The Top 10 Distinctions Between Winners and Whiners

Chapter 10. Winners create positive meanings. Whiners create negative meanings.

How do you define the seasons, events, and moments of your life? How do you view the circumstances and people around you? Winners have learned to look for and find the good in their lives and the world. Whiners seek—and eventually find—the negative aspects of their lives.

One of the most powerful things you can learn to do is create positive meanings. Even for seemingly negative events, there exists a silver lining. Seek it, and you shall find it. What are you seeking? The good or the bad?

You get what you look for in life. It's worth repeating: You get what you look for in life. Most people take the seasons, events, and moments of their lives and define them as negative. Even when life offers them a wonderful opportunity, they miss it. Why? Because they simply aren't looking for it.

Winners find the opportunity in every difficulty because they seek it. Whiners find the difficulty in every opportunity because they, too, find what they seek.

What is your initial mental reaction when faced with a difficult experience? Do you look for the good or the bad? Almost every event in our lives can be viewed as negative or positive. Why not choose the empowering path?

Whiners view the world through a negative lens, a damaging perspective that creates needless suffering. And, although suffering can bring its own positive lessons into our lives, whiners experience needless mountains of self-inflicted struggle and pain. ...