Looking for Gold… or even a Pony

Some one I had not seen for a while heard me present at a large business meeting recently. After the event he said ‘You are still so passionate about your business…’  And it’s true I am. But it came across very cynically.

RedBalloon  has just had a fantastic fathers day – 1000s of Dads got to have a good time, we have launched in Sydney and Melbourne city stores with Myer and our corporate business is winning major contracts almost weekly. Everything is looking pretty rosy from where I am. So of course I am positive.

But even when things are not going quite so well, I’m still pretty ‘chippe’r. I was born positive, but more importantly I have a clear sense of purpose. I often jest ‘I’m so positive, that if the world were to come to an end I’d say – “Fantastic let’s invent a new one.”’

I was reminded of the story of ‘looking for the Pony’ which is all about the power of choosing how to respond to the world no matter what you are dealt with.

A father’s two sons were very different. One was pessimist. Everything was terrible. Nothing was good enough. The other was an optimist. Everything was great.

The father wanted to put the two boys to a test… to see if it was a matter of circumstance or a choice.

He took the pessimistic boy and put him in a room filled with all the toys a child could dream of just to show him that life was pretty good.

He put the optimistic kid in a room full of horse manure, just to show him that life is not so perfect.

He left them alone for an hour or so.

The pessimist son was sitting in the room crying: "Too many toys. I can’t decide with which one to play with. I am so miserable. Life is terrible."

The optimist son was whistling and singing, and shoveling horse manure around. When the father asked him why he was so happy, he replied, "With so much horse s-t there must be a pony here some where."

Life deals us all sorts of things… it is up to us to look for the gold in what confronts us. Even if some times if is very confronting.