How many of you know someone that’s totally over optimistic about everything in life?

Everything is always great! They’re always smiling and, sometimes, when things aren’t going our way, they are still smiling, and thus we want to just rip that silly grin right off their face! STOP SMILING!

Compare that to the opposite type of person. The person who’s always thinking about the worst-case scenario. The person who’s always thinking that the world is working against them to ensure they live miserably. I know far too many people who live with this type of mentality.

Of course, we’ve also got ordinary everyday people who sit somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

The other day, I was flying home from Augusta, GA and I read a story about Cynthia Stafford.

Cynthia believed deeply in the law of attraction. The idea behind the law of attraction is that our thoughts and desires actually influence our lives and the world we live in. Through our thoughts, it’s believed that we can manifest and create the world in which we live.

If you believe you’re going to be successful, there’s a good chance you will be.

If you believe you’re going to end up broke and unhappy, well, chances are you’ll end up broke and unhappy.

Most people believe the concept to be rather hokey. Others, like Tony Robbins, believe that our lives are almost entirely governed by our attitudes and the law of attraction.

Cynthia’s story takes it to the extreme though.

Cynthia was a single mother of five. She became a strong believer of the law of attraction. She wholeheartedly believed that she could manifest her ideal life.

She started to visualize winning the lottery… Who doesn’t, right?
OK, bear with me – It’s a crazy story.

She actually started to visualize winning a very specific amount of money. The number was $112 Million Dollars. The number just kept popping into her head. She wrote the number down. She meditated on the number. She focused on the number. She believed in the number. She thought about what she would do with the money.

She became obsessed with it. For over four months, it dominated her thoughts.

On May 2007, Cynthia won the Mega Millions lottery. The amount?

Exactly  $112 million dollars.

The reason for the article was that Cynthia has given away a considerable amount of her winnings, far more than most lottery winners ever give away. She’s been donating large sums of money left and right to people and organizations in need.

I’m not saying that if you focus on winning the lottery for months, you’re going to win millions of dollars; but if you’re always focusing on the negative things going on in your life and always believing things are going to end negatively, it’s going to be that much harder to get ahead.

Optimism and positive thinking have never been overrated.