Here’s a very good post from Business Week about why those in business who complain and feel victimized don’t invent — they find reasons not to succeed, so they don’t bother to try, and accept failure as inevitable consequence, not as an opportunity to learn and move forward. So they don’t innovate. Often, even the best of us place our faith (or cynicism) in larger forces, whether in the marketplace, in our business or in our life, and default to those forces; we don’t attempt change or invention because we think the deck is already stacked against us. There’s no greater untruth!
Some years ago, a book called Luck Factor scientifically examined the psychology of “luck” and how it’s not a predetermined external factor (the “gambler’s fallacy” of belief in lucky streaks that helps casinos keep raking it in, in Vegas) but a function of attitude — people who saw life as offering opportunity would invariably have good things happen to them, because they’d see situations differently from those who saw the glass half-empty, and who would manufacture negative attitudes, hold back in potentially beneficial situations, and otherwise lose out on the “luck” circumstances offered them.
So if you audit your attitude, believe in the time-tested values of elbow grease and imagination, then you’ve got every chance of succeeding. Maybe even more, considering there are others who may get hung up on their own doubts!
