Our Weekly Message for December 11, 2002
 

Greetings special friends!

Time is flying by and in another week, many of us will be off for Christmas break! Time for last minute shopping and wrapping of gifts. Don't forget to include a family or local charity in your buying for Christmas. There is true joy in giving.

This is a quick reminder that the initial registration deadline for the Texas Rockette Dance Experience is December 15th. All registrations received after that will be on a space availability basis. Also, you can now register at our web site for a Rockettes Experience in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Cleveland and Nashville.

Here are some thoughts for the day:

"Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty." -- William J. Bennett

"The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves." -- Leon Trotsky

"Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live." -- Bayard Taylor

Last week I included a passage on the Positive Side of Life. This week I found a passage on Are you an Optimist or a Pesimist? by Chris Widener. It gives you a chance to see how both can affect your attitude, health and outlook on life.

May you have a wonderful week as final exams approach, and, as always, please keep in touch.
 

Joyce E. Pennington
President, CEO
American Dance/Drill Team®
800/462-5719

     

  
ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST OR A PESSIMIST?
By Chris Widener

I have been giving some thought lately to optimism and pessimism. Basically, these are attitudes. Attitudes that shape and formulate our entire existence. I mean, have you ever met a happy pessimist? Of course not.

In short, our optimism or pessimism is this:
The way we interpret the past
The way we experience and view the present
The way we imagine the future

Have you given much thought about how your attitude, whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, affects you business, organization or school? Have you thought about how it affects you personally? And what about the team you are a part of?

What is optimism? It is a belief that things in our past were good for us, even if that means they were hard and taught us lessons. It is also the belief that things will be better in the future. 

Here are some contrasts between optimism and pessimism and how they affect us:

Optimism breathes life into you each day
Pessimism drains you

Optimism helps you to take needed risks
Pessimism plays it safe and never accomplishes much

Optimism improves those around you
Pessimism drags them down

Optimism inspires people to great heights
Pessimism deflates people to new lows

There is only one way that optimism and pessimism are the same and that is that they are both self-fulfilling. If you are an optimist, you will generally find that good things happen to you. And if you are a pessimist, you will find yourself in the not-so-good situations more often than not.

So can a person just become an optimist? Yes! We can choose to look at the world any way we want to. We can choose to look at the world and think the worst, or we can tell ourselves the good things about each situation. As you find yourself looking at your enterprise, begin to view it through the eyes of an optimist, and you will reap the rewards listed above, and so will the people around you.

There are tremendous benefits to being an optimist, as stated above. But there are some pessimists out there who will say, "But that isn't realistic." I say "Who cares?" If things go awry, at least I have spent my time beforehand enjoying life and not worrying about it. And, being an optimist, I would view the "negative" situation as an opportunity to grow and learn. So I can even look forward to my failures because they will be stepping stones,
and learning tools to be applied to my future success.

Have you ever met a successful pessimist? Become an optimist and see your world change before your eyes!

Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the President of Made for Success, a company helping individuals and organizations turn their potential into performance, succeed in every area of their lives and achieve their dreams.

 
   

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