1. Positive thinking
During my childhood days, I was a dummy and had no friends. I used to spend
my time reading books. The first book that I ever read was on “positive
thinking.” I still remember the precise date: September 22 (when the fall
equinox occurs). I was 11 years old at the time. Since then, I have read piles of
books by different authors like Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Robert
Kiyosaki, Harry Lorayne, Zig Ziglar, and John C. Maxwell. I awake every
morning with devout thanks for my books. They have not only broadened my
mental horizon but also made me adopt a have-no-stress attitude. Even though
positive thinking is not a science and its physical functioning may not be seen,
it works for all people. Be a believer in its power. It gives as comfortable a
feeling as gives a feather mattress.
Some people have misunderstood the real meaning of positive
thinking. I cannot stand to hear a person saying that positivism is in her blood, and
so she can do “anything.” You do not have to wrack your brain too much to figure
out how silly this statement is. Let me give you an example. Aubrianna was born in
Plymouth, United Kingdom. Her weight is 250 pounds (She is neurotic about her
weight—she weighs herself three times a day), and she longs to become a
ballerina. Do you think this hefty Aubrianna could pirouette many times during a
performance? First of all, it is beyond imagination for a fat person to become a
ballet dancer, and the possibility of her to whirl on one foot or on the points of the
toes is inconceivable. Based on the above instance, you can extrapolate that
positive thinking will not enable you to do “anything at all.” But positive thinking
will help you do “everything” better than negative thinking will.
Unrealistic optimism
A person whose mind is steeped in unrealistic optimism believes that things
will turn out well even when the evidence argues the opposite. This kind of
positive thinking borders on arrogance or overconfidence, and is as good as
“fooling oneself.” Unrealistic optimism and poor decisions are bedfellows.
Examine the following cases of unrealistic optimism:

2. (1) Elijah ran his car into a bus. He wrecked his car, and three people are now
suing him. His life is going to hell in a handbasket. Yet, instead of taking steps to
improve his conduct, he is resting at a private estate beside Lake Geneva, listening
to flamenco music and telling recycled old jokes to his family.
(2) Valeria, 15, told her mother a fib that she was going to her friend’s house to
study with a group of friends. Her mother did not veto the trip. But the story was
Valeria’s pretext to go somewhere else. She drove her old jalopy to her flaxen-
haired, oligarch boyfriend’s house. She stood on a disinfectant mat on arrival at his
house. Taking her into his bedroom, he poured a thimbleful of whisky into her
glass and later had unsafe sex with her. Valeria thinks that she will not get
pregnant because of one such incident.
Nexus between life and chess
I started playing chess when I was about 13 years old. (At that time, my
brother was still in diapers. The first solid food my mother gave him was pureed
carrots.) I work my mojo on the chessboard. I believe that life is like a game of
chess. You make a move with a selected piece. Once you lift your finger, you
cannot take back that move, else it is called cheating. In your own life situations,
you might wish you could start everything over again, but it is not possible. What
is done is done. The words you said are said. The action you took is taken. Time
cannot be reversed. You can make a series of bad moves and still remain in the
game, but you have put yourself at a disadvantage and may find yourself
scrambling to survive. Nobody other than yourself can take responsibility of your
life. For this significant reason, you should make positive thinking an integrated
feature of your personality. This is a one-size-fits-all approach to life.
Objective assessment of a situation
It was mid-morning, and the temperature was already above 100 degrees
Fahrenheit. Tiara, wearing a dress of gold sequins that spectacularly set off her
dark skin, was speeding in her car. All the while, she was thinking about her
fuddy-duddy father who did not have a cell phone, a PC, or even a washing

3. machine. (On the health front, which was worrisome, her father had a respiratory
problem and was living in an apartment that looked onto a shipping terminal, an oil
depot, and a multilane highway.) Tiara was so lost in her thoughts that she was not
aware of the diesel truck honking its horn behind her. Suddenly, her cell phone
rang. She slowed down her car to talk. But the moment she did this, the speeding
truck hit her car. She felt like the ground had been ripped out from underneath her.
Luckily, she survived the accident, but not before she was left with a broken arm, a
broken elbow, and shoulder damage. She was treated in a Tennessee hospital. Here
is how she now views this situation positively:
(1) This accident is a reminder for me to be more careful next time.
(2) I learned the true value of life.
(3) It has provided me an opportunity to eventually learn how to file an
insurance claim.
(4) It is an experience that I can boast about to my hubby (sporting a Rasputin
beard) and 10-year-old daughter (with a distinctive ponytail and curly,
blonde ringlets).
(5) It is a tailor-made opportunity for my kitty party friends to kid about my
driving skills.
Terrible things happen alike to both optimistic and pessimistic types
of people. Mind you, positive thinkers are constructive; they extract the
positives from crisis situations and do themselves a world of good.
Kvetching or complaining is an offshoot of a negative attitude
Why do people complain so much? It is not because of the enormity of their
problems but rather the smallness of their spirit. Complaining is worse than
doing nothing, for it digs the rut one is in deeper and deeper. Each time a person
complains, it becomes increasingly difficult to climb out of the ditch he has
created. Complaining is the negation of happiness. It is impossible to complain
and be happy at the same time. So, do not waste your time with complaints that

4. serve no purpose. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no
target: with no aim, they only fall back down upon our own heads and destroy
us.
A piece of advice: You cannot stop the rain by complaining, but you can
keep dry by wearing a raincoat. Therefore, if it is raining, change your attire,
change your attitude, and change the world.
Characteristics of positive thinkers
(1) Positive thinkers are innovative
In this world of cut-throat competition, people are least bothered about
doing things in their own way. My inclination is toward “legality in writing.”
Many spurious authors are busy hijacking others’ ideas and planting them into
their own writings. “Plagiarism” is a Trojan Horse for effective, creative writing.
The same is happening in the music world too. Over a decade or so, remix has
emerged as an easy and chic way of creating music. Fast beats are added to old
melodies, and new songs are produced in no time. I call it packing “old wine in a
new bottle.” The appearance of skimpily clad girls in the videos (a cheap
marketing strategy) helps sales, but only to a certain extent. Every Tom, Dick, and
Harry needs to be reminded that to become successful on the professional circuit,
innovation is very much needed.
Characteristics of an innovative person are as following:
(1) An innovative person says, “I’ll do things in my own good way.”
(2) He believes in doing something special that has not been done
before, i.e., an unparalleled approach is his buzzword.
(3) He is constantly thinking about his work, and improvement is his
supreme quality.
(4) He takes refuge in experimentation
(5) He is a live wire.

5. (2) Positive thinkers grab an opportunity with both hands
Garrett (on the cusp of middle age) had one eternal question on his
mind: Will I ever manage to slake my desire to act in Hollywood? Mind you,
he had all the qualities necessary for an actor, but somehow things were not
clicking at that time. So he waited patiently. One day, he was sitting in a café
when, lo and behold, a director approached him with a script. After
meticulously going through it, Garrett said, “Yes.” (It was a movie with a large
cast, and he would be playing second fiddle to the leading actor. His role was
limited to 8 scenes in the entire movie.) After the director finalized the casting,
it was time for “lights, camera, and action.” Twenty days into the shoot,
everything was going well when disaster struck. The lead actor was severely
injured while doing a stunt scene and was advised to take four months of
complete bed rest. The director seethed with anger, dropped the injured actor
from his movie, and offered the lead role to Garrett. Garrett was jubilant (he
turned three somersaults on the lawn), and he displayed his full acting
potential. Eventually, the filmmaking process was completed, and the film was
ready for screening in movie theaters. A few days after its release, the movie
generated whopping sums of money. It was a runaway hit. Owing to this,
Garrett was now awash in movie offers from different directors. His face was
splashed on billboards and the sides of buses and cabs. To take his popularity
to the next level, an ice cream manufacturing company molded his muscular
torso into an ice-cream.
(3) Positive thinkers love challenges
For almost 2000 years, athletes put in high-voltage efforts to run a
mile in less than four minutes, but they did not succeed. So they gave up and
treated this goal as unachievable.
Roger Banister, however, had a different outlook on this challenge. He
ran a mile in less than four minutes, accomplishing a groundbreaking achievement
on May 6, 1954. This achievement galvanized other runners. “If Roger Banister, a
normal human being like us, can do it, why can’t we?” was the thought of other
runners. “Eureka!” they shouted, after covering the same distance (running a mile)
in less than four minutes.
Banister became a trendsetter because he challenged the status quo. In
the media, he attracted many column inches. Remember, a real champion has

6. unshakable self-confidence by virtue of which he can overcome any challenge. He
is a supreme force by himself.
(4) Positive thinkers build a success team
The appurtenances of success—money and fame—lead to a great
feeling. Everybody dreams about success. But do you know that achieving all these
things and more is not entirely possible on your own? (Every self-made man is
made by many helping hands.) You need to have the company of ambitious and
success-hungry people. Such kinds of associations pave the way for you to learn
new, good points from them. Benefiting from their experiences, you begin to think
like a winner, feel like a winner, and eventually turn out to be a winner.
Aldo, a red-hot positive thinker, has built a “success team” that
encompasses red-hot positive thinkers, namely, Leland, Coleman, Talon, Alonso,
Broderick, Maximo, Sullivan, and Jarvis. Aldo has huge admiration for their
infinite knowledge. He considers them as “precious jewels.” These people accept
him as he is and yet challenge him to be the best that he can be. They also do a lot
to counteract his stresses of life.
The mind is also like a garden
Remington had not been in touch with his friend, Sidney, for several
months. So he interacted with Sidney through video teleconferencing. During the
conversation, Remington suggested that they should meet at their favorite
restaurant, in the old charcoal cellar at El Mollete. Sidney, without thinking twice,
said, “Yes.” The place was a 2-hour drive from Remington’s house, and a 2.5-hour
drive from Sidney’s house. Both of them arrived at nearly the same time. They
greeted each other with a bear hug and went inside the restaurant. They ordered
Gorgonzola croquettes, artichokes, and scallops, and, of course, “huevos rotos.”
After finishing their food, Sidney said, “Let us go to my house. I will show you
something.” “As you say,” was the reply from Remington. Sidney drove
Remington in his car to his house. On reaching his house after a 3-hour drive,
Sidney took Remington to his backyard. Remington heaped praise on Sidney for
his two acres of beautiful gardens intersected by gravel paths. (Sidney used his
gardens to grow everyday vegetables and herbs like garlic, onions, leeks,

7. watercress, and dill.) The gardens included four fountains and a beautiful waterfall.
Peacocks roamed the grounds. Sidney said, “Do you know, our mind is also like a
garden that should be properly taken care of? Just as a garden requires regular care
and constant pruning, our mind needs routine, careful nurturing. Otherwise, with
the passing of time, weeds of negative thoughts crowd out good grass of positive
thoughts.”
Increase your life span by feeling young
It takes no ghost from the grave to tell us that age is an attitude of the mind.
It is certainly true that when you think youthful, you feel youthful.
Pablo is a famous Australian cricket commentator. (He was raised in a
traditional Australian aboriginal culture.) His job is his raison d’être. He enjoys a
cushion of success, health, and happiness. On Pablo’s seventy-fifth birthday, a
young reporter (interviewing him in an air-conditioned, snug hotel room)
commented, “Sir, I take off my hat to your boundless energy. But that was several
years ago. Now don’t you think that you have reached the saturation point in your
life and that it is time to lead a life of retirement?” Pablo quickly replied, “I cannot
ever imagine myself sitting idle for a moment. I romance with my work. It gives
me a great feeling. I still feel that I have the zing of a 20-something youth. I prefer
having no expiration date.”