Early on in my career, I worked with an astonishingly effective salesman. He did exactly what you’d expect such an effective sales professional to do, be enthusiastic, deal well with rejection (when it happened), craft a good succinct story, understand his customer’s needs.
One thing he also did is that he looked at the negative. He analyzed the situation and his customer and put it this way “Eliminate every reason why the customer can say No and then he has no reason not to say Yes.”
He looked for the obstacles and problems in the situation and determined a solution before those items destroyed his chances of getting a Yes.
It’s amazing but in our society of so much Happy Talk people often refuse to look at the problems and dangers in a situation and believe that only so-called positive thinking is allowed.
Our society encourages positive thoughts and that’s not entirely a bad thing. There is research that shows positivity can encourage people onto greater performance and eliminate unrealistic obstacles that are actually hindering achievement.
But not recognizing that the world is complex and has obstacles is a problem too. Mindless optimism causes problems. Some economists have pointed out that mindless positivity was one of the underlying causes of the 2008 subprime loan crisis.
Some years ago fire walking was popular among new-age gurus. That’s walking barefoot over hot coals. You’ve probably heard of it. The gurus would tell their acolytes that all they had to do was think positive: “I am not going to be hurt!” and then just do it. All would be well. Not surprisingly there was a large number of injuries to those that tried it.
The positive thinkers did not have time for simple physics. After all, it’s all a matter of positive thinking and mindset!
Consider positive visualization. It’s a standard in corporate team-building exercises and business organization books. Just imagine a positive outcome and it will come true. On the surface, it sounds quite good but research scientists found that this sort of thing had the opposite effect on the positive visualizers. They lost their motivation to take action to make the outcome actually happen.
Have you ever seen positive affirmations on office walls? Or in a poster? “I Am Getting Better Every Day In Every Way” or “I Am Good Enough?” “Yes, I Am” and so on.
What could be wrong with those affirmations? University of Waterloo scientists researched that question and found that affirmations have the opposite effect on people. It made those with low self-esteem feel worse. Apparently, because it reminds them that perhaps, they really are not good enough. Or they wouldn’t have to say it to themselves. Over and over.
A very real danger of over-positivity is that it encourages the thinker to ignore dangers and obstacles that can be handled early on. The phrase “head in the sand” comes to mind.
I’ve worked in Africa and know people associated with health-related aid organizations there. They’ve told me that when a new super-enthusiastic doctor comes to an impoverished locale that person will inevitably not last. The doctors that last are the ones that arrive with eyes wide open. Aware of all the negatives they will encounter and how hard it will be to do their job. They are sober and aware of the difficulties to come. They last. They do the most good.
A substantial part of the research debunking the positive thinking myth is new. But over the ages, famous philosophers knew the advantages of balancing the negative with the positive while simultaneously embracing uncertainty.
This is not to say that repeating negative thoughts isn’t bad either. That has its own dangers.
Don’t let yourself get too carried away with being either too negative or too positive. Be in the middle. That is a goal of Buddhist philosophy. And other historical philosophical traditions agree too.
Too much positivity or too much negativity leaves a person vulnerable to disappointment or worse.
