I’m not a fan of the educational system that I was brought up with because I feel like I didn’t receive the maximum benefit from it. What I mean by that is that the two things I dreaded most throughout my school years (including college), reading and studying, are now two of my favorite activities.

The August Edition of the Fast Results E-Zine was about opportunities and the importance of not missing them. Let’s face it, missing an opportunity is one of the biggest mistakes we can make. Often, it’s taking advantage of opportunities that help us succeed. Missing an opportunity can do everything from frustrating us to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: I only had a camera with me, if I only had something to write down that idea I had, if I had just asked her out before the other guy did, if I had just introduced myself to the prospective client before my competitor did, if I had just sent my resume out a day earlier….

How long can you go with saying something negative? How long can you resist having a negative thought? Negativity, whether through words or thoughts, have a poison-like effect on our success. It negatively influences the way others see us and, more importantly, the way we see ourselves. Chronic negative thinking can set us up for failure and in its worst form, lead to feelings of hopelessness. Negative words can be contagious and can affect the moral of groups, lead to negativity in the workplace and can potentially kill relationships. So how can one escape this silent killer?

In part one of this series we talked about the fact that you’re not alone in feeling that sense of hopelessness – practically everyone feels it from time to time. Realizing that your feeling this way is the beginning of the process for pulling yourself out. What we’re going to talk about in this part is how you end up feeling that way to begin with and some things you can do to get out of it.

Why we feel hopelessness:

There truly is no worse feeling in the world than hopelessness. People who feel like things can never get any better and only get worse end up in the direst situations. They experience depression, alienate themselves from others and some become suicidal. It’s a terrible emotion to feel and it’s difficult to watch someone you care about experience it.

The Law of Attraction, made popular by the 2006 film “The Secret” has been a hot topic in recent years. To some, the concept is the ultimate self-help system: simply want something and the universe will give it to you. To others, it’s the ultimate scam taking advantage of the laziness of people who want riches without having to do anything to get what they want. Does the law of attraction really work? Can it help you get what you want? Is it something worth caring about? I’ll attempt to answer these and other questions throughout this article series.

Whenever I have casual conversations about public speaking, I’m often asked about the benefits. Why would anyone want to speak in front a big group? What if you mess up? Why bother putting yourself in such a scary situation to begin with? These are just a handful of the questions I’m asked by people looking at me as if I have two heads.