What if you, too, were to greet every interaction in your life with the question 'What's the potential opportunity that this is?'

If something doesn't turn out as planned, you will ask yourself, 'How did I create that? What was I thinking? What were my beliefs? What did I say or not say? What did I do or not do to create that result? How did I get the other person to act that way? What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?'

If I hadn't spent many years trying to be as compassionate as Mother Teresa, as positive a thinker as W. Clement Stone, as prolific a writer as Stephen King, and as good a speaker as many of the legends I have studied, I would not be as successful as I am today.

Don't worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.

Now, when anything 'bad' happens, I remember that everything that ever happens to me has within it the seeds of something better. I look for the upside rather than the downside. I ask myself, 'Where's the greater benefit in this event?'

If you get clear on the what, the how will be taken care of.

I have a friend, a pastor, who applied with me and 419 other people for 25 seats on a special advisory board. Though I believed she was infinitely more qualified than me, she wasn't selected and I was. When I saw her at her church weeks later, I asked her how she felt about the decision. While disappointment, self-doubt and defeat would have been normal reactions to the Board's decision, my friend said she felt great. 'How come?' I asked. She said with a smile, 'I just figured God had something better in store for me.'