The Real Estate Investor Radio Show – Positive Versus Negative Mentalities

“And again, the theme today is positive versus negative mentalities.

Same exact circumstance.”

The Map

The map becomes very important in these last couple months of the year because it’s time to evaluate what you did in ‘09. Did it work for you? Are you in a better financial position at the end of ‘09 than you were at the beginning of ‘09? Are you insulated from the next crash—‘cause we know it’s, what, six and a half years from now. Stock market has crashed an average of every six and a half years, so it’s not a matter of “if” it’s a matter of “when.” So are you insulating yourself from that?

Are you working a map that can possibly give you the results that you want? Make sure you’re asking yourself that especially as you’re reflecting on the end of 2009 ‘cause it’s over. We’re at the end of November. We’ve got December and of course we’re all going to be busy as usual as we celebrate the holidays.

And we’re just not going to do that much—hate to say it. It’s a terrible thing to say probably, but we’re going to be so focused on spending money and the trappings of the holidays that not much work is going to be done. And you can look at the numbers on the sales of real estate; you can look at the numbers of the sales of all different kinds of things.

Retail Sales

You can see it’s the retail sales that are going to go up because everybody’s going to be spending their money trying to make themselves look like they make more money than they really do. And they’re going to be spending money to try and impress relatives and spending money trying to impress kids or spoil kids in some cases. And that’s the reality of December. So we don’t get a lot of results out of December unless you are in the retail business.

So the thing is that ‘09 is over, and I want you asking the question are you in a better position than you were a year ago or worse? Let me ask you this: If you keep doing what you’re doing will you get into a better position? No. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to stay in the exact same. That’s all there is to it.

So today I want to talk about proactive versus reactive. We’re also going to talk—if I get to it—about your circle of influence and your circle of concern. The things you’re concerned about but can’t do anything about. And your circle of influence, things you’re concerned about but that you can do stuff about and how that relates to simply a positive versus a negative mentality.

Oversimplifying

And please bear with me and stay with me as you’re listening to this because a lot of people will try to over-simplify this like, “Well, this is just a motivational day. He’s just going to be talking about thinking positive and stuff like that.”

Well, bear with me ‘cause I’ve got some articles here that I’m going to show you why a negative mentality—and I want to be very careful. I’m not saying the authors of these articles are negative, I’m saying they had a negative mentality when they wrote this. If a person with a positive mentality came in, the same article would be written differently.

And what I want you to do is think to yourself, “If I thought one way or the other—negatively or positively—which one of those would give me better results in the end?” Okay. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

I want to read the Napoleon Hill Foundation’s thought for the day today. “Most failures could have been converted into successes if someone had held on another minute or made more effort.” Most failures—in other words, most mistakes that we make could have been converted into successes if someone had held on another minute or made more effort.

“When you have the potential for success within you, adversity and temporary defeat only help you prepare to reach great heights of success. Without adversity you would never develop the qualities of reliability, loyalty, humility and perseverance that are so essential to enduring success. Many people have escaped the jaws of defeat and achieve great victories because they would not allow themselves to fail. When your escape routes are all closed, you will be surprised how quickly you will find the path to success.”

Mentalities

And again, the theme today is positive versus negative mentalities. Can you see how a negative person whenever they see challenges they see it as a negative, and people who are positive—people that are my mentors and people that I look up to—they see challenges, failures, as opportunities. Same exact circumstance.

Now, let me give you an example from day-to-day. I’ve talked to people who were out of work and they complained about being out of work, and they told me how bad it was and how negative it was to be out of work. And then they got a job. And the next time I saw them they told me how bad it was to have a job and how bad their job was and how they just weren’t getting the support at work.

Do you see a pattern occurring here? Negative people are negative no matter what environment you put them in. They have a mentality. And what do you think happened—by the way, guess what that person is now again? Unemployed. Now, they blame the economy; they blame Obama; they blame this, that, and the other, but it’s the negative attitude. They were miserable that they lost their job. Then when they got their job, it wasn’t good enough. They were miserable in their new job.

Attitudes

Let me tell you something. If I was in a dependent stage in my life and all I had to depend on for income was a job, and I was out of a job and I got a job, I don’t care if I was flipping burgers I would be the best dog-gone burger-flipper that there was. I’d flip circles around you so that I kept my job. It’s just a different mentality.

People that go around and they’ll say things like positive mental attitude doesn’t work are—I almost used a really nasty word—are ignorant. There’s the word for it. Are ignorant at best, malicious at worst meaning misery loves company.

Negative people love to say that positivity doesn’t work because they’re negative. They like being negative. They revel in their negativity. They have pleasure associated to being negative. If that sounds ridiculous—how could you have pleasure to something negative? Really?

Complaints

Go out and sit with certain people—you know you’ve got them. You’re probably going to have Thanksgiving dinner with some of them. And they are going to complain about their physical condition, their arthritis, their this, their that.

They’re going to complain about Obama. They’re going to complain about taxes. They’re going to complain about the real estate market. They’re going to complain about the stock market. They’re just going to—they love it. They love it. And they’re going to get terrible results with their lives. But again they’re going to blame everybody else.

Then you’re going to notice that there’s one or two people in the room that are relatively quiet when those types of discussions are on. And not that — you can’t just sit there and do the positive mental attitude from the point of view of—what are those things called? Affirmations. Where you just go, “Everything is great. Everything is great. Everything is great.” No. The weeds will destroy your garden. There are weeds out there.

But I’m talking about the person that just thrives on that negativity. They wouldn’t be happy without their negativity. You know who I’m talking about. Some of you know who I’m talking about intimately. It’s you. You do more complaining than you do thinking positive, attending seminars, doing workshops, reading books, doing growth things. It’s just too easy. It’s comfortable just to complain.

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