Person A and Person B – Which One Has An Advantage?

Today, I’d like to offer up the backgrounds and circumstances of two people and let you decide which one has an advantage.
 
Person A

• Pre and grade school: ranked among the highest in the state
• High School: attended private school; played multiple sports; varsity letterman junior and senior year
• College: State University program; Bachelor’s degree graduate
• Neighborhood: ranked among the highest in the country; pool; family dogs lived for 16+ years
• Physical: never broken a bone; sleeps well; respectable at multiple sports and physical activities
• Home life: parents married and together for 50 years; family dinners nearly every night; close to sibling
• Work life: secured meaningful job roles; long tenures; earned promotions; enjoyed work

 
Person B

• Pre and grade school: different schools every year for five years consecutively
• High School: struggled with most courses; cut from the sports team; face-first fall during a track event in front of the grandstands
• College: worked two jobs simultaneously to pay for necessities; first person in family to graduate college
• Neighborhood: lived in a studio apartment for 10 years; parents’ house robbed; dog stolen from backyard
• Physical: many stiches, wraps, surgeries, and medications to repair injuries; stress levels come and go; not great at any one sport or physical activity
• Home life: both parents jobless while kids were under six years old; father and mother had multiple jobs to care for family; rarely speaks to sibling
• Work life: started working at 12 years old; multiple unsatisfying job roles; same job with multiple bosses; long commutes

 
The one that has an advantage? The correct answer is A.
 
Here’s the reality. The two people - they’re both me. Each description is simply a matter of how I decide to view my circumstance. Person A has an advantage because he is thinking positively. Henry Ford knew this in the early 1900’s when he said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t - you’re right.”
 
Scientific evidence backs this up as well. Professor Barbara Fredrickson is a social psychologist from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and has been a researcher in human emotions for the past 25 years. She suggests that positivity is the mindset that helps produce emotions such as joy, amusement, happiness, serenity, gratitude and inspiration.
 
She said a few more things that caught my attention and made me, literally, sit up straight:

• 'With positive emotion there's more of an easiness in the torso, and I think that's consequential because other people can pick that up and it's a safety signal for others that this person is safe to approach.’

• 'There's ways in which openness both characterizes the mindset and the posture, and certainly the face too, because when someone's face is more relaxed and smiling, that grabs our attention very quickly and it is, again, another safety signal.’

• ‘We found that this changes the very fundamental rhythms of the heart, so that we see more heart rate variability.’

• ‘We are looking now at changes in gene expression in the immune system, and we're able to look at the extent to which increases in day to day levels of positive emotions predict physiological changes and psychological practical changes like resilience, social connection and so on.’

 
Therefore, for the fundamental rhythms of my heart and the easiness in my torso, I choose to think, “I can.” Together, let’s try an experiment: For the remainder of this year, let’s focus in the areas of our talents and surround ourselves with the things we enjoy. Let’s do this with business and personal decisions. It won’t be easy, and it’s for the good of our health and wellbeing. So, I say we do it!  Who’s with me?
 
Quick note: when I say that I’m close to my sibling and in another case, I rarely speak to him - both are true. We’re brothers, 15 months apart and we’re close. And yet, we only speak about once a month. I can only figure this is the case because we’re men, and these men don’t have a lot to say to each other. Although, I’d do anything for him, and he would for me as well. That’s just us. I love him.
 
Yours,
 
Blaise
 
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