Sitting on a plane recently reading the Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma when I got talking to the guy next to me. Ends up this guy had an opinion that having a positive attitude was a waste of time because thinking you can fly doesn’t mean you can and visualising your going to win the gold medal doesn’t guarantee you will either. Got me thinking . Here is the big idea for you .

It wont guarantee you can fly or win the 100 metre freestyle if you never swum before , but it will let you do everything you attempt better if you have a positive expectancy . The best research ever carried out to support this is of course medical research into the phenomenon of the “Placebo Effect” .

Bottom line with placebo is that patients who are given sugar pills thinking they are getting real medicine , respond equally as well as the group who gets the real stuff. As they expect they are going to get better and have a positive expectancy then translates from the mind to the body. Heres a list of things that spring to mind that I think will give you a better outcome if you approach with an optimistic attitude :

1. speaking in public
2. asking someone out
3. doing a listing presentation
4. negotiating with a prospect
5. prospecting for new business

By the way, the best part of this is the cost. Costs the same to be positive or negative. Its just a choice, and with better choices comes better actions, and with better actions come better results.

Great research on this idea of positive thinking can be found in lots of books with my favourite authors being Dr Bruce Lipton and Dr Wayne Dyer.Favourite book is Excuses Begone by Wayne Dyer.