Blog | Entrepreneurship

Embrace the Spark of Optimism

“The biggest thief of all is hope.”
—Rich dad

I often say ‘hope’ is a four-letter word. I say this because so often people hope and pray, but do not take action. People often mistake hoping as a form of action.

Rich dad used to say, “People who cannot find an investment today gamble on the promise of tomorrow. They count on hope rather than intelligence. They have dreams, so they buy lies.” This is a big problem with hope. Hoping can often turn people into victims.

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While I do not like the word ‘hope’, I do think you need to be positive. How can you dream without focusing on a positive mindset? How can you be an entrepreneur and overcome all the obstacles that come with it, without the strength that comes from your dreams and passion?

In last week’s blog Matt Clark talked about not being perfect. This week our featured entrepreneur guest speaks about being positive and using the spark of optimism to your advantage:

There are times when you get an idea in your head and it really motivates you. It could occur as you watch a movie about a subject that you really relate to, or hear a motivating story, or maybe something just happens in your life, something as simple as your child saying something to you. Any of those ordinary kinds of things may light this spark of optimism so bright that you’re not thinking about what couldn’t work. You’re not thinking that this may not happen, or this may not be the best idea, or any of that kind of negative thinking.

All you’re thinking about is the goal. You’re wondering, dreaming about what your life would be like if you achieved that goal. Because you’re thinking about yourself in that setting, it makes you very optimistic for what may be an extremely short period of time, maybe only a couple of minutes. When anything uplifting happens in your life, you’re going to use that spark of optimism to your advantage.

Almost everybody, myself included, finds that the sparks of optimism are great, but they’re fleeting. You have an optimistic thought, but then you start thinking, oh, that’s not very realistic. The negative thoughts start to flood in. You think of all the bad things that could happen. You think this might not work out as I planned. You even think, who am I to do this? Those kinds of doubts are your fears manifesting themselves in your head based other people’s experiences or even your own past failures.

So before all that negativity sets in, use your spark of optimism to your advantage and take some action that you can’t retreat from. When you’re feeling optimistic and you want to lose weight, then call up a friend who’s in good shape and plan to do a 5K run with her in a couple of months. This works especially well if it’s somebody that you really don’t want to let down, or somebody that you can’t let down, and don’t want to give any excuses to. Now you’ve committed to somebody that you can’t turn back on.

All of a sudden, you’ve committed to something that you wouldn’t normally commit to. Usually you’d sit there and deliberate, think about it, and think about all the bad things, all the doubts, fears, and all that kind of mental garbage. Now you’re committing to something that you cannot turn back on. You have no choice but to follow through with it. Even if you start thinking of the doubts and fears, you don’t have a choice now because you really don’t want to let down your friend.

When you have that spark of optimism, don’t let it go to waste. When you’re feeling good, use that to your advantage. Commit to something to somebody you can’t turn back on.

What Matt is saying is very important. Use your hope and optimism to generate ACTION. That action is to find someone to hold you accountable. Entrepreneurism is all about action, achieving goals and realizing your dreams.

Entrepreneurism is the fastest way to build wealth. Rich dad would say that you build wealth through business; you keep wealth through real estate. So dream and hope and embrace that spark of optimism. Let it propel you into action and financial freedom.

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