Welcome to another article in the Success Story series. The Success Stories series provides answers to some of the questions about what it takes to become successful. While each of us is unique in our goals and aspirations, we have things in common with others. By consulting my LinkedIn network of over 9,000,000 people, I believe I can find ideas and solutions that may help you achieve some of your goals. While I may not agree with all of the comments below, I include each and everyone that is presented coherently and may help one of my readers.
The questions have been slightly edited for grammar and presentation. Comments and Kudos, while appreciated, have been edited out.
I am a strong believer in Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) as one of the key skills in becoming successful. To me PMA is all about rational thought. Positive Mental Attitude is about finding and selecting a positive outcome from a range of outcomes, even though some of those outcomes will be negative. In every situation there are some positive outcomes.
I ask myself a number of questions to help find the positive outcome:
1. Is there anything that you can do to change the situation? Yes – then do it
2. What Is The Worst That Will Happen? Do Something to make it better than that.
3. When Will You Forget About It?
4. Find Advantages In The Situation.
5. Somebody else has had it happen – Find Their Solution
Click here to find the original question and answer on LinkedIn Answers
Success Stories are part of my Success Through Balance approach to life. I believe that Success comes from living a balanced life. You can read more about being successful and the skills required here.
Sharath Ch
An old man lived alone .He wanted to spade his garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man
wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:
Dear Son,
I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won’t be able to plant any plants in the garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot, for me if you weren’t in the prison.
Love,
Dad
Shortly, the old man received this telegram:
"For Heaven’s sake, Dad, don’t dig up the garden!!That’s where I buried the GUNS!!"
At 4 a.m. the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened and asked him what to do next.
His son’s reply was:
"Go ahead and plant, Dad It’s the best I could do for you from here."
No matter where you are in the world, if you have decided to do something deep from your heart, you can do it. It is the thought that matters, not where you are.
Josh Allen
I will give you a couple ideas that I have planted in my children’s heads.
1) The way you approach a situation impacts how you will leave it and you get to choose. The example I gave them is; if you pass someone on the sidewalk and they make eye contact with you, you can impact the rest of their day without ever knowing. If you smile and say hi how are you they will most likely smile and carry that with them to the next person they meet. If you frown and say what are you looking at they will surely take that with them and be a little more negative.
2) If we approach problems looking for a solution rather than trying to find out who to blame things will be resolved sooner. The only reason to find out who or what caused the issue is for training or guidance so it won’t happen again.
Nobody truly understands the things I have had to face in business or personally. I have had more tragedy than some but less that others but every day I have to get up and contribute to my family, the company I work for, my community, etc.
I have to approach every day in a positive way to leave everywhere I go better than it was before I got there. I used to say, when asked how I was doing, this is the best day of my life. Most of the time people would simply say that’s great but someone did finally ask "why is today the best day" I replied "because that is what I chose from the list today". Every day we get to choose how we feel almost like choosing from an invisible list, now I do understand that there are some days when we just don’t want to get out of bed but we do. I say if we can decide to get out of bed let’s take the extra step and decide to have a great day.
Peter Nguyen
"Positive thinking is no match for negative doing." (Actually, I might have read that in a book whose title and author I conveniently forgot!) I learned that no matter what your positive mental attitude is, you still need positive action programming. If PMA comes from the right brain, PAP comes most likely from the left brain.
By Positive Action Programming, I mean programming your life, people, environments, etc. so that you will *inevitably* be doing the right thing every minute of every single day. (The "right thing" being defined as any action or activity that leads you closer to your goal(s) or that is aligned with your values).
Example: Two years ago, on December 2005, I started my first blog (see below). I had a positive mental attitude of sharing my knowledge with the world, especially young people. But I realized that without a mechanism that would *force* me to keep writing, I would soon quit blogging.
So I inserted a Subscribe box, just to see how many people would subscribe. Surprisingly, I got tons of subscriptions! The amazing part is that every new subscriber who joined my list somehow motivated me to write more and more!
Two years later, that mild literary addiction has become a full-fledged career knowledge portal which I launched last October 9 with my brother Joe (www.careerknowledge.net)!
Dr. Deitra C. Payne
My life is all about being positive. In a world where there is so much negativity and much that can bring us down, I believe it is important to realize that we have control of our feelings and emotions. As a young child, my parents taught me that you don’t have control over another person’s behavior, only your own. It is my faith and positivity that affords me the opportunity to move forward.
I believe some of the best ways to achieve positive mental attitude (PMA) is to:
1. Stay focused – Whatever you decide to do in life, remain focused and don’t worry about what others may think about you or say about you. There will always be naysayers and people in this world who will try to pull you down simply because they don’t feel good about themselves. The best way to combat this is to stay in an attitude of faith and positivity. It will be your positive attitude that will keep you focused and moving in the right direction.
2. Surround yourself with positive people – If you want to be positive, you need to surround yourself with others who are positive. If you surround yourself with people who are negative, unhappy and constantly complaining, you will soon find yourself exhibiting the same type of behavior. Hence, the opposite is true. If you surround yourself with people who are positive, uplifting and inspiring, you will find yourself being more positive.
3. Be kind to others – Kindness begets kindness. I believe when you are kind to others, you continue to create an energy of positivity.
4. Believe in yourself – Even when everyone is telling you that you don’t have the talent to live your dreams or become a success, you have to believe in yourself. After all, if you don’t believe in you, why expect someone else to. As a young child, I was told to never use the words “I can’t” and that message has stayed with me throughout my life.
Renée Barrett
Life will always throw you some sort of adversity and attitude is the best weapon in such situations.
For instance, I think death and loss are just about the greatest adversities one will experience. By age 25, I had lost 3 best friends, 2 close teachers, 2 grandfathers, several great relatives, and my mom.
When grieving there is always a crossroads where you must decide how much you will give into despair and how much you will choose to live life fully. I prefer to honor the dead by living. This shift allowed me to view death as a new beginning for myself and those we have lost. It’s a chance to internalize the lessons they taught us, refocus priorities, and minimize regrets. Without such a positive mental attitude, I’m not sure that I would have succeeded in buying a home solo, starting a business, and traveling as much as I have.
Experience has taught me to stay positive and always have hope. A long time ago, my mom deleted the word “can’t” from my vocabulary and replaced it with "How?" A positive mental attitude to me means that I fiercely fight for what I believe in or want. It means being determined to find a way. This introduces me to new experiences and opportunities which increase my chances for success.
Jennifer McFarland
For me, the positive mental attitude is the effect, not the cause of success. For me, success is all about discipline. Coming from a background full of uncertainty, I have built my success around a self-imposed discipline and structuring of time and efforts. You can call this putting the cart in front of the horse, but it has worked wonders for me.
I take the action first. The positive feeling or outlook is what follows. I realize that this approach isn’t for everyone. However, it’s the single most important factor in my life’s successes so far.
Achal Kumar
Positive mental attitude gives us energy and power to overcome negative elements in life. The only and best way to success is to
• Stride with passion to successes
• Stride with motive to reach on the top
• Stride to win, not to kill others
• Just be, takes on as it comes
• Do not let decision making moments will or on others will.
• Do your best and forget
• Do not restrict your self by action bounded by results, let it be.
Krish Krishnamurthi
Throughout years of travel and educating customers, there are few personal traits/emotions which keep me going : one is my self-belief which keep me pushing towards the business objective, foreseeing & realizing[in advance] the positive feeling of having few deals and then staying focused throughout the process. The fact of life for me is "Once you are committed to a given situation/solution/cause and you go about pursuing your goal with passion & dedication, there are remote chances of facing the failure ".
Francois E. Aubert
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Sir Winston Churchill
I am an optimistic by nature, and yes, when meeting any obstacle, I try to see how this could be an opportunity. I won’t bother you with examples, but try- it works!
Catherine Mc Lean
I am thankful for a positive business opportunity that mentors and trains everyone in Christian business principles. The positive mentoring has had a great impact in my life and I have seen my business (www.7kfromhomeblessings.com) grow abundantly. I believe the key is never to give up, even when the going gets tough, as you never know what will be just around the corner! A great quote from one of our mentors was: "Receiving comes after believing.” My best inspiration comes from daily times of meditation on God’s word and by inviting Him to be part of all I do both personally and professionally.
Viju V S
PMA helps us to fight under various circumstances and makes life easy.
· I assume PMA will help you to analyze the problems as opportunities in your life. If everything is going smoothly without any problems, then I think there is a BIG problem! PMA will aid you to look problems as opportunities and will push you enough to fight and achieve success in it.
· PMA will also help you to recognize/achieve your goal in life. Many a times, we settle in life what we are doing without our willingness. The negative sense in you will always state that the goal we dreamt cant be achieved. Hence we will not be bothered to try it at least. While if you carry PMA, you will try to attain what you really want to do, and give your hands for it.
· I believe attitude is the mirror of everyone’s behaviour. Therefore, we must keep it positive and enriched.
Venu Perumbilavil
It is more on how we believe what we are doing that makes a person go places. I have an example for you.
There were three construction workers doing the same task. When a passerby seeing them work wanted to know what was happening, he asked the same question to all three. He asked the first person, what are you doing? The first person said I am cementing the bricks. The same question was asked to the second person, and he replied I am building a wall. When he approached the third one, the answer was I am building a Cathedral!!
So it is the passion for what we do that counts.
Tara Grabowski
It isn’t always easy to think positive in all situations. When I approach something I always pick and choose my battles. I find it is always hard to know what the outcome is because when you plan for one outcome sometimes it goes in another direction.
I like to wake up everyday with the attitude that "today is going to be a great day" and if it doesn’t tomorrow is another day. I find that people dwell on to many things in both their professional and personal lives. I believe it is much easier to take one day at a time and handle your situations as they come. Learn to forgive and let go, pick and choose your battles (not all are worth fighting for), enter a problem with a resolution instead of trying to place blame on who is right or wrong – a problem occurs from a difference, if you come to a solution where everyone can be comfortable the problem is resolved.
Always stay focused on your goals and do not let the negative people around you drag you into their circle. I believe in karma “what goes around comes around” always try to be kind to others because one day you will need someone to be kind to you.
Bekzod Karshiev
Story about Everybody:
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
[ZT - I think Everybody should have read the "Message To Garcia".]
Amit Dharia
To me, PMA is the state of mind where I inherently believe that if I do what I must do without anticipating the desired outcome – everything will turn out right no matter how bleak or dark situation seems at the present. PMA is not a state of day dreaming that "don’t worry – everything will be all right!".
It is a three part proposition
(1) Keep doing what you must do
(2) Do not prejudge or anticipate outcome (I can only control input – output is probable but not always guaranteed)
(3) Accept outcome and see good in it. Use it to leverage next step.
We forget that there is a difference between what we desire and end outcome. When we see different outcome, we get disappointed and distracted. Having outcome different than desired goal is not a failure! It is called "learning". We have more PMA when we are very, very young, we have a lot teen years but than it begins to wane…We begin to see ourselves not with internal eyes but in reflections in others eyes!
I left my well paying corporate job overnight and setup my own R & D lab with a single aim " I will change the way corporations think of product R & D, and along the way I will help where I can to my industry segment". My business plan did not reflect this goal in five year projections. But I was able to project my positive attitude on financial institutes, corporate clients (some fortune 500 and some small businesses), contractors, and anyone who I speak with. I myself was amazed how eager people are to help you to achieve your dream! PMA makes it possible to see everyone on your side. That is the power of PMA.
Tom Chen
Having been in the sales industry for the past 10 years or so…I’ve always kept in mind while I was cold calling that the "no" I just got is one "no" closer to the "YES". I have made immeasurable amounts of money just as I was ready to throw in the towel for the day, by placing that one extra call and it being the call that was a "YES".
Alaka Yeravadekar
Someone has said –
“I have not failed 999 times. I just know 999 ways how not to do a certain thing."
Guess that just about sums up PMA.
[ZT - Thomas Alva Edison said it about creating the light bulb.]
George C Murray
I was in
So each day now, I play "Thunderstruck" and it takes me back to that day. After that song is finished, there is not a THING that I can not overcome. 16 years later.
Find your song; use it to your advantage.
Vivek Pandey
This is a story about my brother, his drug addiction, incarceration and most importantly my father who never gave up and kept on trying, while rest of the family members lost all faith.
My brother started taking Heroin when he was 21, and this continued for next 5 years. However, everyone, including me were there to support my brother for the only reason of our strong belief that one day he would be back with us sipping tea and cracking jokes (what we usually do when we get together). Our strength and positive reception made us entertain him and welcome him, whenever he returned home after his long escapes (every time he would to rob cash and jewelries and run away).
One winter evening he picked 40K cash from the father’s drawer and escaped with no information for almost 11 days. We tried finding him everyplace with no success, and in the course my father went to a local city on a business trip and he found my brother standing at the gate of the hotel (FYI, my father usually stays in the same hotel whenever he visits LKO). My father found him in a state which I can not explain. He was lean and thin as if a de-skinned body, and had no food for almost 3 days, he spent all his money on Heroin. My father walked while he followed him to his room speechlessly. My father never spoke about the money he picked and his escape and arranged some food for him.
He took him to the barber shop and bought him some new clothes.
Next, my father got him back to the town and this time again we gave him the same reception. As usually, my mother washed his clothes and my sister-in-law made sure to serve him the food of his choice.
In the evening he asked me to get him to a rehab, which I discussed and did. He was sent to a rehab for almost a month’s time and on return he had renounced all his horrific habits. However, this was a challenging phase when he returned and we all enclosed him and made sure that he was always surrounded by family members.
I remember still, how we used to suffer, the days when we used to visit him in jail (yes, he was caught may times for certain criminal activities) and attended his trials. When late nights we all sat together and wondered how and where my brother would be. The time when all inexplicable thoughts poured in our minds and we shared that blank look with each other.
Amidst all it was our positive mental attitude that gave us this strong belief, that one day our brother would be same as he used to be – bright and courageous, aiming always high.
Today, he’s well settled, married to a beautiful wife and blessed with two kids, and even now (since I live in a fairly small town) our local people do not stop talking about his incarnation as it was never expected.
Stephen Jones
My story is somewhat different, having made enough money to retire before I was 30, I woke up one day to find that everything had gone, the money at least!
All decisions in life come down to two options, either keep going & get on with it, or stop doing it. Whether that be a small decision to pick up the phone to cold call a prospective client, or if it’s a major life altering decision.
I stood there the day everything went, looking at two options, get on, or give up. I chose to get on. Giving up is not an option for me, it never has been. Whilst I am the first to take an easy option if available, I will break new ground and sweat if needed.
I think that’s what it comes down to is this:
Some people look to do as little as possible in order to get by, others do as much as possible to enjoy life. Sometimes that means working your arse off, sometimes it means relaxing on a beach, sipping cocktails… you need some rough in order to appreciate the smooth!!!
Tom Phillips
A few years into my career in real estate I felt as though I couldn’t get any further in my career. I was doing well, but there just seemed to be so much more that I could do. I began reading a lot of self help and industry related books and materials. This helped, but still not the result I was looking for. Then my mentor asked me a question; "What is it that you REALLY want out of this business?” I thought about that question a lot. I realized that what I REALLY wanted was credit and recognition. This was more important to me than money. When I told him this he said; "Well, then who do you want this recognition from?" Once again after long thought I decided it was from my peers. I began teaching classes and getting to know more people who did what I did and that I thought were successful.
After a while I began getting the recognition I looked for. And I realized that I had a much better positive attitude about myself and my profession. Since then I have reached goals that I would never have thought possible. I attribute all of this to having a great attitude and showing that to people I come in contact with.
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