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Accentuate positives to achieve success

'Whatever you are truly grateful for and appreciate will increase in your life'

by Jay Robb

The Hamilton Spectator
August 26, 2006

Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life

By Srikumar Rao

Hyperion New York ($33.95)

I'm dishing Pad Thai and dreaming of a gridlocked commute.

Because you can only eat so much spaghetti and meatballs, the stir-fry noodle dish is a new menu item at Chez Jay.

The reviews are in and both kids are unimpressed. So much so they stage a hunger strike. The oldest cries and is relentless in her noodle for dessert negotiations. The youngest cries louder and dumps his dinner in his lap and on the floor.

I know I'm blessed with truly wonderful kids. They're healthy and happy, smart and funny. But at this moment, I wish I'm inching along the QEW and calling to say just go ahead and eat without me. I'll nuke dinner in the microwave when I get home and the kids are in bed.

I then dream of an after-work rubber chicken reception with perfect strangers, an awards banquet with a never-ending cattle call, a hall of fame induction ceremony with at least one socially awkward and inappropriate acceptance speech, a disorganized party with a fast-disappearing tray of appetizers from M&M Meats or even an insanely pretentious gala fundraiser with the beautiful people.

Why, I'd even be up for a long, lonely night at the office trying to merge Word files, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations into the monster of all reports that no one will ever look at much less read.

Instead of changing where I am, author and Columbia Business School Prof. Srikumar Rao says I should change how I think as the noodles fly.

We all have fixed ideas, or mental models, on how the world should unfold at the office and on the home front.

"All of us want the people in our lives to behave in particular ways that we determine. But they don't conform to what we want. You punish those close to you by snapping at them, being emotionally withdrawn, not spending time with them and being generally unhappy. It's a toxic cocktail. And we drink it many days. Perhaps even every day."

So what should we be chugging? Rao recommends a big glass of acceptance. Learn to take in stride whatever happens. Don't be so quick to pass judgment, jump to conclusions and fall back on those well-worn mental models that reflect just one, and often a negative, version of reality.

"Because your stress is caused by your response to the results of your actions, when you surrender to the possibility that these outcomes can be either good or bad and that you just don't know, then you are actually stronger and freer to capitalize on what does occur."

Which leads into Rao's universal Law of Increase or how to bring more sunshine into your life.

"Whatever you are truly grateful for and appreciate will increase in your life."

Rao says we take for granted dozens of wonderful, precious things. Maybe it's our health. A friend or neighbour. Our spouse. Our kids. A job that pays the mortgage and puts our talents to good use.

But no, we tend to fixate on the indecisive boss, the lazy office mate and the backstabbing co-worker who nabbed our promotion.

"What grabs most of your attention are the few things in your life that are not going the way you want them to, and you keep your focus obsessively on them," Rao writes.

To shift focus, end each night with a five-minute time out. Do a mental rewind on your day and stop on those moments of gratitude. Could be anything or anyone. Something big or small. Expected or a complete surprise. Now expand those time outs throughout your day. That sense of gratitude will spill over into how you work with others and see your world.

So what happens if you work in the Land of Dilbert?

"If you find it difficult to beam health, prosperity and other good thoughts to your rivals at work or to irritating colleagues, pause to consider their lives. Quite probably, you have noticed that they carry around anger, frustration, envy and similar emotional burdens. Imagine how terrible it must be to live like that. Feel compassion for their predicament and it is then a short step to wishing them well."

Which brings us back to my kids. The night after the Pad Thai of Tears Incident, my daughter and I are watching an outdoor movie at the Marine Discovery Centre. The moon is up and the stars are out. It feels like an autumn night. We're wrapped in a blanket way past bedtime eating popcorn. And for all of that I'm very, very grateful.

Jay Robb, a Hamilton freelance writer, can be reached at robbclairmont@aol.com.

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