Remarkable advice can come from the most unlikely places. Today I found out my calculus professor was a successful entrepreneur for 20 years and jumped from industry to industry, founding and selling many companies.
From him: “I worked in the real world for a long time before coming here. I had a lot of experience with others, and could see what qualities in people allowed them to be successful or not. The ones who ultimately became successful were the ones that allowed themselves to be successful. This is how I did well in the multiple industries I worked in. I liked to move around a lot, and every time I did I made sure I stuck around long enough to be successful. Once you do well in one field you are able to bring that expectation into another. That expectation is 9/10ths of it.”
Allowing negativity to cloud one’s honest expectations of success is death.
Joseph Kelly's Blog 
Excellent, excellent advice — I am hardly blindly optimistic, but the power of a positive attitude can be extremely powerful.
You wished me a good time in Spain (which I appreciated), and I am certain that I had a better time than anyone else in the group. Why? We had the occasionally mediocre meal or meager lodgings or boring tour, but I absolutely refused to let any of that bother me, and instead concentrated on loving the fact that I was IN SPAIN. Worst-came-to-worst and I would just wander up to the front of the group and strike up a conversation with the tour guides – I learned more from the one-on-one dialogs with them than the actual tours anyways.
A good time was expected, and a good time I had.
Reminds me of a quote…. I believe I read from Think and Grow Rich…
“Success is one step past failure”
To allow yourself to be successful, more often than not, your going to fail once. A lot of people will fail, than quit. Like your professor sticking around until he became successful, people have to allow themselves to fail, and ultimately use that experience to be successful.