Always look on the bright side of life

"Always look on the bright side of life." I happened to have that song by Monty Python stuck in my head earlier today when I thought of this topic. Always look on the bright side of life, find your happy place, it goes on and on throughout media and literature positive thinking overcomes adversity. It's such a simple concept but so true. If you have a negative outlook on something the likelihood of you succeeding are dim. However with a positive outlook the chances are endless. This article will focus on positive thinking and the advantages to when you approach problems with a positive outlook.

How does motivation affect your performance, and why is a positive outlook and being positively motivated good for you? Well being positively motivated effects your productivity and your performance. If you want to do you, you will do more. If you want to have a great day, you will have a great day. Being positively motivated you realize that you are in control of your life and your actions and you can succeed in reaching your goals. So you've realized you need to be in a positive mind set to accomplish more. For argument's sake we'll say that you're normally fairly apathetic and don't know how to improve your mood. There are a few ways. Analyze your work environment. Is it conducive to work? Do you like working there? Now you may work in some cubicle in the middle of an office, so I'm not saying that I can get you an office with a window view, but how conducive is your workplace to progress? I will assume worst case scenario, you work in a dimly lit cramped cubicle. How do we motivate you? Simple, what motivates you, your family, your idols? Bring in pictures of your family, your pets. Put a big picture of Bill Gates right above your computer. To be positively motivated you need to surround yourself with stuff that makes you want to work. When you feel that you've got the will and desire to succeed few things can stand in your way.

So being positively motivated effects everything from your productivity to your mood to your outlook on future events. Your environment and surrounding directly affect your outlook on events.

However you can control how your environment affects you. You can surround yourself with materials that motivate you and improve your mood. If you are happy and motivated you will let few things impede your success. I wish you a happy and productive day. If you don't feel like you are having a good day just look yourself in the mirror and say "I think today is going to be a good day." Because ultimately, how you perceive your day, is all that matters.

Adversity to Victory

The following is a true story about a young friend who lives in St. Louis...

Andy was born with a developmental disorder. The two sides of his brain were not joined normally with each other. The right side of his body could not communicate with the left. At age three, it was difficult for him to walk, speak, and play. He could only echo back a few words, and walk slowly while someone held each of his hands.

Then came the struggles. He attended an all-day center where he was enrolled in every imaginable therapy. He struggled, sometimes in tears, to get stronger. Andy hated it when his parents would leave him there in the mornings. However, they believed - against all odds - that he would grow up to live a normal healthy life. They believed it for themselves, and for Andy.

It paid off. Today Andy is a successful 13-year old high school student. His progress has been nothing short of phenomenal. He receives special help with a few things, but joins with his friends in all the activities he loves. Andy overcame enormous odds to move from adversity to victory.

Ask yourself: "What are the seeds of strength hidden in my struggles today? If I get back up when I fall, what will that make possible tomorrow?"

"Overnight success" is the result of years of tenacity and continued learning. Victory is possible for those who decide it's their most compelling option. They'll find the path to their dream. However, they will accept adversities as universities that will foster strength, growth, and skills to attract the victory they seek.

Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish - Jean De La Fontaine

No man or woman is an island. To exist just for yourself is meaningless. You can achieve the most satisfaction when you feel related to some greater purpose in life, something greater than yourself - Dennis Waitley

Set your sights high, the higher the better. Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future but right now. Realize that nothing is too good. Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you up in any way - Eileen Caddy

I move forward in my life every day, even if it's only a tiny step, because I know that great things are accomplished with tiny moves, but nothing is accomplished by standing still - Zig Ziglar

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender - Vince Lombardi

We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service - Earl Nightingale

All of the great achievers of the past have been visionary figures; they were men and women who projected into the future. They thought of what could be, rather than what already was, and then they moved themselves into action, to bring these things into fruition - Bob Proctor

No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, if we do it well, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things - Channing Pollock

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly - Dr. Robert Schuller

Goal-setting illuminates the road to success just as runway lights illuminate the landing field for an incoming aircraft - Nido Qubein

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary - Cecil Beaton

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become - Harold Taylor

I've found that often, just when you think you've hit a wall, you experience a breakthrough that takes you to new heights in accomplishment - Stedman Graham

Achievers rarely, if ever, see a problem as permanent,while those who fail see even the smallest problems as permanent - Tony Robbins

Ambition is the spur that makes men struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive to make purpose great and achievement greater - Donald G. Mitchell

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it - Vince Lombardi

We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles toconquer and goals to achieve - Maxwell Maltz

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning - Benjamin Franklin

The more reasons you have for achieving your goal, the more determined you will become - Brian Tracy

Goals are like stepping-stones to the stars. They should never be used to put a ceiling or a limit on achievement - Dennis Waitley

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence - Helen Keller

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do
something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer. - Nolan Bushnell

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out if they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got. You'll be amazed at the energy that
comes out of you - William James

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it - Margaret Thatcher

A wish is a desire without energy - Paramanhansa Yogananda

You accomplish victory step by step, not by leaps and bounds - Lyn St. James

There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment - Norman Vincent Peale

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances - Bruce Barton

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it -
Michael Jordan

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first
be overcome - Samuel Johnson

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a
worthwhile achievement - Henry Ford

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers - Orison Swett Marden

Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It's no use. I can't go on. If you do you're licked, and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on - Norman Vincent Peale

Champions are propelled by desire, not compelled by fear - Dennis Waitley

Determine what specific goal you want to achieve. Then dedicate yourself to its attainment with unswerving singleness of purpose, the trenchant zeal of a crusader - Paul J. Meyer

I am a big believer in the 'mirror test'. All that matters is if you can look in the mirror and honestly tell the person you see there, that you've done your best - John McKay

Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible - St. Francis of Assisi

A decision is made with the brain. A commitment is made with the heart. Therefore, a commitment is much deeper and more binding than a decision - Nido Qubein

To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized - Simone de Beauvoir

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade - Tom Peters

Never mistake activity for achievement - John Wooden

The greatest achievement is to outperform yourself - Dennis Waitley

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence - Helen Keller

Only one thing is ever guaranteed, that is that you will definitely not achieve the goal if you don't take the shot - Wayne Gretzky

Who works achieves and who sows, reaps - Arabian Proverb

Every great work, every great accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement - Florence Scovel Shinn

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving - Albert Einstein

I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past - Stephen Covey

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it's not going to be satisfying Greg LeMond - Cyclist and 3 Times Winner of the Tour de France

What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve - Napoleon Hill

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans - Max Ehrmann

The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts - Booker T. Washington

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you want to achieve widespread impact and lasting value, be bold - Howard Schultz

A gem cannot be polished without friction - Chinese Proverb

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible - Mary Baker Eddy

Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's levels of aspiration and expectation - Jack Nicklaus

Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise - Harvey Mackay

The key to achievement lies in being a 'HOW' thinker, not an 'IF' thinker -
Author Unknown

When a goal matters enough to a person, that person will find a way to accomplish what at first seemed impossible -
Nido Qubein

Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it - Sir Winston Churchill

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves - Thomas Edison

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it - Vince Lombardi

Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were attempted - Earl Nightingale

Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit - Conrad Hilton

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything - Napoleon Hill

Each of us was born with wings and has the ability to go farther than we ever thought possible, to do things beyond our wildest imaginings - Barbara Stanny

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence - Helen Keller

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved - Jeremy Kitson

The single common denominator of people who achieve great things is a sense of destiny - Author Unknown

Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are capable of greater things than we realize - Norman Vincent Peale

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe - Anatole France

The greatest achievement is to out perform yourself - Dennis Waitley

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high
expectation - Jack Kinder

All great achievements have one thing in common - people with a
passion to succeed - Pat Cash

If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted - Francis Bacon

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Weak desire brings weak results - Napoleon Hill

There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment - Norman Vincent Peale

Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of the blueprints of your ultimate achievements - Napoleon Hill

To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no else has seen -
Author Unknown

A Tale of Two Salesmen

"The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision." - Helen Keller

"The poorest man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream." - Pennsylvania School Journal

Maybe you have heard of the tale of the two salesmen who went to Africa. The story goes like this.

A western shoe salesman went to Africa to scout the market. He wired his manufacturer, `I want to come home. Nobody wears shoes in this part of Africa.'

They brought him home and sent another salesman. The new salesman hurriedly wired an order, `Everybody here needs shoes!" Seeing everyone bear-footed in that area of Africa may have discouraged the first salesman.

He must have thought, "Geeesh, nobody uses shoes here, not even a hand-made footwear. How in the world can I sell shoes here when they don't see the benefit of it? I better go home." He missed the opportunity to make it big. He could not see. On the other hand, the second salesman thought, "If I can only convince them to wear shoes. If I can show them the benefit. I can almost imagine whole villages buying my shoes. Wow! Aside from helping them enjoy the benefit of wearing shoes, I am going to make a great profit! I can get married and start a family and I can buy that dream house…"

When I first heard this story, I said to myself, "I am determined to be the second salesman who saw the opportunity rather than the trend."

I must admit though that there were moments in my life that I stayed on the "what is" and accepted it rather than on the "what can be" and dared to make a difference.

Now I cannot imagine life without vision. It is not worth living. Which of the two salesmen are you? The one who could not see the potential or the one who could see the vast opportunity? If you choose the former then you have destined yourself to be average or less. But if you wish to be the latter then you have taken the first step to a great life.

4 Key Economic Challenges : Strategic Implications for 08

By Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann (January 2008)

It may be a cliché to say that the speed of change of the world economy is absolutely hallucinating, but it is almost an understatement of reality. The news comes in a confusing avalanche of counter-intuitive thunders. UBS, that Matterhorn of the Swiss banking system, needs to be bailed out to the tune of US$11.5 billion by a group of Asian and Middle Eastern investors, while its American cousin Citigroup is rescued with an injection of US$7.5 billion from an Abu Dhabi fund.

The rising tide of emerging market funds and multinationals from the South investing in the rich economies of the North is only one of the many tectonic transformations occurring, heralded in a previous Tomorrow’s Challenges article, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, exactly a year ago. A key trend I stressed then was the demise of the hub-and-spokes world economy, with the OECD countries as the hub and the emerging markets as the spokes. Not only is there a lot of movement of capital in the other direction (South-North), but also an amazing amount of growth in South-South transactions. Consider (out of an immense array of dizzying statistics) the following: “Trade flows between the Middle East and China last year totalled $69 billion, up from $6 billion in 1995. In 2000, there were only seven direct flights a week from the six Arab states in the Gulf Co-operation Council to China. Today, there are 50.” (Financial Times, 10 December 2007).
While the confusion will continue to reign and uncertainty is the future’s only certainty, it would seem reasonably safe to forecast that the global business environment will be dominated by four key challenges:

Key challenge – China
While all four “BRICs”, Brazil, Russia, India and China, and other key emerging economic players will continue to surprise global business, China will be way ahead in terms of its impact on almost every conceivable facet of the planet one can think of: climate, geopolitics, trade, sport (the Olympics!), finance and forex policy, tourism, energy, commodity prices, infrastructure, etc, etc. On infrastructure alone, China has just over 45,000km of highways, with the goal of reaching 85,000km by 2010. That’s a lot of tarmac! While China’s economy is still small compared to the US, its contribution to global GDP growth is significantly higher (31% for China as opposed to 15% for the US in 2006) and can be expected to become even more so. American multinationals such as GE are looking to China for profits to offset the losses they expect to make in the possibly recessionary US. The question is no longer whether economies can “de-couple” from the
US, but how the process of “reverse coupling” – US dependence on China and other emerging markets – will occur.

Key challenge - Politicization of global business and protectionism
The German business community is hopping mad because the hospitality extended by Angela Merkel to the Dalai Lama may seriously jeopardise German business interests. Meanwhile, Sarkozy eschews the Dalai Lama, embraces Gaddafy, and in the process picks up many possible Chinese and Libyan contracts. That phenomenon is not new, but the pattern will intensify and multiply. As the institutions of global economic governance are experiencing a systemic crisis, a whole spectrum of unhealthy “isms” will be a prominent part of the 2008 global business fare: economic nationalism, mercantilism, bilateralism, preferentialism, unilateralism and protectionism. Earlier incidents such as the aborted attempts by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to acquire Unocal and of Dubai Ports’ acquisition of P&O (through which it would have gained control over a few American ports) will multiply.

The Tata Group was rebuffed when it sought to acquire the American luxury leisure group Orient-Express on the grounds of its allegedly un-classy Indian origins, although it would seem that Tata Motors will prevail, in spite of much resistance and reluctance to acquire Jaguar and Land Rover. The French Government had also rejected the Tata Group’s attempt to purchase the iconic Champagne brand Taitinger for the same reasons. Snobbishness, security, identity, pride, national policy, whatever, business will become increasingly politicized and less globalized. It may also, as it already is in many respects in reaction to the “Chinese challenge”, become a sub-theme of the “clash of civilizations” syndrome. And 2008 seems to be a year when American – and increasingly also EU – protectionist sabre-rattling vis-à-vis the Chinese will become more threatening. As the temperature mounts on one side, retaliation can be expected on the other.
Backlashes in one direction generate backlashes in the other. In a highly volatile global political and ideological environment, companies can also expect unpredictable events in which they may find themselves to be “innocent victims”, as happened to the Danish dairy company Arla in the Middle East (its major overseas market), following the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohamed in a provincial Danish newspaper *.

Key challenge - Poverty, inequality and the “bottom-of-the-pyramid”
Just as the politicization of business is hardly new, neither is poverty or inequality. The differences today are (1) that inequality seems to be increasing everywhere, and especially (2) it is much more visible to the masses in this information age. Though there are encouraging statistics in respect to poverty reduction – especially in East Asia – the fact remains that somewhere in the region of 50% of the planet’s population, some three billion people, are still too poor to participate in the global market economy. One meaningful indicator is that it is estimated that half the world’s population has never made a phone call. As mobile telephony is one of the most poverty "friendly" technologies, that figure should be reducing sharply, but it is nevertheless evocative of our global age. More dramatically, about a third of the world’s population does not have access to drinking water or proper sanitation. The plight of the poor stands in
increasingly visible contrast to the plenty of the very rich. It is said that the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim has been increasing his wealth since 2005 by US$27 million a day, while 20% of Mexico’s population lives on less than US$2 a day. Not only, however, is there a yawning chasm between the rich and the poor, but even among the “haves”, as opposed to the “have-nots”, there are growing and gaping disparities between those having a-hell-of-a lot-and-more-and-more and those having less-and-less. The Gini coefficient (which measures income disparities in countries) is growing by leaps and bounds virtually everywhere. On the basis of current demographic trends, where the rich are having fewer and fewer babies, and the poor are seeing a population explosion, two main consequences arise: (1) social unrest could become endemic through great swathes of the planet, while (2) the great market opportunities for businesses will increasingly be found in
what C.K. Prahalad termed the “bottom-of-the-pyramid” (BoP). BoP strategies are increasingly an imperative for firms, both for reasons of political and social commitment, in order to “improve the state of the world” (as in the slogan of the World Economic Forum) and thereby decrease risk, and because that is where future profits are to be reaped. From an enlightened self-interest perspective, business strategies should aim at empowering the “aspiring” classes and at reducing inequalities.

Key challenge – A green agenda
The environment issue is another radical recent transformation. Twenty years ago the greens were marginal. Today, environment is a key policy and an increasing strategy priority. But while the public policy process – in environment as in so many other issues – is advancing at a snail’s pace, increasingly the agenda is being driven by visionary businesses. The term “sustainable” has become integrated in the rhetoric, strategy and consciousness of business. As with poverty and inequality, it is probably the case that the private sector may have the most contribution to make in the face of the environmental challenge through innovative green technologies and business practices. This is not to say that ecology-oriented NGOs should relax and cease worrying about the potentially environmentally destructive effects of business activities, on the contrary, but the point now is that corporations –not only in the industrialized countries, but also in developing countries – are much more susceptible to environment-driven external perceptions and pressures. None of these challenges are looming distantly on the horizon. They are very much a reality TODAY. Companies not having proper strategies, structures, and especially people, to address these four key tomorrow’s challenges now, in 2008, may not be around tomorrow!

Jean-Pierre Lehmann is the Professor of International Economy at IMD and Founding Director of the Evian Group. He teaches on the following programs: Building on Talent (BOT), the Program for Executive Development (PED) and the Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP).

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