SHARE THE JOURNEY

On Oct. 4, 2004, millions followed the progress of SpaceShipOne, Virgin Galactic’s prototype, private space vessel as it soared into sub-orbital flight to claim the Ansari X-Prize — a $10 million (US) prize given to the first commercial enterprise to make it into space in a private craft twice within a two-week period.

SpaceShipOne made three such flights by the 4^th of October. Crowds gathered in the bleak California desert to watch the brilliant launch and return flight. Thanks to global communication and online access, millions followed the progress of the oddly-shaped craft as it carried the dreams of every would-be civilian astronaut into the stratosphere and beyond.

Why did so many take such in interest in the historic flight? We all wanted to share the journey. As if by some kind of evolutionary switch, we realized this was some kind of great leap forward in our civilization’s progress. We were infected with a feverish desire to follow the heart of poet John Gillespie who wrote in his master work High Flight: “I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.”

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and his partners showed the world the power of sharing a positive attitude. Catapulted by SpaceShipOne’s success, Virgin announced its intention to offer the same sub-orbital flights to consumers with the construction of SpaceShipTwo. Indeed, the infectious enthusiasm for manned space flight became even more evident on April 30, 2007, when the Sydney Morning Herald announced that a Brisbane woman, Glenys Ambe, had become the first traveler to book a flight on Virgin Galactic. Ambe paid about $242,000 (AUD) for the chance to follow her dream and obtain the official title of “astronaut.”

Without a strong dose of positive attitude, Virgin’s quest for commercial space flight would have surely fizzled on the launching pad. Branson’s obvious love for space flight is evident — the result of a “True North” attitude: “[It’s] just the start of what we believe will be a new era in the history of mankind, one day making the affordable exploration of space by human beings a real possibility.”[1]

What about your attitude? Are you spreading joy, enthusiasm and hope among your coworkers, colleagues, family and friends or are you infecting everyone you meet with the chronic malady of bitterness, rage and non-responsibility.

At this point, I hope you have agreed to at least try to make adjustments to your Life Compass by trying on a positive attitude. If you have, now is the perfect time to brainstorm new ways to spread the wealth that you’ve claimed. Here is one suggestion to start you on the path.  This and the activities you will find in the exercises at the module’s end, will not only help spread a winning attitude within your community, but they will also help reinforce the habits of excellence you need every day.

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Some symbolic ways you can celebrate your new attitude include (but of course are never limited to) the following:

1. Buy a brass compass or other meaningful memento to carry with you, signifying your decision to start a new True North direction towards success. Have it engraved with the date of change and your favorite quote.

2. Plant a tree in your yard (or bonsai in your flower box) to signify a new era of upward growth.

3. Give anonymously to a worthwhile charity. Pay by check and keep the canceled copy as a reminder of the day when you decided to become a giver.

4. Begin a daily, personal journal. Call it “The First Days of the Rest of My Life.”

5. Find an artistic work that inspires you and display it in a prominent place. It makes no difference if it’s an original or a more budget-friendly reproduction. The inspirational value outweighs the price tag.

6. Start a Web log (blog). An inexpensive and easy-to-learn online journal can help you put the principles you learn into your own words and provide your readers with a beacon of inspiration and information.

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H. Attitude is a matter of choice

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

—Abraham Lincoln

Perhaps it’s time for some very direct words: You, the reader, could peruse hundreds of self-growth books, DVDs and audio-books. You can attend seminars ranging in price from free to five-figures. You can absorb years of platitudes, training and mental preparation. While these are all valuable practices, they are empty without one simple thing: The willingness to begin the journey with your new attitude —  putting down the map and travelling the territory.

Adopting a new, more positive attitude — a True North compass setting — means making a conscious choice to change.

There comes a time in every effective person’s life when he or she must put away the excuses — “cursed by genetics,” “bad luck,” not liked by peers, etc. — and simply choose to change.

In a 2005 online article, meditation instructor and author Essa Alraune writes about how she discovered the power of choice:

When something isn’t working, I now realize I have essentially three choices:

1. Stay with how things are

2. Change/Alter my perspective

3. Walk away

All three, every time. Looking at it that way, it makes it very difficult for me to use the “I don’t have a choice!” statement ever again.[1]

Like Essa, we face those three choices every day. If you’re seeking to change your attitude, choices No. 1 and No. 3 are not going to work. Making positive changes must be a priority.

To make such an amazing shift in your life may take time. One of the best ways to celebrate such a change is with a monument. Since the dawn of prehistory, humankind has been a monument-building species. From the mysterious Great Sphinx of Egypt to the equally puzzling Nazca line drawings scratched in the barren wastelands of South America, we all need some milestone to establish major changes in our lives — that is why we have developed such a strong tradition of detailed ceremonies like weddings and funerals. When the time is right, celebrate your new attitude with a monument. This could be as simple as buying a symbolic item to carry with you or place in your home or it could be as complex and exciting as shifting careers, starting a new business or moving to another part of the world. These activities have both a symbolic and authentic meaning in our individual lives.

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Flexibility: Change or Be Left Behind

Consider one of the world’s most established industries — newspapers. In the late ‘90s, reality crashed the shores of newspaper companies of all sizes worldwide as consumers began turning to the Internet for news and commentary. Newspaper publishers faced two basic choices: Maintain the status quo attitude of inflexibility — “Why, newspapers have always been around and they always will be! Why should we change?” Or, Adopt an attitude of positive flexibility. Smart publishers did just that — converge Web content as a complementary facet of their newsgathering operations.

Today, even though print circulation continues to decrease in many markets, innovative news organisations are leading the way in presenting fresh-air approaches to the way we view news — offering video Webcasts, blogs, podcasts and numerous other tools allowing consumers to immerse themselves in the news process. Again, it all depends on attitude. Where are those publishers who refused to change? Either bankrupt or working for those who adapted and became change agents.

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Our attitude must be one that embraces change — not for the sake of change itself. It’s very easy to accept any passing fad of the day and call that a willingness to change. It’s more difficult to maintain a solid yet flexible attitude that feeds your specific life goals (more on that in Module 2).

People who exhibit a flexible, positive attitude stand out in a crowd because they exhibit certain traits not found in everyone. These include the following three:

1. Self-esteem: People who are flexible are confident in themselves and their ability to reach a goal. They trust themselves. People who are confident in their own skin tend to put away petty fears and can afford to adapt to circumstances.

2. Compassion: What one trait do most of the world’s religions and philosophies share? An emphasis on compassion. But, how can we live with compassion if we’re constantly stressed about the status quo? Kindness towards everyone — not just a favored few — breeds the kind of adaptability that shines forth in a new affirming attitude. Finally, embracing a life of compassion allows us to empathize with the feelings of others.

3. Hope: Because flexible people express hope in dealing with fellow human beings and ever-changing scenarios, they are able to see change coming and embrace it with affability. Famed motivational speaker and author Dale Carnegie summed it up well: “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

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Change is possible (and inevitable).

“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”

— Famous Zen Buddhist Proverb

In today’s world, things are changing near the speed of light. The technology driving our global economy needs an update almost as soon as it’s created. It even drives many to view modern change as something to be dreaded and even avoided. Futurist Alvin Toffler wrote: “In describing today’s accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic.”

Those who adopt a positive attitude understand that change is inevitable — it’s a natural part of the ebb and flow of reality. As life travelers, we must make sure our compass reflects the reality of change — that means flexibility in our expectations. Let’s revisit Victor Frankl, the concentration camp survivor and noted psychologist. Prior to World War II, Frankl had every reason to expect to live out a relatively pain free life as a therapist in Vienna. Even as he was dragged away to a “death camp,” Frankl continued to practice an attitude of hope and refused to allow his preconceptions to be so rigid as to break under the yoke of the Nazis.

Although Frankl suffered tremendous loss — his wife, parents and home — he nevertheless journeyed on and used the horrific experience to help thousands of others through his clinical practice and his literary works.

Frankl writes in “Man’s Search for Meaning:

“Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it-likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.”[1]

[1] Frankl, Victor: Man’s Search for Meaning, New York: Washington Square Books, 1984

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2. Practice positive habits

Once you have “X’ed” away your negative habits — replacing them with more positive activities and behavior, it’s now time to put these habits into practice. Develop a schedule if necessary. Remember the words of Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Suppose one reflection of your negativity includes spouting off snide remarks about your colleagues the moment they turn their back. By recognizing why you behave this way — through introspection — you can first, identify the negative habit, which leads to a sour attitude, and consciously replace it with something more positive.

Find subtle yet honest ways to compliment those you used to disparage. Don’t come on too strong and sudden — that smacks of phoniness. You may even feel phony at first — like a surfer trying on a tuxedo. But, remember, it took a lifetime for you to develop your current attitude. Positive behavior takes time as well. Over time, you’ll find that your new set of habits will begin to feel natural because you will have become that kind of person — a person with a positive attitude.

3. Visualize Your New Attitude

Imagine you want to commission a new house built. While searching for an architect, you interview two hopeful prospects. The first one presents a detailed plan for your new home. She uses visual aids and her own imagination to help you virtually “see” how the building will flow with the land, how the beams and rafters will rise and how each room will be laid out.

The second architect simply walks around the building site mumbling to himself. He looks at you and says, “Well, I can’t really explain how I’ll design your house, it’ll just get built somehow.” Which architect will you hire?

You are the architect of the rest of your life. It’s up to you to not only live a positive attitude, but also to project how that life will play out in the movie screen called your imagination. Take some quiet time out of your day and relax in your favorite place — the beach, a park, a calming, quiet room and simply imagine what kind of person you would be if you put the principles of a positive attitude into practice on a daily basis. Write notes about the visualization. Certain scientific studies have shown that repeated visualization of certain behavior may help encourage the brain to form neural pathways to make those activities operate more smoothly.

Once you begin to practice positive attitude habits, you will experience the joy of a slowly-but-surely evolving, life — your compass is pointed toward happiness.

But, don’t make the mistake of thinking the terrain will be the same throughout the journey. Compass needles don’t stay stuck on one heading. Notice how a compass needle responds to changes in directions — in a very flexible, almost feathery, kind of movement. If we don’t make room for change, we risk losing our direction and falling back into a negative attitude.

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Success is a Force of Habit

Assuming you have come to this point and decided to at least try to live with a positive attitude, your next question is likely to sound something like: “Ok, now what do I do? How do I make my positive attitude relevant in my life?” The “what” and “how” begin and end with habits. Best-selling author Stephen Covey defines habit very succinctly: “A habit is the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.”[1]

1. Identify negative habits

Our negative habits are like the proverbial elephant sitting in our living room. We know its there but we don’t talk about it. Before we can begin to flow positive habits into our lives, we must define the poor ones. Chances are, that’s not too hard.

In his self-growth book “Real Magic,” Dr. Wayne W. Dyer suggests the following steps.

Restate everything you dislike about who you are in positive affirming ways. Instead of being against your laziness, be for having more energy. By being for your energy, you will take actions correcting your laziness. By being against your laziness, you will stay angry and upset with yourself and thus weaken your resolve to change. This is true of your weight, your addictions, your entire physiology and all of your “bad habits.”[2]

Write down your negative habits — those daily activities you know are stopping you from achieving positive change. Next, following Dr. Dwyer’s advice, cross each of those negative habits off the list and rewrite positive replacement habits next to them. Be specific. If you have an unhealthy attraction to sugary, fattening sodas, write: “Drink 3-4 sodas daily.” Cross it out, and re-write: “Drink 3-5 liters of water daily.”

[1] Covey, Stephen R: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Franklin Covey Co. 1995

[2] Dwyer, Wayne W: Real Magic, Harper-Collins, 1992

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Today, the Honda Motor Co. employs thousands of workers in factories across the globe — all because one man refused to allow failures and unfortunate circumstances to stop his dream.

We all have failures in our past. Even remote slip-ups from childhood can reach into our adult lives and stop us from maintaining a “true North” attitude. A child’s flubbed line in the first-grade school play can stop him from ever becoming an effective public speaker. One missed foul shot can cripple an aspiring athlete’s confidence.

To maintain a positive attitude, we must use our past failures as learning experiences to future growth.

A famous inventor was once asked about his many failed experiments. The inventor replied that, if he made 1,000 mistakes, he learned 1,000 ways not to proceed with his inventions.

Ancient wisdom offers several relevant ways to view failure in an affirming way. The biblical book of Proverbs advises: “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” The ancient Chinese sage book, the “Tao Te Ching,” states: “Failure is opportunity. Blaming is wasted opportunity.”

Once we embrace a positive attitude and discover what makes us happy — what we want — we can review our past honestly, acknowledge mistakes without unnecessary guilt and get ready to build a new path on our most amazing journey.

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. A Failed Past Does Not Define Us

He should have been a failure.

Soichiro Honda pursued a dream he carried throughout his childhood, to leave his native village of Komyo, Japan and work with automobile engines. As a student, Honda had failed — his impatience for classroom work erupted once when he told a frustrated teacher that a diploma was worth less than a theater ticket. He soon left school to search for a job as an auto mechanic.

His first attempt didn’t go very well. At age 15, he was hired to care for his employer’s infant son instead of the motors he loved so much. He eventually overcame his past and was allowed to fix a few engines. His love of engines led to yet another dream and another failure, professional auto racing. Honda suffered a near fatal racetrack crash and humbly returned to tinkering with engines.

Honda finally overcame his past failures in 1937 when he formed his own engine company and refined the way pistons were manufactured only to have his goals blocked by the increasingly militant Japanese government which forced Soichiro to switch his factory’s production from engines to ship parts.

The screaming of Allied bombs foretold the complete destruction of Soichiro’s only factory, destroying his dream of manufacturing better auto engines.

At that point, Honda could have quite easily examined his past failures from school dropout, to disgraced race-car driver to ruined industrialist and concluded that his past controlled his future — that no matter what he attempted, failure would detonate his dreams like those bombs in a final wave of demolition and doom.

Instead, Soichiro Honda took stock of himself and his bombed-out nation. He noticed something interesting. His fellow countrymen were not only devastated physically and emotionally by the aftermath of World War II, they were also drained financially.

He saw that most Japanese could no longer afford to drive automobiles and the nation’s road structure had been virtually eradicated by bombings.

What Honda saw were thousands of bicycles and thousands of riders pedaling between work, home and play.

Undaunted by his past failures, Soichiro returned to the workshop and began to craft something rarely seen on the Japanese landscape. By marrying the everyday bicycle with one of his modified engines, Honda developed the batabata named for the tinny roar made by the engine.

Soon his new motorized bicycle — or motorcycle — “The Dream” was a familiar sight on the islands, becoming a symbol for the “can-do” attitude of post-war Japan. By the 1970s, Honda transformed the motorcycle industry becoming on the largest worldwide manufacturers.

Not willing to rest on his growing laurels, Honda soon turned his attention to automobiles once again. By 2004, Honda was producing 14 million engines per year — the largest manufacturer in the world.

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