The world of entrepreneurship is exhilarating.  When you’re bringing great ideas to life with a team of like-minded, creative and energetic people, you bet it’s going to be a wild ride!   Unfortunately it’s a guarantee that there will be stumbling blocks along the way.  What gets me and my team up the mountain is that we have extraordinary levels of positive energy in our office.  Optimism is powerful and we’ve used it to turn even our biggest problems into innovative solutions.

I like to BRING the positivity everywhere I go.  To help myself stay as positive as possible I employ the following approaches:

• Look for the plus side of every unfortunate circumstance. My business bestie once told me: “things don’t happen to you, they happen for you”. It has stuck with me since so instead of dwelling on things that go wrong I try to find the good out of every situation. It’s all about perspective and when you make the commitment to seek out the learning you’ll be surprised at what you can uncover!
• Give yourself time to dream. Save some space in your mind to envision the future. What do you want to accomplish?  Where do you want to bring your team?  What ideas do you have brewing in your head?   If I didn’t take the time to dream there would be nothing to get excited about.  Dream big and see how enthusiastic you get!
• Be thankful, all of the time. I mean truly, deeply, thankful. Life is truly wonderful when you’re appreciative. Practicing gratitude all of the time keeps your outlook positive.
• Get fit! I have to be honest, I hate cardio. But give me the chance to walk with somebody who shares my passion for start-ups and solutions and I don’t even know I am doing it. Find something you like and just do it, once and for all, get moving.  See how excited you’ll get to start your day.
• Optimism breeds more optimism. A side effect of hanging out with people who are perpetually optimistic is more optimism. Spend less time with negative people and focus on surrounding yourself with optimistic people and watch how energized you become.
• Face your problems head on. The more you do it the easier it becomes to do. The benefit is if you don’t have to think about problems there won’t be anything to steal your optimistic energy! Not to mention it will make some room for those dreams I was talking about.
• Two words: energy coaching. Having an outlet for the bumps that happens also makes way for optimism. We’re all human and it’s impossible to be optimistic 24/7 but it is possible to have an outlet for the negative so YOU can focus on the positive!

Optimism is like perfume.  You can’t spray it on yourself without getting it on everybody around you.   I say spray liberally, work on yourself and see how everybody around you reaps the rewards!

Happy Monday!