RULE 39: Be Cheerful & Positive

If you go into work each morning with a positive vibe, it sets you up as the sort of person to whom stress and troubles and problems are but as water off a duck’s back. You thus get a reputation as being someone who is in control, smooth, relaxed, confident, and very mature. And all for the sake of a few bars of “Moon River,” whistled as you make your way to your desk. 

Be cheerful at all times. So it’s raining out there and it’s a dark and depressing winter’s afternoon. Business is slack, interest rates have just gone up again and the boss is in a foul mood, and everyone’s keeping their heads down. It’s still no reason to lose your smile. So it’s a bad day; this too will pass, and the sun will come back. Whatever your situation, things will always get better.

Maintaining a cheerful and positive outlook is a trick. At first you don’t have to believe it—just do it. Act it. Pretend. But do it. After a little while you’ll find it isn’t an act, you’re not pretending, you genuinely do feel cheerful. It’s a trick. You are tricking yourself, no one else. Putting on a smile triggers hormones. These hormones will make you feel better. Once you feel better, you will smile more and thus produce more hormones. All it takes is the first few days smiling when you don’t feel like it, and you will start a cycle going that will make you feel better all the time. 

Once you are seen as someone cheerful and positive, people will want to hang out with you more—there is nothing so attractive as a cheerful person.

Bring some flowers into work and brighten up your desk. Whistle. Smile. Laugh. Never reveal that you feel like the pits inside. It’s all too easy when someone says, “How are you?” to reply “Oh, OK, I guess, can’t complain, mustn’t grumble, you know, struggling on.” It’s a cliché. It’s a habit. Try instead, “Fine, really good actually, doing OK.” There’s a trick for you. 

So someone brings you more work that you simply have to do—it’s unavoidable and part of your remit, and just when you thought you could see a little light at the end of the tunnel. Easy to say, “Oh no, not more bloody work. Can’t everybody see how busy I am? This really is too much.” If it’s unavoidable and moaning isn’t going to change a thing, then maybe saying, “Fine, just dump it there; I’ll get on with it in a moment. Thanks.” Why berate the messenger? I’m sure he didn’t personally generate all this extra work just to piss you off. So it’s a drag having extra work to do. So what? So be cheerful and get on with it. Every second spent moaning and bitching is a second taken off your life. Every second spent being cheerful and positive is a second added on. Take your choice.

SO IT'S A BAD DAY; THIS TOO WILL PASS AND THE SUN WILL COME BACK.