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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this video we're going to talk about positive thinking okay so let's talk about positive thinking I want to illustrate what I have to say about positive thinking by telling you a short story so this is a Zen story from a long time ago and it goes like this once there was an old village in this village there were the villagers and there was one odd farmer who lived on the outskirts of the village and he was a little bit different the way he thought his philosophy to life was just something that didn't quite sit well with the rest of the villagers so one day this farmer he had a horse and this horse went off and ran away and that was just as he went out and bought a new saddle for the horse so this horse ran away and it took the saddle with it now the villagers hearing of this news they went to the farmers farm they went to his house and they said we're so sorry what bad luck you have your horse ran away and the farmer looked at them and said maybe it's bad luck but who knows maybe it's good luck and they looked at I'm kind of weird and they said well how could it how could it be good luck your horse your only horse ran away what are you gonna do now he said well we don't know maybe it's good luck maybe it's bad luck the villagers left his house scratching their heads and they went back to their business a few days later the horse returns to the farmer and the horse brings with it three wild horses so now the farmer has his horse back with the saddle plus three new horses untamed the villagers hearing on this news they make their way to the farmers house and they said wow what amazing luck you have and the farmer looked them and said maybe it's good luck but maybe it's bad luck who knows the villagers they looked at them puzzled how could how could you possibly say this is bad luck you had one horse then it ran away now you've got that horse back plus you got three new ones this is amazing the farmer looked at them and said maybe it's good luck but maybe it's bad luck the villagers left shaking their heads not sure what to think then a few days passed and the farmer's son because he had to tame and train these new three horses as he was trying to train one of the horses one of those wild horses it kicked him and it knocked him down and he broke his leg over a rock the rest of the villagers hearing of this news they they made their way to the farmers house and they said we're so sorry what terrible luck you've had the farmer looks at them and says maybe it's terrible luck but maybe it's good luck now this this the just and this anymore how could you possibly say this is good luck I mean your your only son broke his leg surely this is the worst of luck farmer looks at them considers their suggestions and says well maybe it's bad luck but maybe it's good luck the villagers were just aghast and they walk away angry and then a few days later as his son is recuperating from his broken leg he's lying on the bed there the country officials come by through the village and they're conscripted troops for the army for the war that's going to be waged overseas and what they do is they round up all the able-bodied young men in the village to go off to die in battle but they don't take the farmer son because the farmer son is not able to walk so that's the story this is an old Zen story and I have to give credit to John Kehoe who I got this the story from and the way that he delivered it it was really powerful for me because what this story shows us is that who really knows I mean who really knows what is good luck and what is bad luck in our life the wiser of us we see that it's not quite so simple that the things that are unpleasant that happened to us are necessarily that bad for us and the things that are pleasant on the surface are necessarily good for us that's a very simplistic way to think about life and in the end you truly can't tell not until every last card is played out what is good luck and what is bad luck and when you start to really understand this and you start to take this in a very deep then you start to understand what it means to be a positive thinker you can get a lot of little tricks out there that will help you to think positively to be more optimistic but I think if you want to really cultivate positive thinking within yourself you have to start to take on this idea that there's something deeper going on in life and that it's not quite so simple to figure out exactly what it is if you think about all the really challenging they're really hard times you've had in your own life all the really unfortunate times the ones that we would obviously label as unfortunate and then you trace back the ripple effects from that through the rest of your life and into the present you trace that back and you take a look a lot of times what you find is you find your greatest gifts there you find your greatest strengths there you have you find your greatest growth there you find your biggest lessons in life you find your biggest successes stemming from that being born from it so those really challenging times a lot of times they are the seeds for our ultimate success so don't be so quick to dismiss those as being bad and that is what you're doing most of the time most of the time when you're thinking negatively when you're worrying when you're afraid when you're really angry or you're feeling hurt I mean it feels real and it is real I mean it hurts it gets you mad it gets you anxious but if you start to become more of a positive thinker you really start to buy into this deeper philosophy you start to realize that that's not necessary and then in fact a lot of times you're worrying about the things that are really good for you the things that are really going to make you grow the things that are really going to make you successful there's something to this idea that there can be no problem that is not an opportunity in your life and I think this is what the core of positive thinking is is understanding that every problem every challenge that you have is ultimately an opportunity and this is not just some wishful thinking this has not said lightly this is something that takes some study this has takes some study and some contemplation to understand it takes wisdom to really understand this you have to have some life experience to start to see the truth of this the depth of it because there's like a surface level understanding and then how much deeper layer of understanding that's why you have to kind of go back and look at your own history just try to prove it to yourself to prove yourself this is true because right now I tell you this but you're probably saying yes this sounds nice and sure it could probably work for many problems in my life I can see that somehow I'm catastrophizing them exaggerating them a lot of times they don't come true but you know there's just this one problem I've got right now I've got this one problem that's just pure hell it's pure hell it's pure evil there's no possible way that this problem I've got right here there's no possible way that this could have any opportunity in it there's no opportunity here there's no lesson to be learned here there's nothing pot this is just pure negative if I could remove it from my life my life would be happy I would be better I just know it well that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you is that that's not positive thinking and I mean I understand where you're coming from a lot of times I get triggered like that too and I was especially like that a lot in the past and I'm still a bit like that today but you can understand that this is the mode of thinking that you've been coming from for most of your life and that that mode of thinking has gotten you to where you are right now in your life so that's gotten you to where you are but that's only gotten you to where you are and I'm willing to bet that you can do better than where you are right now and if you really want to go to that next level then what you have to do is you have to start to think in a different way sometimes if I start thinking in a radically different way a way that seems uncomfortable a way that seems wishful thinking at first a way that seems unrealistic that seems idealistic that seems fantastical yet there is something to this idea that nothing can happen to you that is not positive I guarantee you that if you really look at it if I really sat down with you and we really looked at that challenge you have right now that's totally unsolvable that's ruining your life if we looked at it we can pick out I guarantee we can pick out something positive something you could learn from it of course this doesn't mean that all the sudden your problems to be fixed it doesn't mean that your problem is not a real problem it doesn't mean that you shouldn't work to fix your problem it doesn't mean that you don't feel the pains of your problem I'm not denying you any of that but I am saying that once you adopt this mindset and you become a positive thinker then you're going to be able to Aikido a lot of your problems the art of Aikido it's a it's a martial art and one of the philosophies there is that you use the the force of your opponent as as a vehicle of taking him down so when an opponent lunges at you or he tries to do some move at you what you do is you kind of roll with the flow you roll with the problem right you roll with the punch that's coming at you and you deflect it and you you don't just stop it or block it or avoid it you actually use it and you transfer the momentum from it into something that's going to serve you so it goes from being a negative where the punch is coming at your face to all the sudden within a split second it turns into a big positive because now you've got the opponent and you've taken them and now you've been able to convert that punch that he threw at your face you converted it into some sort of advantage for you tactical advantage in combat for you now the opponent is lying on the ground and you've got them in a in some sort of pin because you were able to do some move that Aikido the problem into something to your advantage that's what true passe of thinking is and on a practical level this the supply is very easily to every problem that you have I want you to start thinking from now on for every problem that you've got a little one to the biggest one always remember to think what can I get from this what is going to be the lesson what am I going to learn how is this going to grow me how is this going to lead to my ultimate victory to my ultimate success and this is going to take a lot from you because this is something that's very unnatural especially if you are prone to anxious neurotic thinking and you've been doing that your whole life you've got that habit built up and it's not going to be very easy for you to even remember this it takes consciousness it takes awareness because those problems you've got what they do is they trigger you they trigger a base emotional response within you and that response it just comes about or less naturally it's like a trigger you get a stimulus and then you get a response a stimulus and then a response and you're just a stimulus response animal you're not actually behaving consciously if you want to become a positive thinker then you have to remember what I'm telling you now and the next time that you have a problem big or small you have to try to remember and stay conscious and even though you are going to feel some of the pain and the fear and the anxiety and whatever else I want you to remember what I'm telling you is say okay even though this is a problem it feels very real there's something I can draw from it something positive I can draw from it and when you're able to do that that's when you really develop positive thinking one quote really powerful quote on this topic positive thinking that I got from Tony Robbins really resonated with me and I want to share with you guys and it goes like this you will be truly cheerful in life the day that you realize that no matter what is happening around you being anything other than cheerful will not make it any better there's something about this that rings very true very wise because the all the optimum strategy the optimum strategy is to be cheerful in every situation no matter how bad it is no matter who dies if you remain cheerful that is that is going to lead to the best possible outcome you're not going to gain anything by being scared you're not going to gain anything by being angry you're not going to gain anything by by feeling hurt or sad that's not to say that any of those emotions should ever be felt you'll be able to feel them you're not gonna be able to stop them anyways but when you can really live from this place you can you can just you can almost feel how different your life is going to be your life would be very different if you were always cheerful no matter what was happening it takes strength and courage to be able to do this that's why most people can do it that's why people are so negative and their performance in life is so shot is because they're not cheerful and I guarantee you that the quality of your life is going to be directly proportional to how cheerful you can stay no matter what's happening around you especially those very negative times you have to remain positive you have to remain hopeful you just have to do it because there's something positive there for you to extract that's a reality that's a truth that's not wishful thinking okay so to really bring this point home for you guys what I'm going to give you is I'm going to give you an exercise this is something that you can practically do to really get your positive thinking muscles trained up this is a really challenging exercise so if you can do it successfully I really applaud you and what is it it's called the seven day positivity challenge you might have heard of it the seven day positivity challenge what does this mean this means that for seven days you choose when it starts for seven days you commit to thinking zero negative thoughts for seven days straight that means all you think are positive thoughts now of course even if you make this intention negative thoughts will still creep up that's okay but as soon as you notice and are aware of the negative thought as soon as you're aware of it and you label it you have to drop it within 60 seconds and not think about it again and move on to something else you either start to think something positive about the situation or you just change topic entirely and start thinking about something else or just distract yourself but you're not allowed to think about that negative thought anymore and then when a negative negative thought comes up a little bit later in the day again you recognize it and the Sunnis recognize it within 60 seconds you drop it and you think something positive or you distract yourself with some other thought and so the idea is that you do this for seven days straight and you have to do it perfectly so if a negative thought comes up and you find yourself thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it and then you notice that you are thinking about it and then another five minutes pass and you're still thinking about it another five ends pass and you're still thinking about it you failed if 60 seconds pass and you're still thinking about it you failed and you have to restart the whole challenge from scratch so this is a really tough challenge I really encourage you to try this because it's a lot tougher than it sounds if you've never tried this when you do try it you'll realize first of all just how many negative thoughts you're having it will shock you you also shock you how much you dwell on them even though they're not resourceful at all it will shock you how many unrest or soldats you're basically having in your life and it will also shock you at the potential that you have the potential you have at mastering your own psychology because when you see that wow if I could just eliminate all these negative thoughts and I if I could just last for seven days straight with positive thinking you're going to see wow like that's that's a powerful potential change that I could make to my whole life how would that impact my work how would that impact my relationships my family life my you know my money situation my health you're going to see it and if you actually make it through seven days you're also going to actually prove it to yourself because those seven days will probably be some of the best seven days that you've had in your life up to now because when you think positively for seven days straight Wow you're going to feel it just going to make you feel awesome you're probably also going to accomplish a lot of stuff and you're probably gonna be very creative in that timeframe so go ahead and try that out and just say see how good you can do see how much of a positive thinker you can be alright this is Leo I'm gonna be signing off this is what I have to say about positive thinking please leave me your comments here I'm interested what you have to say I use your feedback to help improve my videos then like this and share this so that other people can get the message we want more positive thinkers in the world that's always a good thing and then of course check out my newsletter at actualised or you can sign up for free you get some nice bonuses just for signing up you get exclusive video series you get a chance to win two hours of free coaching with me which I give away every month to my subscribers but ultimately you want to sign up because the information I send to you guys the free weekly articles and other other information that I have for you I'm gonna have new stuff coming out soon as all that stuff is coming out what you're really getting is you're getting more wisdom about how to start mastering your psychology and everything we've talked about here this is just kind of yeah this is a little taste a little taste of what you can actually have in your life of the kind of improvements you can make to create an extraordinary life where you're living fulfilled where you're living excited where you're living happy and peaceful that's what I want for you guys I want you to live big life so go ahead and check that out and sign up you