Was George Washington a failure?

This is Jim Denison's Daily article for Friday, January 4th, 2019.

Poverty around the world is plummeting.

Half the world is now middle class, and illiteracy, disease, and deadly violence are receding.

So reports the Wall Street Journal, probably to the surprise of many.

We might wonder if optimists are reading the same news as the rest of us. The stock market plunged yesterday after Apple warned it would miss its quarterly

sales forecast due to weakening growth in China. The standoff over the partial government shutdown

continues, with few predicting that today's talks will make significant progress. It even turns out

that, according to the Smithsonian, the world's oldest woman might have been her daughter, masquerading as her mother.

But as Rick Newman points out in his book, Rebounders, the key to success is not a lack of failure, but our response to it.

Consider these examples. George Washington lost more battles than he won during the Revolutionary War.

Norman Vincent Peel's wife rescued

the manuscript of the power of positive thinking from the trash, after it had been rejected

repeatedly by New York publishers. It became an all-time bestseller. A 1914 fire destroyed

Thomas Edison's manufacturing operations, but the 67-year-old rebuilt and modernized factories

that revolutionized technology. According to Newman, a whole body of scientific research has shown that overcoming setbacks can make people stronger, smarter, and more durable.

If you're like most of us, you're facing significant challenges today.

So, let's ask a practical question. What's the key to becoming a rebounder? In a recent daily

briefing, Dr. Nick Pitts cited a Yale University study of people carrying a gene linked to dementia.

Those with positive attitudes about aging were 50% less likely to develop the disorder than

less positive people. Dr. Pitts also reported that positive thinking has been shown to reduce

anxiety and improve overall health. In the latter study, Harvard researchers especially noted

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