Optimism and Success

This is Monday, so this post is on self confidence.

As you know, self confident people have three things in common:

1. Self confident people are optimistic.
2. Self confident people face their fears and deal with them.
3. Self confident people surround themselves with positive people.

Debra Benton is a friend and colleague.  In her book, Executive Charisma, she suggests that optimists share three characteristics.

• Optimists find the momentum to move ahead, despite setbacks.
• Optimists choose to be free of anxiety, insecurity and frustration.
• Optimists choose to avoid pessimism and narrow minded thinking.

I would add that optimists are nice, not nasty people.  They take the world as they find it and choose to be pleasant and helpful, not mean spirited and petty.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a series of commercials from Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.  Liberty Mutual has branded itself as “the responsible insurance company.”  Their commercials show people observing others taking the responsibility to help another person.  These people then do the same.  As a result, the world (at least according to the commercials) is full of people who take the responsibility to be pleasant and helpful. 

I love these commercials.  I try to live my life by doing little things to help people – holding a door for someone with his or hers hands full, picking up a piece of trash and throwing it in a trash can, stopping to give directions to people with a map who look confused.  I do this because I am an optimist.  I believe in people’s good natures.  I believe that small acts of kindness are contagious.  I believe that the good karma I generate by my small acts spills over into the rest of my life.

And that’s my challenge to you.  Choose to be an optimist.  Choose to move ahead despite setbacks.  Choose to conquer your anxieties and fears, not let them conquer you.  Choose to avoid the narrow thinking that leads to pessimism.  Choose to be nice and helpful instead of mean spirited and petty.

If you do, you’ll find that things will start looking up and that you’ll get more of the things that you need and want.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for reading.  Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense.  Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.

I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

Bud