HOW TO FEEL THE ENERGY OFPOSSIBILITY THINKING If you are a naturally positive person who already embraces possibility thinking, then you’re already tracking with me. However, some people, rather than being optimistic, are naturally negative or cynical. They believe that possibility thinkers are naïve or foolish. If your thinking runs toward pessimism, let me ask you a question: how many highly successful people do you know who are continually negative? How many impossibility thinkers are you acquainted with who achieve big things? None! People with an it-can’t-be-done mindset have two choices. They can expect the worst and continually experience it; or they can change their thinking. That’s what George Lucas did. Believe it or not, even though he is a possibility thinker, he is not a naturally positive person. He says, “I’m very cynical, and as a result, I think the defense I have against it is to be optimistic.” In other words, he chooses to think positively. He sums it up this way: “As corny as it sounds, the power of positive thinking goes a long way. So determination and positive thinking combined with talent combined with knowing your craft… that may sound like a naïve point of view, but at the same time it’s worked for me and it’s worked for all my friends—so I have come to believe it.” If you want possibility thinking to work for you, then begin by following these suggestions: 1. Stop Focusing on the Impossibilities! The first step in becoming a possibility thinker is to stop yourself from searching for and dwelling on what’s wrong with any given situation. Sports psychologist Bob Rotella recounts, “I tell people: If you don’t want to get into positive thinking,that’s OK. Just eliminate all the negative thoughts from your mind, and whatever’s left will be fine.” If possibility thinking is new to you, you’re going to have to give yourself a lot of coaching to eliminate some of the negative self-talk you may hear in your head. When you automatically start listing all the things that can go wrong or all the reasons something can’t be done, stop yourself and say, “Don’t go there.” Then ask, “What’s right about this?” That will help to get you started. And if negativity is a really big problem for you and pessimistic things come out of your mouth before you’ve even thought them through, you may need to enlist the aid of a friend or family member to alert you every time you utter negative ideas.