Kay:

So, this week we’re addressing a question we get asked all the time which is how do you stay positive?

Shi:

We’re excited to bring this topic forward, because it’s a question we have to continuously ask ourselves as well, not how do you stay positive, but how do we find ways to support a positive mental mindset? Because turns out it’s not set it and forget it.

Kay:

It’s not always easy to stay positive in a world where things are changing, where things don’t necessarily always meet your expectations. And man, it’s pretty freaking unpredictable here on this planet called Earth.

Shi:

Sure is. There are lots of surprises, lots of challenges. My husband, Chad, and I love Captain Picard from the Next Generation Star Trek. One of his famous quotes is, “You can do everything right and still lose.” And I think that when you are faced with odds like that, keeping a positive mental mindset and a positive attitude can seem like it’s difficult which means you’ve got to put practices into place in order to preserve that.

Kay:

Now, over the years we’ve found a lot of solace in the fact that pretty much many successful people who have turned around and now shared their wisdom with others will say that keeping a positive mental mindset and a positive attitude in your life is really kind of the key to success in staying happy on that path toward your dreams.

Shi:

Napoleon Hill, the famous author of Think and Grow Rich. You can find all kinds of lecture series and YouTube videos of him speaking about the concepts in Think and Grow Rich. So, if you’ve read Think and Grow Rich and it impacted you as it has millions and millions of people that might be something worth doing. And if you do do that you will hear Napoleon talk about a positive mental attitude–that’s what his voice sounds like–in almost every single speech because it’s really that important. It’s part of the foundation and the architecture of all successful people.

Kay:

Well, it’s something that has to be continually developed, which is one of the reasons that it’s kind of a core tenet, a cornerstone if you will, of all things personal growth and development, because a positive mental attitude isn’t something that you’re born with. If you might be the kind of person who says, “well, I’m just negative or I’m just practical or…”

Shi:

Pessimistic, realistic.

Kay:

“…pessimistic. That’s just who I am.” Well, guess what? Positive people didn’t come out on the day they were born and like, “Hello, I’m the happiest human ever.”

Shi:

Now, are there certain people who tend to see the bright side more often? Are there those that tend to fall on the optimist side? Of course, there are but it’s easy to be that person and have those practices when things are going right. You can really see someone who’s practiced and strengthened a positive mental mindset. When things come along that are challenging, unexpected hardships, pandemics, things of this nature can really show you when people start to get squeezed and pain comes into the picture how much they’ve worked on that positive mental mindset.

Kay:

Well, as the human, who is a body with this incredibly gifted intellect that is this spirit that’s expressing through that intellect and through that physical presence you’re given a certain set of tools as being a human being. Congratulations, you won the evolutionary lottery and you got human, which means one of the tools that you got equipped with is a brain that articulates either in words or in pictures your surroundings. And so, when things aren’t going right it’s your brain’s job to tell you just like when the computer has a virus, it’s its job to tell you when something’s going wrong.

Shi:

You are equipped with the world’s most advanced bio supercomputer. Another congratulations to you.

Kay:

You’re welcome.

Shi:

It is worth celebrating, but what happens with many of our computers, our super biocomputers is that they get programmed once in our childhood and then never really questioned again and the beauty of being a human being during these times is that you have free will you have awareness and you have ability to focus and apply yourself which means you can decide to rewrite some of those programs and if a negative mindset is one of those programs that runs deep for you, it’s definitely not easy but it is simple and it is achievable and it is the difference-maker for enjoying your internal experience of life.

Kay:

Well, your brain’s job is to keep you safe. Your brain’s job is ultimately there to help you not die. And as we’ve gotten out of the caveman days and out of the part where nature just kills you at random. It still does sometimes, but we’ve been very protected as a species. There can still sometimes feel like that danger is around every corner. So, like you said, Shi, it’s not always easy to change around or put together some of these new positive mental attitude habits and get these into play in your head because that don’t feeling, that alarm system, that is a default mechanism that lives inside your head.

Shi:

Exactly. Because it’s scanning your environment looking for what’s wrong, but now what’s wrong is an inbox that’s overflowing, a teammate that’s underperforming, a class load that is stressing you out, a fitness routine that you want to implement. The stressors of life now look much different and that don’t is the default, which is one of the reasons why we’re so proud to be co-founders in the Neuroencoding Institute because what neuroencoding really is, at its essence, is that process of programming, your personal biocomputer so that you default to your desired state, especially in challenging times.

Kay:

When a challenge arises, do you go immediately into despair, or do you find places where you rise to the occasion and take it on as maybe a game or find a different way to approach the challenge that might be a little bit more positive and ultimately create a better human experience for you.