The Flagrant Abuse of Positive Thinking

Earlier today, I received an email from internet marketing guru, Perry Marshall. The following quote is from the beginning of that email:

You might have some memory of Admiral James Stockdale. He was the guy who was Ross Perot's Vice Presidential candidate in 'the US 1992 presidential election.

He didn't fare so well as a VP candidate, but he was quite an impressive military man. He was former president of the Naval War College and was the highest ranking officer in the dreaded "Hanoi Hilton" in Viet Nam.

He spent eight years in Hanoi and was tortured numerous times by his captors.

Mr. Thomas Barnett relates:

"Stockdale tells the story of the optimists who never survived their time in Hanoi, simply because they clung far too much to their dreams of release and in doing so couldn't handle the brutal realities of what it took to survive the day to day.

"So instead of dealing with the here and now realistically, they tended to cling to the hope that they'd be home by whatever the next holiday was, and when that day came and went, their spirit would be diminished by that measure.

"Over time, they died because their spirit was extinguished by reality."

Stockdale's explains his "paradox" this way:

"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end (which you can never afford to lose) with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

Stockdale was really describing the flagrant abuse of 'positive thinking.'

I looked up Admiral Stockdale on Wikipedia and found another important quote. Author James Collins asked Admiral Stockdale who were the ones who didn't make it out of prison, and he answered:

"Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

There are many "motivational" programs out there that encourage people to just dream about and visualize their goals, believing that some magical power will then take over and make these things materialize right in front of them with no additional effort on their part.

SIYID is not one of these programs.

Yes, SIYID teaches you how to design exactly the future you really want to experience and how to look forward to it with excitement and hopefulness. But unlike most other programs, it doesn't stop there.

SIYID then goes on to teach you how to look squarely at your current reality. Because only then can you design a roadmap that will take you from here to there.

And once you have your roadmap, you can start walking.

Margie Remmers
Founder and President, Solution-U Life Coaching
Creator of the SIYID Method of Life Achievement