2026 January 20 Positive and proactive

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me to talk about attitude and happiness. So let's get started. If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, subscribe, tell your friends, and send me a message.

This week we're going to talk about bringing happiness into our lives by just being aware of what is around us and in our futures. We've covered this in different ways before, but this is a recent true story, and the directness of it really struck me because it was so obvious. I was speaking with a friend who lives in a different country.

I won't mention any names, both because no one else needs to know the details, but also because the details really aren't that important. It's a country many people in the US don't really think a lot of positive things about. It has some political issues, huge monetary issues, and those two things often go hand in hand, but generally just not a great attitude. People think, "Eh, I suppose I could live there," but it's not exactly number one place they'd want to live.

But my friend is very, very happy indeed because they used to live in a much worse place. And as I said to them, where they used to live, the word of the day was always survival. And those two countries are not that far apart from each other geographically, but they're worlds apart culturally. And now, after only a few months, my friend realized that they have a future, that life can look exciting and that there are opportunities everywhere if you're willing to look for them and to work for them.

While the quality of life from Numbeo.com—they do quality of life figures and calculations—shows that the Quality of Life Index where they're living now is only about two thirds that of the US, it's almost two times that of where they used to live. What really struck me wasn't some numeric figure making the difference. It was that my friend's entire attitude and outlook on life was completely different. It was hopeful, excited, eager to keep doing more, to do more things to improve themselves in every way possible. It was like the first time you went into a great big store and realized there were cases of candy or toys or whatever it was that caught your eye. Before, you thought there were only a few options, and now you realize the options are almost limitless if you're willing to grow.

And then I look at a newspaper or a headline or talk to people here in the US and all I hear is negativity—all the things we don't have, how imperfect we are, how everything is bad. And that simply is not true. Can things at times be improved? Obviously they can, but not being perfect is very different than being bad.

So what's the difference between my friend and all the people wagging their tongues with negativity? It's attitude. My friend has decided to recognize and pursue opportunity, while so many people here, guided by mainstream news and social media, can only see the bad. Again, as we have often said, looking for the good doesn't mean not trying to change the bad, but focusing on the bad when you live in one of the places in the world that probably has the greatest opportunities—that's not rational either.

You can choose what you want to focus on and how to balance the realities of your life. I just read an article criticizing, with some justification, the meal you would get if you follow the government's new food guidelines and the government's claim that that meal could be made for about $3 a meal. It was a pretty small and paltry looking plate of food. Yet even that tiny meal is better than much of the world's population gets to eat—not for a meal, but every day.

We are so surrounded by the amazing and the abundant that we not only take it for granted, but we're annoyed when anything is less than perfect. But that is the perfect storm for self-dissatisfaction, and that is exactly where we can consciously make a choice as to how we want to react to the world around us. And it not only affects our response towards any one particular situation, but it also then grows into our overall attitude towards life, towards the future, our future, the future in general, and our own place in the world. If you think every day sucks and everything sucks and everyone sucks, well then it's pretty hard to be upbeat about yourself either, especially when everyone else around you has a negative attitude.

Recall that a couple weeks ago we talked about how the heart generates a stronger magnetic and electric field than even the brain does, and how people even a few feet apart will quickly tend to synchronize their emotions even without speaking. Now, turn that around and think of the positive effect you could have, not only upon yourself but upon those around you, if instead you decide to focus on all the good that is around you and all the opportunity you have in the future.

This is being written as many people are talking all the more seriously about the possibility of World War III, and I'm not oblivious to that at all, but we still have a choice in how we react to that. Do you just kind of resolve that it's inevitable, or do you feel that you can have a positive influence and possibly change the outcome to help shape your own future? My friend is very clear about it and is totally aware of what's going on. Even with the potential of difficult times, they still have decided to focus on the opportunity and the new options that may become available. And so they're energized, they're interested, they can't wait to grow and get even more out of life.

Now, read most of the mainstream news and social media, and you'll see people who have given up and feel they have no influence. If every person writing negative things on social media instead spent the same amount of time contacting their representatives in both houses of Congress and said, "If you don't actively work together to change the course of this nation and what we're doing, I and everyone I know will vote for any candidate but you in the next election," don't you think that would get some attention? When both houses of Congress got 150 million letters? That figure is about 70% of the adults in the US—there are about 265 million adults who are both voters and on Facebook. So very round numbers, 70% of that is 150 million potential letters saying we want things to change. That's a pretty big message to send to both houses and both major political parties to tell them they're being watched and it will be remembered.

So you can choose to be proactive, hopeful, forward looking, and happier because you're involved, or you can choose to be negative, feel hopeless, and resign yourself to inactivity and miss all the opportunity that awaits you. The choice quite literally is yours.

Is the world both good and bad? Absolutely. Can we still choose how to react to it? Also absolutely. Can we be hopeful and excited and willing to work to change the world into what we want? That too is our decision. So if you want to feel better about yourself and about the world around you, I would suggest that you're better served—far better served—by being proactive and upbeat instead of focusing on every bad thing someone mentions and letting yourself be dragged down into inactivity.

Ninety percent of winning is just showing up. It's true in politics, it's true in many things, but it's also just true in showing up for yourself and being positive and proactive. You'll feel better about your place in the world, better about the future, and you'll usually have just a better view of yourself in every way.

So that's it for the evening. Your homework is to think about something that matters to you where you have developed kind of a negative attitude. Now think about how you might feel if you change that attitude around and recognize the good about the things that already exist. Think about how it might change the parts that you don't care for. Extra points if you also work through the first steps of how you could actually change things and what would it take to get other people to join in. Congratulations, you're forming a movement that might lead to a future better aligned with your own life vision. Good luck.

Remember, one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. We have two sites that we always recommend: UKR7.com  supports the people in Ukraine, and WCK.org is World Central Kitchen. They work in disaster areas throughout the world—wonderful organization. Those are international sites, but there's local charities and just even local groups that could always use a little help from you. If you're able, those are great places to look into, but even something as simple as a smile can change someone else's day for the better in ways you can't even imagine.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting and useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe and hit that like button. And if not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear. Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.