Coaching Videos & Tips - July 16 2020 No.661
3 THINGS I DO TO STAY POSITIVE
The most important thing you can do today is be present. And, despite the title of today's Video, that's what we're exploring today. You can also download the audio of today's short video.
Make sure you carefully and diligently invest your time and energy in everything you must do today: from brushing your teeth to sipping your coffee, from today's important conference call to sitting with the family at dinner... everything we must do must be done with care, attention and presence.
And everything that we should not be doing today must not be invested in at all.
You could be forgiven for thinking that it is better to indulge in positive thinking than be overwhelmed by negative thinking. On the other hand, we should never be forgiven for thinking too much at all!
Either extreme - positive or negative - is a stream of distractive thought that fogs our ability to know what is actually going on and to take right action effectively. All such thinking is over-thinking and dangerous.
Take the simple yet devatating example of the positive thinking employed by senior banking figures between 2002 and 2008... and we all know what happened in 2008. Thinking that they knew what they were doing, positively spinning their perspective that everything would be alright, bankers' positive thinking destroyed business, families and lives.
Positive thinking is not the same as knowing the outcome because you've seen it in your mind's eye. Positive thinking is just thinking, putting a positive spin on things regardless of the bleedin' obvious! Knowing that your desired outcomes will come to pass will enable you, when the going gets rough, take right action. Positive thinking disables right action.
So, don't fool yourself into thinking that you can think things right. Far too much thinking in that last sentence. Instead, you need to fully and attentively turn up to the here and now - regardless of what you must do in the here and now (that's what today's Quick Tip is all about). Being present will set you free.
What about the title of today's Video?
Well, it's the exact copy of the title of a video I received, by email, from a business success guru (self-appointed of course) yesterday. And it caught my attention because, well, it was so stupid!
From Nero fiddling to Motorola (remember them) thinking that, after everyone in the world had bought a new mobile 'phone in one year, everyone would buy 1.5 new 'phones the following year; from Kodak sticking to their knitting and eschewing the boom in digital photography to the Swiss world-leading watch industry coming to the conclusion that watches without intricate moving parts would never catch on... our world is littered with people thinking too much and not reading the signs of what's actually happening.
You can only read those signs if you turn up to the hear and now with your positive thinking firmly left outside the door!