As Karsten Ramser states, "To break the vicious cycle of negative attention, we must learn to see 'with new eyes,' starting with ourselves and extending to our surroundings, reshaping how we perceive both ourselves and the world."
In other words, whether we focus on the problem or the opportunity truly depends on us.
Consider the story recounted by Ben Zander in his book about a shoe factory that sent two executives to Africa for market research. After a few weeks, both executives reported the same circumstances in an email:
- The first executive remarked that the situation was very challenging because people didn’t wear shoes.
- The second executive expressed excitement about the tremendous opportunity because people neither had shoes nor were aware of them.
