Last week I realized what Henry Ford said with his quote, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” Some of my thoughts about life and love are not what you might think. In my next two posts, I am going to give you the top six conventional wisdoms I disagree with and why.

1. Anything is possible. First of all, there are more things in life that are not possible than possible. Focusing on things that are impossible is futile. It distracts your focus from what is indeed possible. I never put my focus on being a good football player. Instead, I focus on becoming a speaker and speaking to the USC football team.
2. Seize the moment, carpe diem. While I am an advocate of living life to the fullest, there are times when we have to get down to business. There are times when we have to skip the movies or tell a friend we cannot take that backpacking trip to Europe. I was at a basketball game with my friend Jay Lavender, who at the time I hadn’t seen for over a year.  At half time, we decided to talk shop and catch up. Our conversation lasted beyond half time and into the third quarter. I had two choices. Either cut off our conversation or finish my conversation. I chose the latter.
3. A good attitude is the key. I don’t believe people change when they have a good attitude. I believe people change when they are fed up with life. After all, if you go through life with a big old smile and have no problems in real life, why would you want to change? My biggest successes came as a result of deep frustrations, anger, and a fire in my gut that told me I had to change. That does not mean that success can’t come from a good attitude. That is to say that there is very little correlation between attitude and success.

To be continued next week….

Timelapse - Lighthouse (Oct 2012) from IMK Digital Multimedia on Vimeo.