Joe, a golfer, joined three people at a golf course to make up the foursome. The three friends teed off, but when Joe hit his first shot, it went directly into the trees. The trio suggested he play a second ball in case he couldn’t find his first one, but Joe shrugged them off and went out to search for his ball.

After 10 minutes, Joe couldn’t find his ball, but he insisted on looking some more. Finally, one of the other golfers said, “Joe, we’re holding everyone up. Why don’t you just drop another ball and take a penalty stroke?”

“All right.” Joe turned and headed for the pro shop.

“Where are you going?” the other golfers asked.

“I have to buy another ball.”

If you’ve ever played golf, you know Joe had a case of misguided optimism. But I give him a lot of credit for believing in his ability. Even the most optimistic golfers carry a few extra balls, just in case.

As the old saying goes, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

I’ll take optimism over pessimism every day of the week. I’ve discovered that it’s just as easy to look for the good things in life as the bad. If you look at the bright side of life you will never develop eyestrain. In other words, thinking positive has no negative.

When I am hiring -- especially for sales -- I seek out optimists. Why? A pessimist has no starter; an optimist has no brakes.

American psychologist Martin Seligman, working at the University of Pennsylvania at the time, studied the sales prowess of optimists and equally talented pessimists.

Metropolitan Life developed a test called the Seligman Attributional Style Questionnaire to sort the optimists from the pessimists when hiring sales personnel. Seligman found that optimists outsold pessimists by 20 percent the first year and by 50 percent the following year.

In his book, “Learned Optimism,” Seligman lists many studies that report optimists are healthier; less likely to give up; more successful in school, on the job and on the playing field; have more successful relationships; and are depressed less often, and for shorter periods of time.

Mary Kay Mueller, in her book, “Taking Care of Me: The Habits of Happiness,” shows how optimism is the best policy. How you look at life can drastically affect how much you enjoy your life. If you have a positive attitude, then you will be considered an optimistic person. If you have a negative attitude, then you will be considered a pessimistic person. Optimists expect the best out of life. Mueller believes an optimistic attitude can be learned, as do I.

She lists the tenets that optimism is based on:

-- Bad things do happen in life, but they are temporary.

-- Bad things in life are limited in scope. (They’re small or insignificant.)

-- People have control over their environments.

She also lists the tenets that pessimism is based on:

-- Good things in life are temporary.

-- Good things in life are limited in scope. (They’re small or insignificant.)

-- People have no control over their environments.

Optimists help create some of the good they come to expect, so they are probably right more than not -- and they don’t waste time worrying about what they’re not right about.

An old saying breaks it down to this: “The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole.”

This story is a perfect illustration.

David and Steve were friends, but they could never quite agree on anything. “Your problem is you’re a pessimist,” David said one day when they were fishing. “You can’t see the bright side of anything!”

“Oh yeah?” Steve asked. “Prove it!”

“Watch this.” David’s dog Spot was in the boat with them. David snapped his fingers. “Spot! Go back to shore and fetch me a can of beer!”

Spot carefully climbed over the edge of the boat. Then, miraculously, he simply walked across the surface of the water, opened the friends’ beer cooler with his snout, and carried a can of beer back in his teeth -- all without getting wet.

“Now what do you say about that?” David asked.

Steve shook his head. “A dog that smart, and he can’t even swim.”

Mackay’s Moral: Optimists don’t care whether the glass is half-full or half-empty -- they know they can refill the glass!

The Duke of Wellington, the brilliant British military leader who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was a great commander, but he was a difficult man to serve under. He was a demanding perfectionist who complimented his subordinates only on rare occasions.

In retirement, Wellington was asked by a visitor what, if anything, he would do differently if he had his life to live over again.

The old duke thought for a moment and then said, “I’d give people I worked with more praise.”

Can you tell I was a history major in college?

There’s a lot of power in praising people. British novelist Arnold Bennett had a publisher who boasted often about the outstanding work of his assistant. Waiting on an appointment one day at the publisher’s office, Bennett approached her with a smile and asked: “Your boss claims you’re extremely efficient. What is your secret?”

“It’s not my secret,” the assistant said. “It’s his.”

She explained that the publisher never failed to acknowledge and appreciate every task she performed, no matter how routine or seemingly insignificant. Because of his attention and praise, she took great pains to deliver good work all the time.

When you sincerely praise someone -- and there has to be truth in that praise -- something amazing often takes place. Something starts to grow and change in the other person, and your relationship often becomes deeper and more fulfilling as a result.

My good friend, the late leadership guru Warren Bennis, said: “In experiment after experiment, the workers who thought they were doing better did better.

“In one experiment, 10 people were given puzzles to solve. They were all given fictitious results. Half were told they had done well. The other half were told they had done poorly. They were then given a second test, and this time they all did as well or as poorly as they were told on the first test.”

With all the praise and recognition employees seem to crave, you think it wouldn’t matter where or how you give it. But it matters a lot. Managers who don’t bother to get to know their employees on a personal level will not be successful at this task. A shy individual may cringe if recognized publicly; others may take great pride in being honored in front of their peers. Managers must also avoid the appearance of favoritism by considering how much public praise they give the same people time and again.

So, should you go easy on the praise to avoid offending someone? No, you should instead learn enough about your employees to be able to tailor your praise to their situations.

Everyone likes a pat on the back and a hearty “well done.” Making praise a truly effective motivational tool requires a little planning. The purpose of workplace praise is to improve productivity and reinforce positive behavior. Keep these notions in mind as you hand out the compliments.

-- Be specific. Don’t just offer cliches or platitudes. For instance, if you’re pleased with how Susan satisfied a complaining customer, don’t just say, “You handled that well.” Give some detail that tells her exactly what she did right: “You were wise to let the customer vent his anger and then offer good, constructive solutions.”

-- Be honest. Employees know when you’re faking it. Don’t offer praise unless you can do it sincerely. Passing out superficial praise can hurt your credibility instead of improving performance and morale.

-- Be timely. Praise loses its impact if it’s not delivered close to the event. Don’t save it for the monthly luncheon. Tell the person what you appreciate right away. And take your time. Don’t rush away once you’ve delivered your message. Let the other person enjoy it for a while.

-- Be balanced. Like anything else, praise loses its effectiveness if it’s overused. On the other hand, its power diminishes if it’s underused. Give extra attention to new employees, those who seem to lack confidence or team members testing the waters with new assignments. Focus on those making an extra effort, accomplishing a difficult task or exhibiting behavior you want others to emulate.

-- Be encouraging. Praise makes people feel good, and it also reinforces behavior. Express your hope that the person will continue doing praiseworthy work. Thank the person for his or her efforts. This helps send the message that you’ll like to see the person’s performance keep improving along the same lines.

Mackay’s Moral: Well-deserved praise improves the best of days.

A lovely little girl was holding two apples in her hands. Her mom came in and softly asked her little daughter with a smile: My sweetie, could you share one of your apples with Mommy?"

The girl looked up at her mom for a few seconds, and then suddenly took a quick bite of one apple, and then a bite of the other. Her mom froze and tried hard not to reveal her disappointment. Had she raised such a selfish child?

Then the little girl handed one of her bitten apples to her mom, and said: “Mommy, here you are. This is the sweetest one.”

No matter who you are, how experienced you are and how knowledgeable you think you are, always delay judgment. Give others the privilege to explain themselves. What you see may not be the reality. Never conclude for others. Perception can be misleading.

If what you see is what you get, make sure that what you see is the whole picture, not just a small slice of it. And if you can’t see the forest for the trees, just imagine what you are missing.

Our preconceptions can dramatically alter the way we perceive the world. There is a saying attributed to the writer Anais Nin that reflects this idea: “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.”

I think that is pure genius. Our own experiences and education can cause us to see events through a very different lens from the person sitting next to us, even though we are watching the same event.

Prime example: eyewitness testimony in criminal cases. Time and again, conflicting stories surface from bystanders who have no reason to lie. What they saw was simply not the same thing as the next person’s observations. It’s a constant challenge for law enforcement, trial lawyers and judges.

The Roman poet Phaedrus said: “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.”

I have another way of saying this in my speeches: Things are not necessarily as we perceive them to be. I often share the story of the man and his son who are in a car accident and are badly injured. The younger man needs emergency surgery. But at the hospital, the surgeon says, “I cannot operate on this person. He is my son.” But wait, wasn’t the father injured too?

You would be amazed at how many people, in this day and age, have not figured out that the surgeon is in fact the boy's mother. When I first started using this example some years back, almost no one made the connection. Now it’s probably 50-50. Perceptions change, but not always as quickly as reality.

One of my favorite characters in literature is Sherlock Holmes. His conclusions are based on an extremely well-developed sense of perception. Consider this example, which is certainly not from the canonical texts:

Holmes and Dr. Watson decide to go on a camping trip. After dinner and a bottle of wine, they bed down for the night and go to sleep.

A while later, Holmes wakes up and notices something remarkable. He nudges his tent mate and inquires, “Watson, tell me what you see.”

A sleepy Watson mumbles, “I see millions of stars.”

Holmes asks, “And what does that tell you?”

Watson rubs his eyes and thinks about what Holmes is asking. After a minute, he replies, “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Holmes?”

Holmes responds, “It tells me that someone has stolen our tent!”

Mackay’s Moral: First impressions are important. But lasting impressions are more important.