Mark sent me a note after he read through What Your Big Ideas Do Best in his email. He wrote:

“Keep these coming Rosa. I need all the help I can get with being more positive. Wish I knew how you do this.”

Here you are Mark, my 3 Secrets to Being Positive.

Here’s my little secret, the one I don’t talk about much:

I often suspect that I am not a person who naturally and instinctively leans toward the positive view instead of the negative one. At first glance, I can see half empty instead of seeing half full. The argument can rightfully be made, that my ‘leaning half empty’ goes counter to everything else I teach about Aloha, for Aloha is all full! I usually don’t talk about that leaning because I don’t like believing it, I loathe the thought it might be instinctive, and I don’t want to give it my attention. So I simply choose not to acknowledge it.

Sometimes I slip, like all human beings do. Chances are my slips are when you will read a rant here because I’m bothered by something. I’ll be okay with that, telling myself I have to release the rant in order to let it go, but I try my best to turn it into a positive action of some kind, or at least a more useful one.

Here’s my bigger secret, and the one I love to talk about:

“Being positive” happens when I look for better and best. And when I look for it, I manage to find it!

To be positive, I have to make myself look for it, believing in my biology instead of my nature. If I want to be an optimist (and I do), I have to ignore the possibility that I might be a pessimist. So that’s what I choose.

My preferred Hawaiian word for this intentional choosing is Hō‘imi. Short and sweet, Hō‘imi holds a lot of kaona [hidden meaning] in my mana‘o [my stronger beliefs and convictions]:

• Hō is another form of Ho‘o [make something happen] which I use here more often: It’s the grammatical preference before another word or phrase with i or ‘i.
• ‘imi means to look for something, and I think of ‘imi-looking as actively hunting for what you seek. ‘Imi is looking for something in a purposeful way connected to ‘Imi ola, your best possible life.
• Hō‘imi delivers value-alignment in my personal language of intention (speak of what you want to come true), because ‘Imi ola is one of the values in Managing with Aloha
• Hō‘imi has those two i’s in it, reminding me that looking for better is completely up to me, and within my self-control. No excuses.

We all need help with our attention and intention

We’re human. But being human has a lot of perks.

I say, “believing in my biology” instead of my suspected nature, because scientists tell us that while we may fool ourselves into accepting multi-tasking, there really isn’t any such thing as “multi-thinking” in a conscious way: We only focus-think on one thought at a time. When we pull off our multi-tasking, one task got done better than the other: It got our thinking as we did it, whereas the other task only got our auto-pilot in going through repetitive motions we have already learned and committed to memory. When we multi-task, we do one of those tasks without thinking about it.

If I focus on hō‘imi and looking for better and best consciously and deliberately, I effectively kick out any negative thought which might be predisposed to flesh out “yeah, but” thinking, can’t instead of can, and any worst-case scenarios. My conscious thinking will assure that I don’t throw all caution to the wind, however my hō‘imi intention will look for better, and keep me away from negativity.

What’s wrong with negativity? It drains energy instead of building it up, and energy generates Ho‘o Power.

Behind every can’t is a won’t. However, “I will” is a hō‘imi positive expectancy.

My best possible life (i.e. living the value of ‘Imi ola) has to be filled with positives and not negatives; it’s the only thing that makes sense to me as celebrating my spirit of Aloha. So that’s what I choose when I think about it.

And that’s the biggest secret of them all:

It shouldn’t be a secret: It should be a positive expectancy we shout from the top of Mauna Kea: We human beings have the power of proactive choice. We get to choose how we think, whether positively or negatively.

Think about choosing ‘Imi ola, and the seeking of your best possible life. ‘Imi ola wants what’s best for you. And trust in this certainty: When you look for good, and you look for better and best, those are the things you find.