How to Use Positivity and Optimism to Help Build Your Business from Ian Woodhouse

0:00Are you willing to actually put a little bit of graft in for a better tomorrow? Being successful and on your own is not successful. We're here with Ian Woody Woodhouse. We're going to get into things about positivity and optimism and how to feel good forever. The universe is positive. You want to get to the point where you need a reason not to be positive rather than you need a reason to be positive. For me, everything in life is moving. So the question I ask myself isn't am I positive or not? It's what's happening to it. Am I becoming more positive or am I becoming more negative? That's what matters.

0:29How do you define success? What is success to you? It's Nina, my wife, when she's old, looking in the mirror and thinking, I married the right guy. So for me, success is that. It's knowing someone's life, even momentarily, has been lifted by something I did or a way that I was with them. What are your thoughts, Woody, on how does success happen? Like, how do people actually create success? I think, what's that thing that they do many years ago, the marshmallow test with small kids? You can have a marshmallow now, or if you wait half an hour, you can have two. But the marshmallow is there. They're looking at the marshmallow.

1:11Some can't resist it. And they just have the marshmallow now. And then others will go, no, I'm going to wait for half an hour because then I can have two. And it's basically, are you up for putting off gratification now for something better in the future? So that's one of the major things for success. I also would say surrounding yourself with friends that see you in a better light than you see yourself. How do people succeed at being positive? There's some hacks that you can use now. One of them that I think is the most powerful experiment that we can do is to experiment with letting go of whinging or complaining or making negative comments about things.

1:53I think people often confuse that with being aloof or not caring. It's just not making negative sound bites and giving it to someone else to consume. I'm a great believer in experimentality. So instead of thinking, you know, I don't like olives, I think, well, hang on, let's do an experiment to see if I could like olives. One of the experiments I've been playing with over the last sort of eight years is intentionally letting go of whinging to see what it does to the human psyche. And I would say one of the things about being positive is the universe is positive. You want to get to the point where you need a reason not to be positive rather than you need a reason to be positive.

2:23And so one of the first things to do is to stop importing negativity. For me, everything in life is moving. So the question I ask myself isn't, am I positive or not? It's what's happening to it. Am I becoming more positive or am I becoming more negative? That's what matters. One of the things you talked about also at the conference was cynicism out, optimism in. Take us through a bit more on that thinking. My thing is you're always thinking something. And so if I'm not thinking something that's a bit debilitating or negative, then I'm thinking something that's more empowering and positive, because I'm always thinking.

2:57If I can desinicize myself, then it means more optimism will just simply fill the vacuum. I'd much rather be thinking things are going to work out, and then in the end they didn't, which means I had years of enjoying the thought that they would, rather than I knew all along, don't try because it never will i'm struggling with this what the payoff is with cynicism it's not like you get a prize at the end or you get a trophy or i just don't get it apart from being right you get a chance to be right so if things don't work out i knew they weren't going to okay great but there's another law in the universe which is attention energizes so the fact that you're having these negative thoughts and stuff you're more likely to pull that stuff towards you or at least make them bigger.

3:44Overcoming challenges. You teach some really cool stuff around that. Take us through your thinking on how that's a, the woody thoughts on overcoming challenges. I guess that's probably the best thing I'd like to hear from. If I think that I'm here to discover and to learn, that I don't get the fear of failure that comes through. Having a decent spiritual side really helps. So you think of yourself more as a channel for something to come through than a big ego. I find when the going gets tough, the tough reach for their values. There's certain people that I will follow in life to do things that I know they've never done before, but I know the values and principles they'll use to make up the journey.

4:28Even though I know they've never been there before, there's leaders I will follow. And I know people follow. They know they've never dealt with this situation before, but they trust them. Let's go to the positive side then, the enthusiasm, the optimism. How do you maintain that? How do you keep that? I think routine is really important. You know, the first thought you have when you get to wake up in the morning. I also think gratitude is really important, saying thank you. And I think love. These are things that really matter to people. And if you're leading people in business, they want to know that you love them.

5:05For me, positivity is linked to connection, to connectivity. When I'm with people and I'm in rapport, I feel happier. And I know that's not true for everyone, but it's true for a lot of us. Watching comedy in a tight little room with a good comedian is just amazing. Watching the same comedian on your TV at home, it's sort of funny. There's something else that happens. And I think also we're designed that way. That's how we survived on the Savannah. Being successful and on your own is not successful. Being mediocre when a large crowd of people laughing, which feels more successful than being on your own behind gates in a mansion.

5:44Let's talk about going from good to great, not just like when you chose to do a cynicism or a negative or a whinge-free, you didn't say I'm going to do a whinge-free week. You went for the entire year. What's the difference between setting like the small goal and going for the real big one, do you think? The difference between good to great It's just how far down the continuum you take good, I would say. But I also say this, tiny little steps are much easier to make than massive big leaps. I want to get your thoughts then on leadership. How do you succeed at leadership? What's your thoughts on that?

6:21The most successful leaders I've had a chance to be influenced by have all been driven by something that's greater than themselves. They're all in service to something. making a contribution in society to building something so it can make a difference. They haven't been just driven to hit a number so that we can punch the air and say we hit the number. They go to the why are we hitting that number? What does that say? By the way, I think Prof is brilliant because Prof is a demonstration that you're making a difference. But let's go to that point. Let's let the narrative go to what is this meaning?

6:57and the best leaders I've been around. They're the ones who will speak last when they enter a room. They're the ones who will lie at night and gaze at the ceiling because they're worried about the experience that someone in their team's having. They're the ones that care. When people feel loved, they feel safe. And when they feel safe, they're willing to be imaginative. Those leaders that are best able to let people know that they genuinely care about them are going to be the most successful. And that's the Big Success podcast for today. Hopefully you took a lot of notes, learned a whole bunch.

7:29And if you need to go re-listen to it, we dropped a lot of information right there today. Big success is what it's all about. And by the way, if you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button so you're here with us every single week on the Big Success podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. That's BS. Big success is what we're shooting for. Check the show notes for all the links. Make sure you follow through. Keep learning. Keep coming back. Oh, and by the way, share this with any of your friends who you know are up for success. I'll see you next week on the Big Success Podcast. You've been listening to the Big Success Podcast with the number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars.

8:06To learn more about how to achieve business and personal success, as well as how to level up or listen to past episodes, visit www.bradsugars.com.