“If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism.”
Here’s a question: would you consider yourself a realist, a pessimist, or an optimist?
Most people who are optimistic know that they’re optimistic… and they’ll happily label themselves as an optimist.
But nobody calls themselves a “pessimist”...
Instead, they say they’re a “realist”.
And 99% of the time, saying you’re a “realist” is just a cover for being pessimistic — because no one is truly a realist (no one can predict the future, after all)...
More importantly, optimism is the most powerful quality you could wish for your kids (and for yourself).
Here’s how Daniel Kahneman puts it in his book, Thinking Fast & Slow…
"If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer…
Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders — not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge…
This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize…
When action is needed, optimism, even of the mildly delusional variety, may be a good thing."
Wow, right?!
Don’t be a pessimist… and definitely don’t pretend to be a “realist.”
Be an optimist!
How?
In The Secret of The Ages, Robert Collier likens your mind to a radio receiving station. All you’ve got to do it “tune in” to the right channels 🙂
"You are like a radio receiving station. Every moment thousands of impressions are reaching you. You can tune in on whatever ones you like — on joy or sorrow, on success or failure, on optimism or fear. You can select the particular impressions that will best serve you, you can hear only what you want to hear, you can shut out all disagreeable thoughts and sounds and experiences, or you can tune in on discouragement and failure and despair. Yours is the choice. You have within you a force against which the whole world is powerless. By using it, you can make what you will of life and of your surroundings."
He even points out the danger of constant negative thoughts!
"Each of us has within him all the essentials that go to the making of a Super-Man. But so has every acorn the essentials for making a great oak tree, yet the Japanese show us that even an oak may be stunted by continual pruning of its shoots. Negative and weak thoughts, thoughts of self-doubt, of mistrust, continually prune back the vigorous life ever seeking so valiantly to show forth the splendor and strength of the radiant inner self."
Where you direct your thoughts… is where your thoughts will go.
And optimism is a skill. You can practice it, get better at it, and even master it.
You can even teach your kids how to be more optimistic — by displaying optimism yourself!
It’s the best thing you can do for them… and for you.
- Russell Brunson
P.S. You absolutely should read through The Secret of The Ages with us in this month’s book club. Make sure you’re a member so you can join us!
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