Lately- actually pretty much all the time- you go into meetings and you have a conversation (in business, your wife, your kids)…you think of all possibilities, the downside, the worst-case scenario.
I’m a victim of that thinking, for sure. At least I had been because I have decided to change my ways. Every conversation I step into I say, “What’s the most I can get out of this conversation. What is the best-case scenario? What is the best result that I can hope for from everything I do?”
I love hoops and when I go out on the court, I think only about winning, about getting the shot to fall in the hoop. I’m going out there and worrying only about what the best outcome is.
Are you thinking, “What’s the best possible outcome?” You can’t completely ignore all the possibilities, both positive and negative, but I’m saying that looking at the positive is a good starting point. You have an average of 60,000 thoughts a day, so it may seem easy to sink into a negative way of thinking. But, you let that happen.
Here’s an example: when I write this blog and I’m hoping that a lot of people read it, the best possible outcome is somebody may change the way they approach something today. Then, the even better outcome is having that person then pass along the blog to someone else.
It’s like my friend Harvey Mackay says, “Optimism is the first step to success.”
