Lessons in Staying Positive – #10

Words: 375. Reading time: 1 minute 15 seconds.

Feeling positive, when others feel anything but, often invokes a degree of fear or guilt in the positive individual. This can stem from a number of sources:

~ We assume it is wrong to be positive when so many others are not;
~ We take responsibility inappropriately for the feelings of others;
~ We feel others will reject us because we are now different to them.

Well, each of us has our own version of the world and we have no right to steal another’s responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings.

Despite appearances to the contrary a can-do / positive attitude is a natural state for all of us. Psychologists confirm that we are born with only two basic startle reflexes – sudden loud noises and falling. Other fears and phobias may develop along the way, but children have one innate quality that drives most limitations away – curiosity.

It’s only “adults” that have trained us to curb our natural curiosity for fear of nameless consequences. More often that not these consequences are by no means certain; they are not even likely; but they may hover on the edge of vague possibility. Yet we allow such uninformed trepidation to limit our journeys, halt our exploratory missions and curtail any investigations.

A young child would have no such qualms – as most parents will testify!

When we set out we were positive people – and I hope we still are.

a) How many of us gave up trying to walk before we were 3 years old?
b) How many of us believed that we could not learn a foreign language – which our native tongue was at the time, as were all languages?
c) Who remembers as a kid saying “let me, let me, let me”? I know I did.

That’s who we really are – so stop acting your age – this is our chance to be more childlike and authentic.

Let’s turn up our curiosity!

Negativity is when we only think we know; it doesn’t mix well with curiosity.

As Mary Kay Ash said: “There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.”

The question is: in which group are you going to be?

Lessons in Staying Positive – #2

Words: 276. Reading time: 1 minute 4 seconds.

If you think businesses are struggling, take a look at Tesco: Group sales grew by 11.7% in the 13 weeks to 22nd November.

If you think Tesco’s is alone take a look at Primark: total sales grew by 21% in the year to Sept 13 and profits grew by 17%.

Not bad for an economy that is supposedly suffering badly and a sector that is said to be suffering more than most.

The argument that they have prospered because they are both at the ‘economy’ end of the spectrum is belied by the demise of Woolworth’s. Clearly, piling it high and selling it cheap is no guarantee of survival.

In a similar vein the media, even Governments, would have you believe that banks all over the world are in dire straits and that none of it is due to a gross neglect of duty by the regulators.

Take a look at the Lebanese banks. They are stronger than ever. That’s partly due to the way they conduct business, partly due to strict regulation. Well now, if they can do it, where were the UK Treasury and the US Securities Commission?

And that’s the second lesson: particularise rather than generalise. Generalising is marked by sweeping expressions that allow for no exceptions, such as:

· Everyone & No one
· Everywhere & Nowhere
· Everything & Nothing
· Always & Never
· Best & Worst

Who thinks they have heard reports recently that the FTSE 100 had its worst day ever? And who is aware that the FTSE 100 only started in 1984? Less than 25 years of comparatives doesn’t tell you very much, does it?

Even the FT30 index, which is the oldest continuous index in the UK and one of the oldest in the world, only began on July 1 1935.

Life survived and flourished even though a cataclysmic event wiped out the dinosaurs. The same is true today. Events that are wholly positive or wholly negative are rare events indeed.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #1

I was recently asked to deliver a talk entitled “Staying Positive In Difficult Times”. I accepted the invitation, but I changed the title.

The words we use are important. They reflect our thinking just as much as our thinking reflects our words. If times were difficult I would not want to stay in them, positive or otherwise. Nor would I want to stay positive under them, about them or while they last, although I might choose to stay positive through them.

I am equally twitchy at airports and railway stations where I am invited get on the train, or on the plane. No thanks! I’d much rather get in than get on!

And why would I wish to stay positive only in difficult times? Wouldn’t staying positive serve me just as well, whatever way “so-called” times turn out? If your outlook truly serves you well, it should do so whatever the circumstances. And if times were difficult would I want to stay?

The fact is the phrase “staying positive in difficult times” is a complete oxymoron and that’s lesson one: watch your language and do away with labels.

For someone who is positive times are neither difficult nor easy; times are neither happy nor sad; times are neither good nor bad. Times just are; they have no innate character that is true for everybody, everywhere, every when.

Times are what you make of them. It is quite possible for times to be both good and bad at the same time. Don’t take my word for it. Dickens said it most famously in the very first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Isn’t that just like now?