Positive Thoughts

Back in the early 2000s, my police partner Jim Sola and I used to ask each other, “How’s your PMA today?” PMA stood for positive mental attitude, and we asked each other because we were both super grumpy and flirting with burnout. The writing process has been interesting. Knowing that I’m going to publish every week has created a sense of focus in my thinking that is new and seems beneficial. Since finishing grad school, I’ve been in a funk. I feel somewhat exhausted and a little bit panicked, feeling like something next, and I can’t find it or figure it out.  

This has led me to think a lot about and explore the power of a positive mindset. The Apostle Paul instructed the Romans to renew their minds daily, and this command is quick to read but complex to understand and requires intentionality to do. Jon Gordon, who I was introduced to in a grad school Zoom class, explains in his book The Energy Bus that negative emotions and thoughts will fill whatever open space that we have and that the solution is to fill your thoughts with positive actions and attitudes to prevent the negativity from filling the space. This makes sense, but I question the practicality a bit. I was once “diagnosed” by a counselor friend with idealist distortion, or that I can fail to see reality and might be painting the picture brighter than it is. Dr. John Townsend explains that one attribute of healthy character is integration or the ability to deal with both the positives and negatives in life. Due to the brokenness of humans and the world, pretending that evil isn’t real or bad things aren’t bad doesn’t seem like a wise approach, but how we look at it, or the perspective, makes me think we do have the potential to shape reality to an extent.  

We have so much control on what happens in our grey space, but do we take enough time to train it?

Shirzad Chamine said, “All of your distress is self-generated.” If you wrestle with this for a bit, you can see it’s a deep well of thinking and looking for understanding. Things are broken, but the feelings and emotions that I respond with are internal. They are a combination of biochemistry, electricity, and spiritual wrestling, and I have way more control than I sometimes think or feel.  There is amazing neuroscience that relates to our ability to rewire electrical connections (synapses) in our brain, and the more we use them, the stronger the connections grow (Myelination). This is a deep well that I’m actively exploring, but in the meantime, I’ll lean on something that Paul told the Philippians that Gordon and Chamine seem to agree with, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable if it’s excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”  

Leaders, what things are you thinking about, and how does negativity impact your leadership?