Think it and it shall happen!

As I write this column, it’s late at night, my dog is sleeping at my feet, I have a cold glass of diet coke within reach, and as I look out of my window, in the darkness all seems right with the world.

It’s quiet, raining a little, and very tranquil.

I could be mistaken for thinking how perfect the world is outside.

But I will soon be shaken back to reality the minute I wake in the morning. The radio will be telling me all about the next natural catastrophe in some far-away country, another major financial institution getting into difficulty closer to home, another politician’s personal problems becoming fodder for the public, another war escalating somewhere and more job losses being announced. Need I go on?

And that’s before I get out of bed and downstairs to read the newspaper’s own versions of events.

You see, we live in a world of negatives.

Most of the news that is fed to us is bad news. Most of our early learnings as a child are ‘You can’t touch that’ or ‘Don’t do that’, ‘No’, etcetera.

Even as qualified accountants, when we contact a client, it is usually because we’re sending bad news or we’re reprimanding them for something or other: ‘You owe $50,000 in taxes’, ‘You haven’t sent in the missing information we need to complete your financial statements’, ‘you seem to have overlooked paying our invoice…’ and so on.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world really was as peaceful and tranquil as the view from my window?

Yes, I think it would. And here’s the great news: It can be!

Want to play a fun game with me now tax season is over (well, for most!)?

How would it feel if, just for one day, you only did positive things; wrote positive letters and emails and said positive things? If you only ate healthy food, parked as far away from the office as possible, took the stairs instead of the elevator, drank decaf for the day, smiled for no particular reason and looked for opportunities to give genuine praise to colleagues at work?

What do you think it would do to your frame of mind, your interactions with staff, clients and even family members?

I would wager, if I were a gambling man, that it would have a very positive impact in both directions – how you saw the world and how the world saw you.

It is in your power to do exactly that. Now, try it for a day and then come back and read the rest of this column.

Welcome back.

How was it?

Did you feel more ‘in control’ of your day? Did it feel good to offer sincere praise to someone when you were able to catch them doing something good at the office? How was your relationship with your ‘significant other’? Did people start to go out of their way to help you with your objectives that day? Did good news (or maybe some cheques!) arrive in the mail?

Did you hear from a friend or good client that you hadn’t been in touch with for a while? In short, did you have a good day?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating that we should all pretend that everything is wonderful, because clearly it is not. But just imagine how your week would be if you tried to incorporate a little of this game every day.

I compare this to what many great athletes employ in their everyday routine.

Let’s look at professional golfers, for example.

Golfers often envision themselves making the perfect swing and driving the ball into prime position on the green, before their every shot.

And just look at the Pros. It seems that they make it all so effortless! The viewer, watching the last foursome approach the 18th green in a televised competition could be forgiven for thinking that these people are just naturally talented.

Behind the scenes, though, they’ve all put in their 10,000 hours, as author, Malcolm Gladwell would point out to you. In other words, they have practiced until they have become (almost) perfect.

Talented? For sure. But hard workers? Oh yes, indeed!

So, you’ve just put in 8 hours of positive thinking yesterday, now there’s just 9,992 more to go. Want to do it again tomorrow?
Oh, come on! Give it a try. It doesn’t cost anything and you might just have some fun. Okay, I know I’m laboring the point, but it is one well worth making: Think it and it shall happen.

Just as the professional golfer thinks through their shot before they strike the ball, you too can put some positive mental energy out there.

Tony Robbins advocates that one should ‘act as if what you desire has already happened’ and subconsciously, you’ll find a way to actually make it happen. Indeed, he teaches some really complex, but also simple stuff.

For example, Tony is frequently quoted, but one of this quotes says: “In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”

If you stop and analyze that quote, and seek the true meaning, what I believe he’s saying is simply this: ‘If you want to be consistently happy, you need to act consistently happy!’ and thus he is also saying ‘If you want to be consistently unhappy, you need to act consistently unhappy!’

During tax season, which were you? Just ask your staff, they’d probably say you were the second alternative for the past couple of months!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I work with several firms who have a blast at tax season. It’s a time when they get to see most of their best clients, and they make the time to make the clients’ visit to their office a fun event.

Their staff – not coincidently – are some of the longest serving team members I have come across, with tenures measured in decades rather than years!

I guess it’s about good karma.

But please, don’t take this too far: Jim Carrey’s character in the movie “Yes Man” took it all too far, but he did have a blast just by saying ‘yes’ to every request. Notice, I’m not suggesting that.

What I’ve taken my whole column this issue to say, is that if we can inject a little positive thinking into our day it can make a big difference to not just ourselves, but to those around us too.

I think that public accounting gets a bad rap from the general public. They see us as boring, introverted, number-crunching pencil chewers. I say it’s time to fight back. I say it’s time to show the world how exciting, professionally and financially rewarding our beloved public accounting profession can be.

As we come out of the most stressful time of year for most practitioners, a little positive thinking surely cannot hurt, right?
Let’s start with a smile. It’s one of the most infectious things we can pass on to our clients and staff. And it’s free!