Last year I ran a successful year-long program called Powered by Hope. The intent of the program is to help you follow your creative dreams by powering your spirit with hope! I am glad the program was so well received. This year, in addition to new posts, I will also be sharing a few of the best posts from the program. From now until the end of 2015, you will receive a minimum of two posts a month focused on hope. I hope you will enjoy them and that they will inspire you to follow your dreams!

RECOGNIZE OPPORTUNITIES

You may have heard this story before; it has been making rounds on the Internet. Please forgive me if I tell it once more.

A shoe company sends two salesmen to a small, remote village in Africa to check out the market there for shoes. The first one sends an email back: “Flying back tomorrow. There is no market here, no one wears shoes.” The shoe company president reads the message and decides to call the young man back. The second salesman also sends an email but his reads: “SEND MORE SHOES. No one here wears them so there is a huge market. Looks like I need to tell my wife I will be gone for a while.” He got a promotion.

If you think this story isInternet legend or bogus, then go to Google and search out the story about the poor Indian man who created sanitary napkins. He found out that less than 7% of Indian women used napkins. Others (mostly poor) just made do with small pieces of cloth. Instead of thinking “No one is doing it so there is no market,” he spent years thinking “93% market share!” He went to on to create jobs for millions of rural women who could now make these napkins at small local factories and use them.

These stories have made a huge impression on me. I tend to be the one with glass-half-empty syndrome, so now each time I am faced with a situation that looks less than positive, I remind myself of these stories.

Do you agree with these stories? I would love your thoughts.

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