“People who wonder whether the glass is half empty or half full miss the point. The glass is refillable.”

—simon sinek, speaker and author

Image from breacan.org.au

Imagine you have an entire month to take the road trip of your life, anywhere you wish. You have just won the use of a large luxury mobile home or recreational vehicle. The only limitation is that you were only given half a tank of fuel.

Of course, we can look on the bright side of things to estimate how far we could go, or we can be upset given the limited range available for this adventure. This view of things seems silly knowing that we always have the ability to top off the tank anytime we wish.

EXERCISE:

Where in either your professional or personal worlds are you operating with the half full or half empty perspective?  What would be possible if you assumed an attitude of overflowing abundance instead?

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere until you change it.”

-Author Unknown

Photo from Flickr by Paul Chenoweth

Take a minute to list the people in your personal and professional worlds that have a bad attitude. If you need a bit of help, consider their level of negativity, pessimism, sarcasm, skepticism, and general resignation.

Have you captured your list of half-empty, no possibility, “what’s the use” folks? Now see how much you enjoy their company, or working with them. Where, if possible, have you already headed for the hills or done what you can to avoid these people?

What are the chances selected individuals in your world might be placing you on their list?

EXERCISE:

Although changing other people’s flat tires is tremendously difficult, you do have a far better fighting chance of changing your own. Consider the resources at www.lifehack.org to take a few simple steps to begin.

A bonus is that your own efforts will tend to inflate other people’s tires in the process!