Optimism Is a Choice
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I read an interesting article that stated each of us has nearly 60,000 thoughts per waking day, one each second. We mostly think about things we have thoughts about before and many of those thoughts are negative.
Mood and memory are linked.
For whatever reason, bad thoughts seem more powerful than good thoughts. We hash over the bad thoughts and we get in a bad mood. People in bad moods think negative thoughts. We should call it a negativity loop.
The late Diana Schneider said that optimism is an intellectual choice.
It’s a choice we must all make. As a Financial Advisor, you can choose to tune into negative information or you can choose to tune into positive information. Choose carefully. Financial Advisors who habitually think negative thoughts fail for many reasons, a major one being that a negative attitude evokes a negative response.
Your job is to influence and persuade, to find people willing to believe that the sacrifice of saving money is worth it.
All the while, you are building a business. Daily you must resolve the conflict created by these two needs. Running the business gets in the way of growing the business. The need to cope never goes away. Choosing to be optimistic enhances your ability to cope. The better the coping mechanism, the less the stress. Not being able to cope kills careers. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
Optimism is the fuel of persistence as well.
It’s a rare person who can build a successful business. It’s a rarer still person who can build a business that demands the owner experience rejection on a continual basis. Negative people have no staying power. Optimistic people persist.
Being able to persist breeds patience.
Patience is yet another benefit of choosing to be optimistic. If one’s patience and persistence offer even glimpses of success, one becomes motivated to try even harder. Success breeds success. Optimistic people don’t give up.
You get the point. It’s better to be optimistic than pessimistic.
Optimistic people have better health outcomes. They live longer. They experience less stress. They see stumbling blocks as minor setbacks. They are proactive and they feel they deserve success. In a nutshell, optimistic people believe in themselves.
And perhaps most importantly, optimistic people tend to be passionate about their endeavors.
Passion is contagious. You’ve been in love. You know the power of passion. There is nothing stronger and more successful in our business than a passionate Financial Advisor. It’s your choice.
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