so step number one decide to develop the Habit right now the habit of focusing on what's right in your world instead of what's wrong the habit of focusing on what you do have instead of what you don't have in a situation and as basic as that is and as well as you know it you got to make it a habit cuz those habits form the chain of your ultimate character of who you become and how you end up living your life we've got to condition ourselves because if we don't we'll go back to the automatic
state that most people live in in today's society the way to develop the Habit is to go on a mental diet I did this several years ago as positive as I was I was going through Unbelievable pain at the time I had some major disappointments some frustrations I felt like I'd given it all but what turned me around is one day I picked up this book called The 7-Day mental diet it was a little tiny little booklet and all the booklet really did was for about 12 of the 14 pages it challenged me to really
see if I could really truly for 7 Days live my life without one negative thought and it kept saying throughout the book now don't don't just say yeah I can do it and don't just say I'm going to do it think for a while before you commit to this don't actually commit unless you're really going to do it for seven straight days no matter what it doesn't mean you don't have a negative thought it just means that if you have a negative thought you don't speak it you set it aside you forget about it or
you replace it if you say something negative you go erase what I really mean is this or you say that's not what I mean here's what I mean is this and you immediately focus on something good it's not that nothing negative ever comes out it's that you immediately do not allow yourself to hold a negative feeling a negative thought for seven straight days day and night even when it gets tough even when somebody disappoints you even when you get frustrated even when you give your all and it still turns up lousy listen if all I
did was rant rave on this tape and you didn't listen to anything else I said but you took on this 7-Day challenge you can't believe what it'll do to your life now I got to tell you when I first read the book I thought wait a second being positive isn't going to change my life I got to deal with the real problems around me those real challenges that are out there I don't want to just be positive somebody says how's it going go oh it's I'm doing great and they go why you go I don't
know but I just feel good I don't want to be that way okay I want to be real I want to be on top of things but you know what I thought wait a second I can be positive about Solutions I can still notice that there's some challenges out there without being negative about it I can look at the challenges and say okay here's what's good about this here's how we can use this here's how we can turn this thing around and continue to focus on that so I took on the challenge for seven days
changed my life now by the way one of the keys is you have to have seven straight days of being absolutely positive not one negative thought not one negative expression that you hold on to got to let go of it immed mediately if you do not do this if you're 3 days into it you do well then you have a bunch of negativity you got to start over and you know what after you go about four five 6 days in a row doing really well something major negative is going to happen how that for some
positive programming but what it is is a test to see how committed you really are I tell you something after 7 days you feel like a different person people around you respond to you like you're different as well all you want to do is establish the habit of noticing what you do have instead of what you don't have noticing what's great about a situation versus what's not great focusing on solution instead of problems that's what changes your life here's key number two instead of judging yourself and others decide remember these are decisions decide right now
to become curious instead of judgmental but remember when you find fault in other people when you start noticing constantly how they've wronged you how this person is not good enough or they're too egotistical they're too proud or they don't really care about people as soon as you start judging other people you just got to remember something if you start judging other people you're going to also start judging yourself intensely if you're angry at other people there's a very good chance you're angry at yourself as well maybe you need perceive more and judge less maybe instead
of finding fault with other people without really thinking about what they've gone through to be where they are this day maybe we can get really curious about what's making this person be in the state they're in or what's the motivation behind this person's anger for example a lot of times we think somebody's being negative or angry or frustrated with them but we never bother to find out what's really going on I know myself I was at a party recently and I felt prey to this there was a woman who came to the party everybody behind
her back was talking about how unbelievable tical this woman is how negative she was but you know when I sat next to her at dinner time and I got a chance to really find out who she was I got curious about her and I began to find about all the pain she'd been through in her life when I realized was this woman was just barely hanging on to her life she just need to know that people cared but she was so afraid of being rejected that she put out this ego cuz she didn't want someone
to reject her so she figured she'd reject them first and I got a chance to really know her and she was a wonderful person I'll tell you something else we got to be careful of that ties in with this of our being judgmental out of our fear fear of having heroes in our society today we seem to try and consume them and Destroy them as quick as we can we try to find something that's wrong with our heroes because boy we don't want another Jim Jones we don't want another Jim Baker remember we got to
judge less perceive more we got to get curious instead of living in a society where we're so afraid so afraid to believe in anything or anyone that we believe in nothing at all and we lose our power our power of positive thinking we try to protect ourselves from things we maybe not even need to protect ourselves from but we live in a society where we try and destroy our heroes where we take somebody like Barbara Walters incredible broadcaster a woman of incredible Integrity who gets nailed by one person in a book and it's in every
newspaper across the land how she probably stomped on people to get Where She was That's absurd our Martin Luther King after he's passed on somebody comes back and Stomps all over his career and his reputation is that the society we want to live in any person who takes Glee in watching another person's pain will experience plenty of pain themselves remember the quote he was without sin let him cast the first stone the bottom line is if you go looking for brown you're going to find it anywhere you look for it in others or yourself free
yourself from the disease of making others wrong and you'll free yourself from the disease of making yourself wrong you have a lot more energy to create solution instead of problems it's part of the power of positive thinking instead of falling for the destructive power of negative thinking if you want to get curious just ask yourself what do I like about this person wonder what's going on with this person that would make them feel this way how could I help this person as you guys these kinds of questions you may learn something about how human beings
operate about their motivations maybe even some things about how to support yourself as you try to support others remember get curious instead of judgmental here's key number three if you really want to develop the power of positive thinking as a habit as a lifestyle as a strategy for Success then decide right now to find something to appreciate from any seemingly negative person or situation and develop the habit of giving compliments see if you really want to have some more positive feelings in your life you got to keep focusing on what's right you got to get
curious and most importantly you got to find something to appreciate even in the tough times because in reality as we've talked about so often before the toughest times in your life sometimes provide you with the real resources to change your life so we've got to do is find something to appreciate not someday when things work out we got to appreciate where we are right now and this is something I talked to my daughter Jolie about today cuz she's in an experience today where I thought well gosh she's not being very positive I'm going to talk
about positive thinking cuz she came in to see me and she's feeling really sad she's feeling really down feeling really frustrated you know what her problem is her problem is she tried out and won the right to be amongst three girls who dance in the electric light parade at Disneyland that was about 3 or 4 months ago she's been going there after school every day driving from San Diego up to Anaheim burning herself into the ground getting up and going to school to be a straight A student still and trying to visit with her family
and her boyfriend and she found herself maxing out I think about her problem her problem is that she gets to be at Disneyland and fulfill a childhood fantasy her problem is that she loves her family and wants to be with them as well her problem is she loves to be at school and really do that her problem is she has so much abundance that she has to figure out how to get all one day and she can't do it and she's physically burning out that's her problem you know what she says gosh I want to
be home I want to be with you guys and all these things I want I don't want to miss out on all this great time we have together I want to be with you guys I said but honey look what you're doing she goes yeah well I don't want to miss out on Disneyland either I don't want to miss out on my career and what I'm doing and what's going on what's the problem the problem is she's finding out what's negative in both situations she's focusing on what she doesn't have instead of what she does
have now I could be negative about that and say gosh be more positive but you know what in reality I realized being negative in this situation may not be bad what do I mean I don't mean being negative I mean being intelligent I mean being critical in your thinking seeing what you don't have is sometimes useful too this is what I promised you in terms of the power of negative thinking here's how negative thinking be useful I sat down with her and I said honey I said let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of both
let's not just be positive let's look at it the whole thing is positive let's know that no matter what you choose You've Won you have what most people dream about but for a moment let's be a little bit critical what do you love about Disneyland what's great about it what is it giving you and let's ask the question that maybe we don't ask very times when we're just being purely positive what isn't it giving you what are you afraid about what are you missing by being there what's great about being at home more what's great
about those things what's not great about that be honest if you were there what might happen that's not good what might you miss out on and you know what by getting her to use both positive and negative thinking or to be more accurate positive thinking and some critical thinking looking at what isn't there for the moment what she is missing out on and allowing that pain to motivate her she was able to clarify what's most important in her life and what's the best way to do that and she came up with a plan that totally
empowered her after a couple hours of conversation and fun she looks better than she has in about 6 months because she's finally resolved what's most important and sometimes just being positive and keeping a stiff upper lip isn't enough sometimes you got to stop and say I am positive I'm going to approach this from a positive way I'm going to stay in a positive state but when to ask some questions some people may think of as negative which is what isn't working CU if you're not willing to look at what isn't working you can get yourself
in trouble so when I say number three is develop the habit of noticing something you can appreciate out of the situation even something that seems to be negative when what I mean by that is find out what's working but also appreciate what isn't working appreciate it enough that maybe it creates enough pain for you to want to make a change hey being purely positive all the time is not the ultimate solution being purely positive 98% of the time to me is the solution remember our steps number one you're going to focus on how it really
is and that's what we did today Jolie and I sat down and said let's see how it really is let's not just be positive let's stop for a second how is it really what's good what isn't good what's great what isn't great in this context everything is great but comparatively what's great what's not in both situations now how do you really want it and she decided how she want it now what are we going to do to make that happen and she began to take actions that have changed her life probably will affect the direction
of her life maybe even her career and she feels joyous and excited cuz she went through the steps that's the balance between positive and negative thinking but one thing you got to remember you're going to spend most of your time being positive once you see how it is that's it decide what you want and make it happen don't keep going back and saying oh yeah but it's not working see balance doesn't mean you spend 50% of your time positive 50% of your time negative remember balance on a human scale is a little different negative experiences
are dense and it doesn't take a lot of those focuses of negative to weigh a lot in your life make sure your focus is primarily positive but at times at special times that you designate you're going to say hey what isn't working and allow that pain to drive you to do something that's very positive that'll change your life here's key number four decide not to be perfect and say what I said decide not to be perfect one way to make sure you're negative is always trying to be perfect cuz you know what you're always going
to notice you're not because you're this thing called a human being when I talk to my daughter Jolie this girl works so hard to be perfect everybody seems to love her she's a straight A student she wants to be the very best at school she wants to be the very best at home she wants to be the very best at Disney she wants to be the best at everything and I'm trying to be the best constantly in the past she always noticed what wasn't perfect and that created pain so you can't do that you're going
to screw up you're going to be negative things are going to happen where you don't follow through on what you know you're going to make poor decisions you're going to say things you shouldn't say do things you shouldn't do mess up like you shouldn't mess up but you know what when that happens instead of being negative and beating yourself up in Stand booy here's another example me sabotaging myself decide what you do want and say you know I'm not perfect but I am good and what makes me good and what makes me great what can
make me excellent as soon as I notice I'm not on track I correct it and I get better your goal each day is to get better better not to be perfect and that's all anyone can ask of you if every day you really try and contribute more be more and do more than you were slightly the day before that's all anybody can ask and if you know you're going to screw up and you don't make it a catastrophe it's easier to bounce right back up see the only way you fail is if you quit but
if you learn something and you expand from it and you make some new decisions that enhance your life and the people you care about then there is no failure don't try to be perfect cuz you'll never succeed
