The Author Backstory to The A to Z of Positive Thinking

Q. We are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of a book that has made an impact and has been appreciated in many countries and has sold over 50,000 copies around the world. Where did the inspiration come from that started you on this journey?

Neil I was at a conference in York, and I walked past a bunch of associates that were there from Switzerland. I overheard them say that life was all about “living laughing and learning”. And I just, I just loved that little snippet of a conversation.

I have always loved playing with words, as you never know when they might come in useful for an article or on stage, so I immediately wrote them down in my pocket note book. When I got home, I put them up on my whiteboard to give me some inspiration. As I looked at them, it occurred to me that they could be better, so I changed them to “Life’s about Living, Laughing, Loving, and Learning”. I liked it so much that I even asked a friend to translate it into Latin – “Vita est de Vivere, Ridere, Amare et Discere, and I used it as my motto.

I would think of it from time to time and to challenge myself to see what sort of day I was having. After all, if you are done some living, some laughing, some loving, and some learning then, in my book, you’ve had a good day. For me it is a tick in the box.

I was then inspired to look for other words that were equally powerful. I came up with ‘fun, free, friends, and fame’, and then for some reason, ‘happy, healthy, horny, and holy’, ‘enthusiastic, ecstatic, enthralling, and enamoured’. I was starting to have fun!

Whenever anyone asked me how I was feeling I was now ready with an answer. Oh, I’m happy healthy, horny, and holy! That stopped them in their tracks

As I thought of new word combinations, I wrote them on the on the board. I started playing with positive words and people would say to me, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘How are you today?’ Oh, I’m happy healthy, horny, and holy. No! Whoa!

So, being an engineer, I started to analyse what I was doing. I asked myself how many positive words are there? I started doing the research. And it took me about three months.

I went through the dictionary, and I found out there was only 1705 positive words. That’s pretty cool I thought. Then I researched how many negatives were there then? Back to research and three months later, I found out there were like three times as many, 5890 negative words.

That was like a light bulb going on. No wonder we are all so negative. It makes up the majority of our language. Something had to be done!

I started playing with it. And before I knew it, I’d written this little book called, The A-Z of Thought Antidotes. The positive words were the antidote to all the negativity. If you use them, you will be amazed at how people react!

When people ask you how you are, it is a perfect opportunity to say a string of positive words. They will be disappointed because they were expecting you to be gloomy and complain about what a terrible world it is. This was going to be their cue. They had all their bad news lined up ready.

The first edition of the book was published in 1994 as the A to Z Of Thought Antidotes. It did exactly what it said on the tin. If you were feeling negative, and read the book, you couldn’t fail to laugh because you cannot read these positive words without laughing; Centred, Creative, Colourful, Committed, Calm, Can, Candidate, Champion. It gives you a lift, gives you a power, as opposed to Okay,

The most negative words in the English language begin with ‘D’. This is disgusting. I’m disillusioned, I’m depressed. I’m distraught. I’m dismayed. Drink drugs, divorce death. I mean, there’s what I call the ‘D-World’. As soon as you go into that world, it just drains the energy out of you. I mean, as soon as you go down into the negative world, Yeah, it is a spiral. You do feel like giving up.

So, the only way I could change it is to go to the positive, flip the coin, go to the positive? And so that was the seed of it. The Swiss associates saying life’s about living, laughing and learning. And I just expanded it from there.

Q it’s very difficult to pull yourself out of the gravitational pull of negativity because it surrounds us everywhere.

N But it’s not, it’s not difficult. If you’ve got the willpower and the mindset to change it. That’s the problem. Most people go with the flow. They let the gravity pull them, they don’t do anything to initiate it and take responsibility to get themselves out the habit hole. It’s fundamentally a choice, and I’m a great believer in that, it is not that difficult. Most people don’t want to do it, it is too much, that it is to them just too much hard work.

Q Give me an example

N There is a famous sketch in Monty Python with four Yorkshire men, sitting in a row talking about the bad things that have happened in their lives. Then the next once would say “You think that was bad, wait till I tell you what happened to me!” The entire sketch was based on sharing the worse negatives. I am sure it was probably based on real life!

I’ll give you an illustration. I was sitting in a pub was in South London, in Tooting. Just reading. And a guy came up to me said, ‘You look like you’re a pretty intelligent guy’. ‘Really? Thank you very much’. ‘Can you give me some advice?’ I looked at him and said, ‘Yeah, stop drinking’. And he said, ‘you can’t say that’. ‘You told me to give you some advice’. He got the hump. Not drinking. It’s just a habit. Everything is all habits at the end of the day. Everything is a choice.

When I wrote the first edition of The A to Z of Though antidotes, I seriously considered putting on the cover, If you’re looking for an excuse, don’t buy me! Because this is for people that are fed up with excuses. Looking for an excuse; Don’t buy this book. If you want to get rid of the excuses and have a different life on the other hand; buy it. In other words, when you’re ready. There are people in life that are victims, that have not yet taken the personal responsibility to make it so for themselves. They are at the continual effect of issues and circumstances. This book is for people that are no longer victims, they are now starting to ascend and do it.