Musings at Altitude

Many people believe that “bad things happen in 3’s”.  My wife is one of them.  When a celebrity dies, she starts her count, and she assumes that two more will die quickly once one is announced in the news.  Most of the time she’s right, and when that 4th one dies, the 3-count starts over again.

In business, it’s no different.  We have many sayings meaning the same thing – “when it rains, it pours’; “get ready, this won’t be the last issue that comes up”; “we’re not at bottom yet”; “one step forward, two steps back”; etc.  All of these sayings and many of our beliefs point to the theory of 3’s – bad things happen in bunches, and until the bunches occur, the bad things won’t stop happening.

I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!  I just wanted to make it clear where I stand on this issue!

I do believe in business quicksand though.  When something goes wrong, it magnifies the next thing that may go wrong, and the harder we struggle the deeper we sink.  Eventually, we end up focusing solely on those things going wrong and we can’t see the things going right.  All of our efforts are spent flailing for the path out of the quicksand, when in reality, firm footing may be just one focused step away.

So what do I believe in?  I believe in the wonderful power of positive thinking.  I believe in the accelerating momentum of little things being done right.  I believe in the beauty of quick reaction to negative events and the short memory once fix actions have been put in place.  And I believe that all teams at their core desperately want to win, and somebody on that team knows the path out of any quicksand that may occur.

I also believe in a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When we believe bad things are going to happen, then that’s exactly what happens.  So I’m going to err on the side of something good is going to happen today.

Just in case any or all of this is true!