This past week, I was sitting on a plane next to two men.  One looked to be in his early 20s and the other I guessed to be in his mid-50s.  As I tend to do on a plane, I was listening to their conversation.  They apparently knew each other and were catching up on each others lives.  The younger one was an aspiring hip-hop song writer and producer.  As they spoke, the older of the two men excused himself and came back a few minutes later with a friend of his that was sitting in the rear of the plane.  This man was in the music industry and looking for writers with talent.  They were introduced and spent a few minutes talking and exchanged information.

I’ve been blessed.  I have the perfect job for me.  The funny thing is, it happened by accident.  Well, maybe not an accident, but it was not a choice I made initially.  Let me explain.
 My wife and I had just finished building a home and three months later, the President of the company I was working for came to me with an offer I couldn’t refuse.  He wouldn’t let me.  I had worked at the company for a year and turned around an underperforming division by changing pretty much everything.  I had changed the people, the processes, and most of the customers, by changing the basic business model.  We had accomplished our goal of getting to profitability and they really didn’t need me anymore.  My alternatives were to sell my house and move with another company, or try to establish myself in the consulting world.  I chose the latter based on several personal and business factors.

How can we stay optimistic and hopeful in the face of bad news every where we look? Newscasts, papers, magazines, the Internet – all sources of largely negative content. And this is not to mitigate the fact that there are some real issues out there. Most of us know someone who has lost their job, or are in danger of losing their home, or someone who is gravely ill. It can be overwhelming. How do we focus on the good and choose to remain positive? How can we resist the strong pull of negativity? How can we focus on those things that make us (and others) happy? And more importantly, how can we put our intentions into action? There are hundreds of ways, yet we overlook so many due to their simplicity.