Want to Be Successful? Quit Being So Positive.

“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily
living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This
of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any
strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests
development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn , Professor of Medicine Emeritus,
University of Massachusetts Medical School, from
the best-seller Wherever You Go, There You Are
What do you get when you combine positive psychology
and strengths-based leadership? Deluded people who
will never realize a fraction of their full potential. And if
they happen to be entrepreneurs, there’s a very good
chance they’ll fall flat on their faces and take their
businesses down with them.
Truth is, any fad that teaches you to focus on one
aspect of reality and ignore its opposite is likely to be
destructive.
There is a natural balance to all things: life and death,
good and bad, happiness and sadness, pleasure and
pain. The very idea that you should focus on positives
and ignore negatives, likewise with strengths versus
weaknesses, is not only delusional; it’s a recipe for
disaster.
Let me tell you a couple of stories to show how dealing
with reality as openly and genuinely as possible is the
path to success and happiness, while focusing only on
the positives and strengths can destroy your career and
your company.
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It’s no secret that Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in
1984 because his management style had become toxic
to the company. Much later, Jobs would come to realize
that getting fired from the company he cofounded “was
the best thing that could have ever happened” to him. He
called it “awful-tasting medicine” that “the patient
needed.”
He also likened it to life hitting him in the head with a
brick.
That forced Jobs to look in the mirror and see the truth
– that he wasn’t as capable or as strong a leader as he
could be. And as he addressed the issues that stood in
his way, the result was the founding of NeXT and Pixar,
his eventual return to Apple, and the greatest turnaround
in corporate history that built the most valuable company
on Earth.
He also met the love of his life.
It’s sort of easy to miss the obvious connection staring
us right in the face, that it wasn’t just Apple that had hit
a wall, fallen on hard times, and found itself in need of a
turnaround. The same was true of Jobs. And there was
an undeniable connection between the two.
It’s also easy to miss the insightfulness of Jobs’
realization that none of his later achievements would
have occurred if he hadn’t faced reality. That sort of
introspection only comes from someone who’s had
some sort of intervention and gone through gut-
wrenching change as a result.
Not to compare myself with Jobs, but the truth is I’ve
gotten a couple of those bricks to the head myself. I’ve
been fired more than once and lost my wife early in our
marriage. But in every case I looked in the mirror, faced
what I saw, made some changes, and bounced back
stronger than ever.
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First.
If I’d just tried to stay positive, focused on my strengths,
and searched for the silver lining in the clouds, I never
would have figured out what was wrong and become a
better person, a better husband, and a better leader. I
never would have achieved so much in my career or won
my wife back. (We recently celebrated our 25th
anniversary.)
If only those two success stories were the norm. I’ve
known dozens of CEOs, founders, and business owners
who were never willing to upset the apple-cart of their
fragile egos. They instead chose to focus on the
positives and lived in denial. As a result, they never
achieved self-awareness and self-destructed along with
their companies.
Not only are none of us perfect, we all have significant
issues that stand in the way of achieving our full
potential. Besides, life is full of challenges and pitfalls.
That goes for your personal life and your business life.
And if you’re an entrepreneur, the life of your company
will tend to mirror your own.
While life is full of ups and downs, one thing is certain: If
you attempt to filter your consciousness and disallow
negative thoughts or make believe the weaknesses
holding you back don’t exist, you’ll never get past those
hurdles and get to the next stage in your personal and
professional development. And neither will your
business.