Postive Mental Attitude

PMA – positive mental attitude – has been around for many years. Napoleon Hill was a huge proponent, so was W. Clement Stone, Og Mandino, and many others. Some of these names may be familiar to you; Norman Vincent Peale is another name, a larger than life Presbyterian Minister in Manhattan, New York.

Believers of PMA adopt the foundational thought that ‘believing is being.’ If you can conceive an idea, you can achieve that idea. If you want to be a positive force in your community, believe that you can and it will become a reality. Feel down and blue? Your work will reflect that, and so too your performance.

For a few years I worked for Combined Insurance Companies of America, the creation of W. Clement Stone. Stone was a self-made millionaire in Chicago. He started with $100 borrowed from his mother and built an insurance empire. It has since been bought by Aon, an international giant in risk management and insurance services.

W. Clement Stone for years taught his employees the PMA method of managing life and our dreams of the future. He wove this value structure into his human resource management and watched it work wonders among people who were not used to being achievers. He convinced many they were achievers, and his company prospered.

Later, my career took many twists and turns but PMA stuck to my mental bones. It turned me into a positive person, looking for answers to broad problems in society. I learned to first define the problem and imagine it repaired or absent; what would be going on if things were running well, efficiently? Seeing that image clearly gave the mind something to think about, mainly what could we be doing to build that fresh new image? That image became the goal; the how was designed into an action plan.

That mental process became like a mantra to me. I followed it most of the time. when I did, good things happened. Those good things produced good feelings among the people who were involved in making the good things happen. In turn more good things were imagined and achieved. PMA in action, I think.

Many years ago I wondered about many things. Mostly I wondered about defining circumstances, events and developments. What was happening, why was it unfolding in this manner, and was anyone in charge of it? If not, how could we find a way to manage it?

I became a definer of issues then. I read and studied issues in their broad context to determine what was happening and what effect those events had on the whole, as well as the ripple effects that also occurred. Again, the context of happenings – or history – lends a better understanding of what happened and why.

Properly defined, most issues can be better managed. Not all at once, but in digestible chunks. Want a population of achievers? Train them. Want them to design and create entire new systems for the future? Educate them broadly in sciences – both hard and soft sciences. From this America became a great educator. From this huge library systems evolved. From this great universities grew and prospered. An educated America emerged from modest beginnings.

In time America took on leadership roles in world affairs. It came to the rescue of many nations in trouble. Many of these rescues were in humanitarian services, but some were in war and foreign affairs. These we know well as World War I and II and many skirmishes since then. Not always a fond memory, but one cast by a world in need.

Today our leadership is in question. We have lost our mojo. One wonders if we have a negative cast these days? Have we been too critical of ourselves? Have we replaced PMA with NMA?

“Make American Great Again” is a campaign slogan that spoke to the downcast NMA believers, I think. Believers in PMA can handle this. Rather than succumbing to negative thoughts and anger at the NMA-ers, why not turn the tables and rekindle active PMA?

That belongs with each of us. Together we can believe our way out of the doldrums of trumpian logic and malfeasance. Together we can produce great imaginings and with PMA make them real achievements.

In the dust will be the non-believers and the negative souls. But we are responsible for ourselves and our national spirit.

I say, ‘return to the ramparts with PMA.’ Best if we do this sooner rather than later!

July 26, 2017