About
How it began…
About one year ago I, Thomas, was in quite a bind at work. We had some apartments we had rented for the summer. The agreement was for 5 months. I started the lease about the 4th of April. This was a long distance relationship with the apartment complex as I was not personally staying there for the summer. Well the time approached for me to give my notice. Upon doing so I get a call from the apartment complex saying that if I close early that there would be an early termination fee. The long and the short of it was they had made the lease extend to the end of Sept. the closing month as they always ended agreements at the end of the month. Needless to say, one of the two apartments was already vacant and we were already losing money for one month. Now the apartment was telling me that the signed agreement stated the close was the end of Sept. not the 4th of Sept. And according to the individual I was speaking with there was nothing she could do as it was in writing. And unfortunately for me I didn’t actually sign the agreement as I was not the one moving in, and that individual didn’t question the papers because I had already negotiated the deal.The net effect, we stood to loose rent for the vacant apartment we currently had and for an additional 3 weeks of Sept. It was going to be a net loss of about $3500.
My boss is telling me that I needed to get them to fix this or else thoroughly report this to the state housing board, and on every review site and website related to this company. Plus remind them that we would never be using their location again. While I am a business man, I am naturally non-confrontational. The overall situation did not look good. Yes we signed the agreement and were bound by contract. Yes it seemed a bit of a scam to add the 3 weeks to the agreement. I of course side with my company and didn’t want us to loose $3500.
Well I stood back and evaluated the situation. The manager that was now telling me her hands were tied had been great to me in the past. I didn’t want to go in swinging at her or fighting period. Plus, I really didn’t want to report this to the state housing board. No one likes investigations from any state regulatory agency. And I don’t like bulling people around. And I am sure her boss was looking at it as a loss on their end if they let us out of the lease.
My choice… Optimism. Seriously. I had recently brushed up on some optimism pointers from a local motivation speaker and said, “Why not be optimistic?” Given my past history with the manager she seemed like a reasonable individual. I was being reasonable. There had to be a way for everyone to work this out and come out happy.
So I called her every morning, bright and cheery, for about 4 days and asked, “So Jennifer, have we figured out a way for this to work?” And I would have almost the same conversation with her, “No. I am still talking with the owners and they have not decided how to handle this.” “Well I understand. I am sure that we can work this out. Let me know when you hear from them.”
Late in the afternoon on the 4th day she calls me back.
“I think I have something for you. We have a lady that needs your apartment but has to have it this weekend. Can we have the vacant apartment now? We will we close your lease on the 4th of next month and close the vacant one early giving you back a prorate for the remainder of this month.”
WOW. We not only worked it out for both of us, but we both walked away with better deals then we had originally. They got a longer lease and we got back about $1000. Talk about a win-win-win situation. So I ended up coming out positive $1000.
I credit this to a simple choice about 5 days earlier.
“Be Positive. Be Optimistic.”
…but it gets better. So later that day I am buying some domain names. And I think to myself, “I want to host and build an Optimism site.” So I start looking through possible domain names for optimism. A lot are already taken, no surprise. So I start researching optimism online. One of the top results is an optimism test. It looked like fun, so I took it…
I FAILED THE OPTIMISM TEST!
I laughed to myself. Perhaps I am not optimistic, or not gullible enough. I flip back over to my domain names site… and it hits me. OPTIMISM SOUP – YOUR DAILY HEALTHY DOSE OF OPTIMISM.
I believe in a healthy optimistic view on life. Not a naive view. Perhaps I am better considered an optimistic-pessimist, or an optimistic-realist… after some research I would argue that both are possible and that they are not as oxymoronic as they appear.
But my vision of this site is to be a resource for anyone looking to be optimistic at whatever level they want to embrace optimism.
So welcome to Optimism Soup, your daily healthy dose of optimism.
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