People can often be their own worst enemy, particularly when they allow their negative feelings to create artificial roadblocks to accomplishing their goals, personally and professionally. We see this daily – person A starts talking enthusiastically about a new opportunity and immediately persons B and C shoot the idea down by focusing only on the negative outcomes that could potentially result.

In other cases they allow emotions like anger to cloud their judgment for no other reason than because they take everything that happens too personally. It is almost as if their egos will not allow them to miss an chance to get upset and start an argument. Coupled with a false sense of outrage they fail to recognize that they’re really creating more barriers to resolving whatever the issue might have been to begin with.

While it is true in nature that opposites attract, in real life nothing could be further from the truth. Positive people tend to draw towards other optimistic people, and naturally negative people cluster together like schools of baitfish. The difference between the two groups is that the optimistic ones tend to simply stroll through life knowing that whatever challenges they encounter they will quickly and easily overcome.

A good example of these behaviors is in reviewing two identical technical support requests with diametrically opposite results.

In the first case, the positive customer is experiencing a problem installing a piece of software. Quickly realizing that the problem is beyond their skill level, they call the support hotline confident that resolution to the issue will be forthcoming. They cheerfully and courteously explain the problem they’re experiencing and patiently worked with the support staff to correct it, which happens in a mere ten minutes.

In the second case the negative customer is experiencing a similar trouble. Frustrated and angry they call the support hotline and immediately launch into a belligerent tirade about the quality of the product and the company that produced it. While the support staff tries to help the customer, they quickly become frustrated at the customer’s refusal to provide the needed information.

The customer insists upon escalating problem to a supervisor or manager where the tirade continues. After 45 minutes of arguing with various supervisors and managers and live no resolution in sight, the customer or threatens to sue or file legal complaints and hangs up without resolving the installation problem.

Optimistic people never worried about encountering problems with anything. They understand that things happen, more importantly they also understand that there’s a solution out there someplace. Their goal is to merely resolve the issue as quickly and efficiently as possible, which they know they will be able to do in some way, somehow.

It is for this reason that those who think positively and optimistically are far more likely to be successful in both their business and personal lives. They can not help but know that everything is going to work out the way they expected to, if not even better.