It might be that I am an eternal optimist. Some people might call me delusional. Or give me a hard time for saying “awesome” a few too many times in a single sentence. And yet — there is incredible power in being positive.
When I was on a panel at this year’s World Business Dialogue and we were talking about what’s broken in our current systems supporting social entrepreneurs, our host formulated a question along the lines of “Funding is important, but isn’t it hard to get money for social enterprises to raise money?”. In that particular moment it struck me that a lot of us are conditioned to say “but” when we could equally as easily say “and”: “Funding is important and isn’t it hard for social enterprises to raise money?”. One simple change, one word — and yet a difference of night and day. The one is pessimistic and defensive, the other is much more open and allows for a positive answer.
If you have a choice (and you’re pretty much at choice about anything and everything in your life at any given moment) — why chose the negative stance if all it does is limit you?