Hugh Hollowell

As you can tell from the sidebar, my most popular post ever is 5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me. I cranked that one out in early summer of 2007, and honestly, I did not plan for it to be some great post; I just sort of threw it out there. It is six times more popular than my next most popular post, Are you Selling What Your Customer Wants To Buy?.

That being said, it amazes me that people either love it or hate it. The emails and comments I have gotten over that post either lean toward telling me I am full of it, or telling me that they love it and wish they had heard it sooner.

The theory behind those 5 things is a guiding force in my life, however, and I thought I would expound on it and perhaps they will make a bit more sense.

For all the talk about the law of attraction and the power of positive thinking, I also believe in the power of negative thinking, or put another way, the assumption of a negative outcome. Let me explain:

Most of the things you attempt, will fail. If you are a salesperson, most of the people you call on will turn you down. If you are looking for a mate, most of the people you go out with will not work out. If you are learning a new skill, you will mess up a lot on your way to mastery.

Now, instinctively, we all know this. However, we all assume the new job will work out, that the marriage will work, that everything will work out. The moment that happens, you give up options. I believe that you are free to the extent you have options.

Behind those 5 points is the belief that most things will not work out, so you need to keep your options open. You need to strive to have as many deals, as many promotions, as many options open as possible. You need to assume on the front end the worse possible outcome, because, more than likely, that is what will happen.

To believe anything else is to ignore history, to ignore what you have experienced in your own life and what you have observed. To ignore all of that seems, to me anyway, irrational.

I owe much of this philosophy, believe it or not, to Dale Carnegie. In his book How To Stop Worrying And Start Living, he said if you imagine the worst possible outcome to a situation often you will see it really just is not that bad. It might not be desirable, but it is usually something from which you can recover. I went one step further and decided to assume that the worst case would happen and plan for it. By doing this, I removed it’s power over me and the fear of being tied to the outcome.

Now, this does NOT make me a pessimist. To the contrary, I am perhaps the most optimistic person I know. I am able to be an optimist, however, because of my assumption on the front end that things could not work out and I have taken that into consideration in my planning. I know that because most things will not work out, I need to plan for that from the very beginning.

Now, I know this is not very warm and fuzzy cheery thought stuff; if you want that, you are at the wrong blog. You should go back to the nursery and eat your cookies and milk; you will be much happier.

If, however, you are about taking control of your life, taking charge of your situation and deciding your own destiny, then you should really give the power of negative thinking a try. You might just be surprised.

Here in Memphis, a local $7 an hour movie projectionist got fired because he wrote a negative review of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie for a website. And it looks like Fox made them do it.

Get the whole story.

As I have asked before… Just who owns your time?

One thing I have noticed about successful people is that they have a firm grasp of reality.

Let’s define terms for a minute, shall we? Reality is not what we wish it was, what we want it to be, or how things should be. Reality is what is.

Example: I like wearing t-shirts, khaki pants and sandals. It is what I feel most comfortable in, what I am most productive in. When I call on investors for funding a project, this is not what I wear. Instead, I break out one of 3 ties, the grey worsted and the black oxfords. Now, I could show up in my work clothes, boldly stating that it does not matter what I am wearing because it is my ideas they are investing in, not my clothes. I also would not get very far.

Should it matter what sort of clothes I wear? Of course not. Does it matter? Of course it does.

What would your response be if your spouse was in the hospital with a brain tumor and the surgeon showed up for your first meeting wearing a Tank Top, Bermuda Shorts and flip-flops? I thought so.

One of the forums I frequent had a thread started by a contractor who was bitching because the company he dealt with (which, it turns out, was his only customer, and thus very important to him) ignored his 15 day NET terms on his invoice and often cut him a check a week to 10 days late. It also turns out they had told him if he would sign up for direct deposit he would get paid on time. His position was that the terms were clearly stated on the invoice, why should he have to bend to them and sign up for direct deposit? He is ignoring quite a bit of reality:

1. Many companies only cut checks 2 times a month.
2. A huge company is not going to change their entire accounting cycle so he can get a check when he wants it.
3. Many, many people wish their accounts payable would pay within 30 days, which is what is happening.
4. Besides, they (quite generously, I think) had given him an option so he could get paid when he wanted.

The way I see it, he has two options:

1. Sign up for direct deposit and get paid when he wants to, or…
2. Bitch about how wrong it is, fume on message boards to people not capable of fixing the problem, suffer in his righteous indignation and get paid when they want to pay him.

By dealing with, and accepting, reality, you put yourself far ahead of the pack. While they are bitching and whining (not uncommon behavior in today’s entitlement based culture), you are driving forward, adapting, improvising, overcoming. After all, the reason I am in business is to be able to accomplish my goals, none of which is the right to wear a tank top to a board meeting.