hinder them. When dealt a poor hand, they look for ways to play it well. They take pride in their achievements and look forward to lifeâs challenges.
The choice is yours. You can trade your victim thinking and learned helplessness for the optimistic attitudes and actions that will help you develop your own resilience, persistence, resourcefulness, and results. Every page you read and every step you take to alter your thinking will make you more optimistic.
The Study of Optimism and a New Emphasis on Positive Psychology
Some refer to him as the father of positive psychology, but whatever you call him, you canât talk about learned optimism without giving credit to the pioneer who provided the vision, the early research, and the road map on how to apply the truths discovered. Martin E. P. Seligman, PhD, is a psychologist, a University of Pennsylvania professor, the author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness, and a past president of the American Psychological Association. His earlier works are well worth reading, and his insights will be evident throughout this book.
Before Seligman became president of the American Psychological Association in 1997, an analysis of negative versus positive topics in psychology journals from 1967 to 1997 found 41,416 references on anxiety, 54,040 on depression, 1,710 on happiness, and 415 on joy. It was time to balance the books by studying and learning more from the resilient souls who seem to cope with stressâand effectively and consistently handle the demands placed on them both on and off the job.
âPsychology has, since World War II, focused on the question of how can we cure mental illness? Itâs done very well. There are by my count at least 14 mental illnesses which we can now treat or relieve, either with psychotherapy or with drugs. But thatâs half the battle. Weâve ignored the other side, which is to ask: How can we take what we are strongest at and build them up in such a way that they become great buffers against our troubles?â
âMartin E. P. Seligman
When he became APA president, Seligman challenged psychologists to increase their study of positive psychology. Historically, psychologists had learned a lot about mental illness and how people break down in the face of lifeâs challenges. But why do some in the same situations remain resilient, resourceful, and optimistic? Seligman wanted researchers to find out.
So can you change your attitude and your actions to become more optimistic? You bet you can! Researchers have shown that you can significantly alter the way you think a...