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Yes, he has magical thinking; each time he does dumb dumb stuff, but is genuinely shocked at the outcome.
So how do we differentiate this from mmm's "The power of positive thinking"? I dont think your friend planed to fail he may have just had unrealistic ideas of what would happen or how others would act. During the heat of the moment when everything is all crazy how do we know the difference between "if I try hard and keep at it things will work out" and "if I pray really hard a unicorn will fly down and save Christmas by winning the Kentucky derby". To some extend we all here on the mmm forum are contrarians and not listening to the standard advice and sound a bit like the unicorn wishers.
Trying hard and hoping things work out is great, provided it is accompanied by things like:
* Acquiring competent instruction
* Putting in the necessary time to learn the skills and get the necessary credentials
* Having the fundamental skills and attributes necessary for success
* Being in the sort of place where success occurs
* Starting out at a practical level (minor league first, then major) to gain experience
* Soliciting and taking advice from people who are experts in the field
* Delivering quality product/service for the money
* Making adjustments in approach to correct things that provably are not working
* Taking intelligent risks as opposed to stupid ones
A person who does these things has the ability to identify ways in which they are making incremental progress toward their goal (or not).
The pie-in-the-sky unicorn folks skip most of those steps because they involve hard work and acceptance of the fact that a lot of what we do is *not* perfect just the way it is.