"What did you like best?"

The current economy and challenges in the real estate market have clearly steered attitudes in a different direction than a few years ago. And there are factual reasons for concerns. But when times were good and when times are not, we sometimes let the outside influences dictate our attitude too much. As if we have no control over our own outlook. This hurts our life and our business.

I think it is safe to say that I have probably always been one of the "glass half full" people; generally very optimistic even when times were tough. I suppose that is a helpful trait for an entrepreneur. Even in tough times, you tend to think, "Surely things will get better!"

While many things can lead to our outlook on life, I often wonder about how I view the world and how that developed. I know I could make a long list of influences but one influence I think is unique. As a child, for years, we had a routine for bed time. It included my mom asking me and my brother, "What did you like best about the day?"

The rules on this question were simple. You had to answer and an answer of "nothing" was not allowed. Other than that, answers could be anything.  Something big or tiny. An answer might be, "the whole day," or a television show or something we ate or a family member or the dog. It was okay to list a number of things.

I can remember as a child that some nights I would just throw out a generic answer that sounded good. Like when a cashier asks "How are you?" But I can also remember other times reviewing the day in my mind. I would think of things from the day and how I felt about them, then selecting something I did truly like about the day.

How we see and respond to the world around us is critical to how we interact with it. It impacts how we behave, how we respond and how we communicate with others. We respond to feelings, whether we have considered them or they are instinctive (which can sometimes be wrong). If you do stop to consider something, the questions you ask yourself will frame and form many of the answers.

What did you like best about today (or the past week)? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Should you? If you did think about it, would it change your day?