cre8Buzz Blog

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth

So I got it, The Secret is the bomb! “The Law of Attraction” think and you shall receive. Surround yourself with positive thoughts and you will achieve your goals, you will get what ya want. The law of attraction; I’m hearing it. I believe it! I’m sold! Many of the successes I have had in life have come from what I can only attribute to a positive focus, living in the “law of attraction”; most notable is my wife and how we came to be. It could be a straight up endorsement for the book, but check it that is another story for another day. General concept is tight . . . BUT!

But . . . yeah, ya knew there was a but comin’ it ain’t the whole story. Life ain’t so simple. It throws us curve balls, it is inconsistent, it is chaotic, yo ya’ll it’s life and ya just can’t break it down so simply. All the positive thinking in the world ain’t gonna prepare us for the surprises; the down side of life. Ya gotta prepare yourself so you don’t get surprised and find yourself wonderin’ what they hell just hit me upside the head.

Life happens, there is nothing we can do to control that. All the positive thinking in the world ain’t gonna prevent the negative, unexpected things from affecting our life. Unfortunately, we (society) don’t like to think about those things. We are programmed to stay keenly focused on the positive, regardless of how it could jack us up.

Karen Cerulo author of Never Saw it Coming finds that we are too consumed with positive thinking, even to our own detriment. She argues that we are individually, institutionally and societally obsessed with positive thinking and therefore we get blindsided by even the most foreseeable things. We just don’t wanna hear it or think about it. If ya run a business this thinking will kill ya. Her research shows when most of us look into our crystal ball, our view of the future we kinda blurr any hint of failure, disease, pain, disaster, freakiness that could be in our future. Instead; we grab on to the ideal scenarios and lay helpless and oblivious to any potentially negative life issues and therefore are grossly unprepared to handle them when they happen; and they do!

Now, think about how you or your business or your organization treats those that focus on the negative or life’s reality. We don’t have good things to say about them do we? What do we say? How about, doomsdayer, whiner, complainer, negative, chicken little, a bummer, downer etc. there ain’t a lot of love in them names uh?! We are a culture that is rooted in the ideal, and the positive.

Lemme give you a little data to drive the point home. According to a survey of parents by the Public Agenda organization, a large majority of parents said their children NEVER uses bad language, NEVER stay out too late, NEVER wear sloppy or revealing clothing and NEVER do poorly in school. Come on ya’ll are you serious? Boy can we put our heads in the sand. But it gets better. Californians are more likely to play lotto than buy earthquake insurance and only a third of sunbathers in America wear sunscreen. See ya’ll we just don’t wanna face reality. We operate from an assumption that if we don’t think about it, it won’t happen and The Secret plays right into our desire to avoid the realities of life. Therefore, we never see it comin.

The Real Secret:

The real secret is adding positivity to the negative, confronting reality and using the law of attraction to address those negatives in business or in life.

The first step, keep it real ya’ll. Take a good hard look at what is goin’ on in your business, in the market, in your industry, with your customers, at home or personally. Be clear, be honest, don’t shy away, don’t be a punk, just be honest with ya self. Ya have to. It ain’t being negative it is bein’ real. If ya avoid the reality, ya just being STUPID, not positive. Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy wrote a great book called Confronting Reality, calling out that one of the greatest challenges to business is keepin’ it real and bein’ open to what is really going on in an organization.

The Secret has the right idea. Philosophically the book is on the right track. It is in the execution where it falls down. Don’t look to banish all negative thoughts, of failure, or loss, or rejection, or pain, they are part of life. The key is to think about em, think about em a lot and ask yourself, how you will address them should they happen. Add The Secret’s law of attraction to them. Use the books concepts to be prepared for the realities of life.

Life is unique, it keeps ya guessing. For as long as we have roamed this earth we have always sought to control it. I got some bad news for ya, we can’t. So, let it go, roll with it. Stay keenly focused on all aspects of life. Chart your course with the ideal in mind. Stay keenly focused on those things ya want in life and business. Set the goals to get there. While you focus on what you want, don’t ignore and avoid the negatives, embrace them and live in The Secret while you do.

Keep it real, remember it’s just a frickin book!

UPDATE:

Business:
Competitors will beat you, competition will increase
Markets will change
Employees will fail
Suppliers will raise their prices
Customers will demand more
The economy will get worse
You don’t have total control

. . . so accept it now and be prepared to respond rather than not accept it and have to react later.

Life:
You will struggle with money
You will get hurt in love
You will loose a loved one
Someone will let you down
A disaster will affect your family
You will make a bad decision
You will get sick
You will make mistakes
You don’t have control

. . . so accept it now and be prepared to respond rather than not accept it and have to react later.