Business Building Corner

Anyone who has had the pleasure of sitting in conversation or at a meeting with LifePharm Global Network Founder & CEO Wicky Suyanto has heard him state his position on conducting business and living life: "Always stay positive." In keeping with his positive attitude is his perennial optimism. Researchers are more convinced than ever that there is a correlation between optimism and achievement.

Not all optimistic people are successful, obviously; and not all pessimistic people are unsuccessful. Nonetheless, researchers have been taking a close look at whether optimism leads to success.

James Pennebaker and Barbara Fredrickson, psychological researchers at the University of Texas in Austin and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill respectively, have found that positive emotions can undo the effects of negative experiences. Their research shows that people who find challenging tasks to be opportunities for growth rather than as threats tend to succeed or bounce back more quickly from adversity. In other words, optimistic people are more resilient than their gloomier counterparts.

Frederickson’s research shows that resilient people experience the same level of frustration and anxiety as less resilient participants in her studies. Their physiological and emotional spikes were equally high. This shows that resilient people are not deluding themselves with positivity. Instead, they are able to let go of the negativity, worry less, and shift their attention to the positive more quickly. Negativity puts people in a defensive mode, which narrows their field of vision, and shuts off new possibilities since they're perceived as risks.

Having a forward-looking attitude can promote mental and physical health. Pennebaker’s research found that people who find meaning in adversity are ultimately healthier than those who do not, and people who find the “silver lining” in every situation have been shown to manage and control stress better.

A host of experts and studies show that being optimistic is one of the best things you can do for your physical health.

• A study tracking 839 male and female patients from the Mayo Clinic found that the pessimists (determined by personality testing) had a 19 percent higher mortality rate than optimists.


• Another study at the University of California at Los Angeles discovered that unrealistically optimistic HIV-positive men (those who expected to get better despite all evidence to the contrary) lived an average of nine months longer than those with a more realistic (and thus more pessimistic) view of their medical condition.


• A study of 112 college students suggests that pessimists catch more colds than optimists. Conducted by Wilkes University and a Veteran's Administration medical center in New Jersey, the study showed that those who were classified as pessimists had lower levels of immunoglobulin A, an antibody that fights colds and other illnesses.


• Although there is still debate about whether optimism or pessimism is an inherited trait (some experts say that it is 25-50 percent genetic), the experts agree that even the most die-hard pessimists have the ability to build optimism and to improve their physical and emotional health.

"The link between optimism and health is now solidly established," says Christopher Peterson, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and the author of many studies in the field. And, as a result of this link, positive psychology is now the trend in both research and practice.

Here are five steps to become more of an optimist and enhance your emotional and physical health:

1. Surround yourself with positive people. When you are surrounded by negative people, it is harder to be positive.


2. When facing a problem, don't do anything until you think of three solutions. Commit to finding three solutions to the problem. "This takes you past the first two, which are often the extremes," says Peg Baim, M.S., N.P. at Harvard University. "And it moves you past all-or-nothing thinking, so you can find a more creative, successful solution."


3. Try to do the things you feel you really can accomplish, and allow yourself to feel good when you do. For example, if you're just getting in shape for the first time, don't set a goal of running a 10k next month — walk a 5k instead. Your achievement will be encouraging, and then you can start training for a 5k run and tackle the 10k later.


4. Make meaning out of disappointment. Even dismal failure brings something positive, from a learning experience to a chance to develop humility.


5. Get help when you need it. If you can't shake pessimism or negative thinking, seek professional help, including cognitive therapy. It'll give you specific guidance and practice in changing your unfavorable thoughts and beliefs into positive ones.

This does not mean that positivity or optimism alone can create success. Optimism without action is just as ineffective as pessimistic inertia. What drives someone to find a solution to what may seem to be an insurmountable problem depends upon the individual—both the optimistic and the pessimist can succeed, as long as either attitude is accompanied by strategic action.

The 17^th century poet Mizuta Masahide wrote one of the most often quoted lines: "Barn’s burned down, now I can seen the moon." Apply this optimism to operating a business, and LPGN IBOs will build bigger and better organizations.