Monday Morning

Motivation    8/30/2010



THE POSITIVE PLACE. SALES MOTIVATION AND PERSONAL GROWTH


Positive thinking,
positive effects

"There is a basic law that like attracts like. Negative thinking definitely attracts negative results. Conversely, if a person habitually thinks optimistically and hopefully his positive thinking sets in motion creative forces - and success instead of eluding him flows toward him."
~Norman Vincent Peale~
 
Despite the magnetic principle that opposites attract, I believe in this quote by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the famous minister who wrote the book "The Power of Positive Thinking." Peale made a career of helping people to see the positive side of things, and his teachings attracted congregations in his church, and also in books and over the radio; even today, years after his death, his books remain hot sellers in the field of personal growth and advancement.

What was his premise? That we must think positively in order go get positive results. Negative thinking makes your results, and consequently your life negative, Dr. Peale taught. Taking a negative outlook biases our viewpoints toward the negative, while taking a positive approach to life introduces a positive bias toward seeing solutions and ideas that would yield a positive result.

It's perhaps second nature to believe this -- anyone who has spent even a little bit of time working on his own life will soon realize, as Earl Nightingale taught, that "We become what we think about."  The path we choose determines the destination we attain, and the approach we take, either toward a positive or a negative approach, makes all the difference in the world.

Can we take a positive approach? Certainly we can -- no matter how negative we may currently be, and no matter how gloomy our past may have been, we can always change for the better, and make our lives better in the process.

Let me tell you a story from the life of my family.

My late father died over 30 years ago. He ran a weekly newspaper in our little farming community, and for that paper, he wrote a weekly "editor's column." The column was never expected to be high literature, and everyone knew it. It was filled with a few jokes, some sayings, and a whole lot of hope. Even when the economy was down, his columns were filled with names of people doing great things for the community. Even when he was discourage himself (which did happen), my dad still wrote about the positive side, often using clips from a small publication called "The Sunny Side of the Street."

He was usually expected to win an award for his editor's column each year -- and most years, he won first place. He used the power of the press in that little down to help people feel better about their lot in life, who they were, why they lived in our little community, and who their neighbors were.

To his dying day, my dad continued to write positive features about individuals in the community. He called the feature "Flowers for the Living,"  He said it was stupid to give flowers to the dead, but that we should give them to the living, and that's what he did. In everything he did and said in the community, he tried to make it a more positive place.
 
In his own life, though, there had been challenges he needed to overcome. His father was a mean and nasty sort. Their family was the poorest of the poor. My father told of picking up fallen birds, and making a stew. He talked about having to sell cherries to the passing train passengers, just to get enough money to eat on. His sister told of only having one dress to wear, and their family was always poor, even in the roaring 20s.

Later on, Dad lost the lower part of one of legs, but he continued to reflect a positive attitude to the community, and despite his challenges, there were few editor's columns that ever carried a downward tone.

Did he have a negative upbringing? He did. But he didn't let it turn him away from a positive path, or from communicating a positive message. Like all sons and fathers, he and I didn't always see eye to eye -- but he was always a person who tried to make a positive difference in the lives of the people he knew -- and many people loved him for it.

Can we make a positive influence in the lives of others, or in our own life? Yes, we can. We can choose, no matter what our background may be, to have a positive attitude, and make a positive difference in the world. We can choose just this very moment to make a difference, and to be different in the lives of those around us. We can choose to be positive, and in the process, attract toward ourselves positive results.

 

 

Copyright, 2010, by Daryl R. Gibson. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial redistribution of this document as long as it remains intact with this copyright and all other lines. This license does not extend to the use of this material in a compilation, whether for profit or non-profit use. Join us at http://www.Weekdaywisdom.com.