Norman Vincent Peel thought that being positive could cure cancer. His book was named " The Power of Positive Thinking" and its primary message was that individuals should never allow obstacles or hardships to dominate their lives. He believed that any feelings of inferiority had to be overcome. If you think defeat,  then your bound to be defeated.

He also believed that people must fill their minds with creative and healthy thoughts and that each day should be started by affirming peaceful, happy and contented attitudes. His approach is based on the idea that for every problem there is a solution and that these solutions lye within ourselves, in our experiences, our faith and our belief in ourselves.

I don't know if being positive can cure cancer, but I do know that being positive is essential to being successful in the Rent to Own industry. An industry that satisfies the wants and needs of our customers. An industry that improves the quality of life of everyone we do business with.

We live in a cynical society with everything from newspapers to talk radio to television programs all living off controversy. You know the attitude, what's the use, all politicians are corrupt, the system doesn't work and the deck is stacked against us. It is easy to fall into this type of outlook and use it as an excuse to fail. People often blame others for their own failures. It's never their fault. It's either someone else or the System or their boss doesn't understand them. It's always Something other than themselves. We must get into our positive zone, the state where we are focused on exactly what it is we have to do. This is the state were we have the best performance. We have to find a way to get into our positive zone more often.

Being positive is a discipline. It is a state of mind. It is a mind set that can be developed or altered at will.

There is only one thing that we have total and absolute control over, and that is our thoughts.

Our thoughts control our action and our action dictates the outcome.

Becoming positive is something that can be achieved just like anything else we set our mind to. In this case it is the development of a positive attitude. This is something that we can teach ourselves to do.

A good attitude and a bad attitude are just two different ways of looking at the same situation. Think about it.

To develop a positive attitude you must eliminate all negative emotions in your life and encourage positive emotions as dominating forces in your life. You must find something positive out of every situation.

Self motivated people view each day as a new opportunity
Unmotivated people are the ones looking at their watches wishing the clock would speed up, waiting for the day to be over. They usually see a huge division between their work and their play.

Self motivated people see little difference. They love what they do for a living and can't wait to get to work in the morning.

You can program yourself to be positive. Make an effort to look at things in a more positive and upbeat manner. You will begin to see peoples attitude about you change. Everyone likes being around positive upbeat people. If you are positive about life and work, people will want you on their team.

We all must feel that we can accomplish things if we are willing to put forth the effort and have the right plan of attack. We can prepare to face the tough challenges we set up for ourselves in route to our dreams.

Cut loose disruptive negative people
The ones that always have something to bitch about regardless of the circumstances. Nothing is ever right. There is always something. The coffee is cold, the fallout is to big, no one wants to take anything home or Management is a bunch of idiots and so on.

These are the people that say that you can never accomplish this or that.

They are the fellowship of the miserable and the killers of the dream

They often look for reasons why things won't work instead of what we have to do to make things work.

There will always be negative people. We must minimize their impact on our goals. We cannot allow them to influence us in any way.

Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching? If it's not it needs to be.

The simplest way to deal with negative people is to confront them face to face and let them know that their behavior is bothering you. Inform them how much they could help us if they acted in a more positive manner. This gives them the opportunity to think about and begin changing their behavior.

There is only so much you can do about others, but you can keep their negativity from rubbing off on you. Surround yourself with positive people and concentrate on not letting a cynical attitude creep into your life. This becomes a matter of your discipline because you must fight off those negative attitudes swirling around you.

Staying positive in difficult times
Change is something that happens to all of us at one time or another as we move through life. Change is not knowing what is going to happen from one day to the next. Don't fear change. People fear change because they are looking at things with the wrong attitude. They always assume that change is going to be for the worse.

Change is opportunity
We need to look at change as an opportunity to become more successful.

If you feel yourself going into a negative mood you must stop and get out of that downward cycle. First you must recognize why you are down, then you must admit the obvious to yourself.

Zig Ziglar summed it up this way

" You are what you are and where you are because of what's went into your mind, You can change what you are and where you are if you change what goes into your mind ."