Attention H-town RM Peeps! (Translation: Houston Records Management Professional). Be sure to attend next week’s Association of Records Managers and Administrators monthly chapter meeting on January 27th. I’ll be spreading my negative love (Translation: I’ll be keynoting on negativity) as only I can.
If you know someone in your Records Management department, forward this to them so they won’t miss a fun luncheon and some valuable information on dealing with negativity!
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Posted by Craig Price
I’ve never been a big fan of Dominos pizza. Of all the pizza chains, I’ve thought of their pizza as the worst. I am not alone in this opinion.
People complained. More importantly, it seems, people stopped buying Dominos pizza. Domino’s could have continued to make crappy pizza and just hire a PR company to tout how great their substandard pizza is. Instead they took a more daring, a more honest and more realistic approach.
They fessed up!
Instead of following a more common trend of being positive by telling people how great they are compared to their competitors. Or by highlighting the few customers to say how wonderful Domino’s is…they went negative.
And not negative in a bad way, condemning the competition. They said their crust was bad, their sauce was like ketchup. They finally heard the criticism and instead of damage control, looked in the mirror and realized, “Hey our pizza sucks. Lets fix this.” This is the negative thinking that urges you to improve, that forces accountability for the quality of your service or product, which pushes you towards creating a better you.
I can’t say their new pizza is any good, but I can commend them for accepting negative statements about their products, seeing if these statements were true and then attempting to fix the problem.
Are you willing to listen to the criticism? Are you willing to look at yourself and find the flaws? If you’re not, you could be the one your customers are claiming are crappy.
6 Comments | accountability, action, commercials, complaints, credibility, criticism, customer service, failure, feedback, humility, improvements, leadership, listening, making choices, marketing, mistakes, motivation, motivational, negative thinking, negativity, pizza, positive thinking, problem solving | Permalink
Posted by Craig Price
Negative thinking is truly everywhere! Even the big man up north devotes half his time to negative thinking. He makes a list of not only the nice children, but the naughty. He not only makes the list, he checks it twice for mistakes. Hate to give a nice child a big old lump of coal.
He recognized that his eyesight was not as good as it used to be and needed some help. So he called on Rudolph to light his way! Honest self-evaluation is something I support 100%. He also recognizes that he can’t do this all by himself, so he has a full complement of elves working feverishly all year long. These little guys really work hard and their quality control is unmatched. Ever get a gift from Santa made with lead paint? Of course not!
Santa knows that his Christmas Eve trip is hard and takes a lot of energy. That’s why he chomps on sugar cookies throughout the night. Riding high on a surge of sugar, he travels the globe. You try doing all that without a couple Oreos (another could-be sponsor? Come on Nabisco!).
So you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout (Negative thinking!! Knowing what NOT to do!!) I’m telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town!!
Leave a Comment » | Oreos, Santa Claus, Workplace Wednesday, negative, negative thinking, negativity | Permalink
Posted by Craig Price
Seems like the reliably negative thinkers at NASA launched a new satellite into space to warn us about impending dooms. From CNN:
NASA launched a new telescope into space on Monday to scan the cosmos for undiscovered objects, including asteroids and comets that might threaten Earth.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, spacecraft will employ an infrared camera to detect light- and heat-emitting objects that other orbiting telescopes, such as the Hubble, might miss.
WISE launched Monday at 9:09 a.m. ET aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch was postponed from Friday because of a problem with the motion of a booster steering engine.
The unmanned WISE will spend the next nine months in orbit, 326 miles above the Earth, mapping the universe in infrared light. Its lens eventually will cover the whole sky 1½ times, snapping a picture every 11 seconds.
Now that we have the satellite up there, we can get Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck on standby to save us when trouble comes our way.
Leave a Comment » | Earth, NASA, danger, negative thinking, negativity, satellite | Permalink
Posted by Craig Price
No one likes to be sad. But being sad like many perceived negative thoughts and emotions can be beneficial in many ways! From Metro
It turns out that glum people such as Jack Dee actually hold the key to success in life, because scientists say that bad moods improve memory, make you less gullible and improve your judgment.
Think that news is too good to be true? Well, lighten up and pay attention to psychology professor Joseph Forgas from the University of New South Wales. He found in a study he conducted into negative thinking that moody sorts have plenty of positive attributes.
‘Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,’ Forgas wrote.
Our research suggests that sadness promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations.’
For the study, published in the Australasian Science journal, Forgas and his team conducted several experiments that started with inducing happy or sad moods in their subjects through watching films and recalling positive or negative events.
In one of the experiments, happy and sad participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and rumors and found that people in a negative mood were less likely to believe these statements.
People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices, and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed.
The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments. Forgas said that this showed a ‘mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style’.
‘Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages,’ Forgas wrote.
So, don’t worry – be gloomy!
As I’ve always stated, just because you’re not a positive person, doesn’t mean you can’t get positive results. Everything we do has value in it. In this instant world, where people just want the answers and never have to think of the question’s true meaning, we dismiss many thoughts because we can’t recognize their worth right away.
So the next time your sad, start making some decisions. Odds are, you’ll take the time to think things through better than when you’re a happy camper.
Sidebar – Why are campers happy? I’ve been camping. It’s a miserable experience. My back hurts from sleeping on the ground, if I even get sleep with all the nature making creepy noises outside the tent! I prefer a nice hotel room. Instead of hanging your food in a tree to prevent bears from stealing it, you can use the safe.
2 Comments | attitude, crisis, feelings, human nature, judgements, motivation, motivational, negative, negative thinking, negative thoughts, negativity, positive thinking, problem solving, productivity, psychology | Permalink
Posted by Craig Price
