Pay attention to your confidence level when you deliberately choose to be optimistic in a tough situation. You’ll notice that it shoots up instantly because any time you make a positive choice—any time you free yourself from the tyranny of your feelings, take control and steer your career or business in the direction you choose—you exercise real power. You may not be able to control the circumstances, but do you ever command the result.

A good friend of ours once worked for an international chocolate company where teeming bowls of mouth-watering candy sat on almost every horizontal surface in the building. We met when her company became one of our clients. One day, as we sat in the conference room chowing down on the free chocolate, we noticed she never touched it. Not one delicious, velvety morsel. Ever. Why? It seemed like a such a wonderful perk to us—free candy, c’mon! “I decided when I took this job that I would never touch the candy,” she said. “And I never have. We all joke about our company version of the college freshman 10. Only we’re all older than that, so in our case it’s more like the freshman 15. I knew if I started eating candy, I’d regret it, so it was better to just not even go there.” And even though she worked there for six years, she never so much as touched the free candy—not even at the holiday parties.

Now that’s a quality decision. Clear. Simple. Once and done. A decision made for the right reasons.

Challenge yourself to make a once-and-done quality decision to stop consulting your feelings when the going gets rough. Instead, deliberately choose optimism and positive expectation. Clear. Simple. Once and done. A decision that will change your life.

NEW COURAGE AND ENDURANCE
So picture it: you in charge of your thoughts.

You making the conscious choice to silence any negative self-talk that has the nerve to try to sneak in on your day.

You with new courage and endurance, no longer worn out by hopeless thinking.

And you taking hope-filled action that opens a channel of positive people and experiences that flows in both directions: out from you, but also back toward you…

You begin to attract people who think like you: colleagues, mentors,friends, and coworkers who share your hopeful outlook and approach to work and are working hard to create their own breakthroughs.

Since you value their balanced thinking and thoughtful opinions, they’re your go-to people when you want to share a new idea or brainstorm a fresh solution. They’re having lunch with someone you’ve been thinking you’d like to meet. They’re making a presentation at the networking event you’re attending. They introduce you to influential people, let you know about exciting new opportunities, enjoy swapping good news with you, and clue you in to resources that will help you.

Your optimism uncovers fresh opportunities for your colleagues.  Your reputation for designing creative solutions precedes you, putting you at the top of the list when challenging and high potential opportunities come up.

Because you insist on seeing the bright side, you make people feel healthy and hopeful. They seek out your company and
freely share their ideas with you, confident that you’ll find even the smallest grain of positive potential and help them expand on it.

Your faith in others increases their loyalty to you. Colleagues find you easy to be around and so likeable that they give you more of their time more readily. You’re also more effective because it’s much harder to say “No” to someone you like, no matter what the request.

Your credibility also gets a boost. If complaining is not your usual style, when you do choose to gripe or grumble in order to make a point, you’re taken seriously rather than dismissed as someone who’s always moaning.

Look at this ripple effect! Your involvement with positive people yields the very hope-filled, high potential experiences you’re after.

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EXCERPT OF STEP OUT OF THE BOX WITH A BANG!  PLEASE DON’T LET THIS BE THE END!  BE SURE TO GET YOUR COPY OF THIS POWERFUL RESOURCE FOR BUILDING YOUR NEXT CAREER OR BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH!