It’s A Neon Sign. Here’s How To Use It.
4-Minute Read
You'd never ban a fuel gauge. But you might have banned the human version of it.
Cover a fuel gauge because the needle on E feels negative, and the tank is still empty. You just stopped seeing it.
That is what happens when a leader bans negativity. Ban the complaint, the worry, the flash of anger, in yourself or on your team, and you ban the information that shows you where something is missing. You can't create what you can't see.
The “all positive, all the time” culture has a name: toxic positivity. It looks like morale and works like a blindfold.
This week in The Grip, we’re redeeming negativity. You'll see what the word meant before it meant bad, why that history matters to anyone leading a team, and get three questions that turn any complaint into your next leadership move.
how leaders use negativity instead of suppressing it
What Is Toxic Positivity? How Banning Negativity Cuts Leaders Off From Information
What counts as negativity? Complaints. Criticism. Focusing on what's wrong rather than what's right. Uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, fear, sadness, or anger.
Somewhere in your growth work, you may have been handed a rule: eliminate all negativity. Don't speak it, don't listen to it, don't think or feel it. Keep away from negative people, because their energy will bring you down.
In theory it sounds wise. But in practice, it cuts you off from the valuable information you need to create more than enough of what matters to you. More on that in a minute.
The term "toxic positivity" grew out of this very practice. Psychology Today defines it as "the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences." Either you shut down your own feelings, or someone shuts down yours and insists that you “think positively” instead.
Sometimes it's called forced happiness. It creates an environment where the thoughts, words, and emotions you like are allowed because they're "good," and the ones you don't like are banned because they're "bad." The good are positive. The bad, negative.
That pairing feels like it has always been true. The history says otherwise.
Not yet part of The Plenteous Life community? Subscribe to The Grip! Every week you’ll receive additional video, audio, and pdf tools directly in your email inbox to help you create like never before.
What Did Positive and Negative Originally Mean? Presence and Absence Before Good and Bad
Ask anyone who has waited for medical test results: positive means the thing is there; negative means it's not. A positive cancer test is the result nobody wants. A negative one is the result everybody prays for.
Long before positive and negative meant good and bad, they meant presence and absence.
Back in the 1300s and 1400s, positive initially meant to put in place, to establish. Negative meant to deny, to say no. By the early 1600s, negative carried the sense of absence and positive the sense of presence. Mathematics and electricity utilized that same meaning: numbers above and below zero, plus and minus charges.
The shift came late. In 1916, "positive" picked up the sense of constructive and good, and "negative" the sense of destructive and bad. Then in 1952, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking, and "positive = good, negative = bad" took hold.
So the meaning we all inherited is the newcomer. Presence and absence had roughly five hundred years' head start.
What Does Negativity Point To? What's Missing, and How Leaders Create It
Strip away the story that positive is good and negative is bad, and you're left with presence and absence. That’s where negativity gets useful. Rather than being wrong, negativity is information.
Whether it's a thought, a word, or an emotion, yours or someone else's, the thing we call negative points to the absence of something. It's a neon sign for what's missing. Don’t turn a blind eye to it.
When complaints are present, solutions are absent.
When anxiety is present, peace is absent.
When scarcity is present, plenteousness is absent.
When pain is present, wellness is absent.
Years ago, a service provider kept missing deadlines and going silent about it. My complaint: "This guy is always late!"
I didn’t ignore it; I asked what that complaint was pointing to. The answer was an absence of reliability.
The complaint had shown me what was missing; creating it was on me. So I required that he keep his agreements with me going forward. If he didn’t, I’d find someone else.
“What's missing" in any scenario is the hardest thing to find. If it's missing, you can't see it, hear it, or touch it. You're left guessing. But negativity hands you a major clue, because it points to the thing that isn't there. Every negative is an opportunity to create its positive opposite.
The key word is create. Not suppress. Not coerce. Not force. Create.
Think of a fuel gauge. Nobody enjoys seeing the needle on E. Yet it tells you exactly what’s needed in that moment. That’s your opportunity to create the opposite of Empty: Full. That’s positivity.
Positivity isn’t the goal; it’s the byproduct of creating what's missing. When the tank is full, positivity is simply what's present. It doesn’t turn toxic, and there’s never too much of it, because "positive" is just the presence of what was previously missing.
Commit to creating what's missing, and every negative thought, word, and emotion becomes building material.
“Positivity isn’t the goal; it’s the byproduct of creating what’s missing.”
3 Questions That Turn a Complaint Into a Next Step: A Practice for Founders and Teams
When you think, say, or feel something negative, or run into it in someone else, ask these three questions to turn it into something you can use:
What negativity is present: a thought, a word, an emotion, mine or someone else's?
What's missing that, if it were present, would make a difference here?
What’s my next step for creating it, and by when?
Don’t ignore negativity. Leverage it.
The next complaint will find you this week. A teammate's frustration. A client's disappointment. Your own 2 a.m. worry.
When it does, run the three questions. Don't take my word for it. Test it, and watch what your team tells you once the truth is welcome.
Imagine making “what’s missing” the standing response any time someone raises a complaint or concern. That’s a masterful way to lead.
Keep creating.
key takeaways
Negativity points to what's absent. Name the absence and you know what to create.
Positive and negative meant presence and absence long before they became verdicts on feelings. The pairing we inherited is the newcomer.
Positivity is the byproduct of creating what's missing.
WORK 1:1 WITH BECKY
As a self-mastery coach, I help mission-driven founders accelerate desired results without sacrificing what matters. If that sounds like good news, REACH OUT to experience how 1:1 coaching can empower you to be the masterful leader your mission requires.
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team
52 Maxims of Conscious Choosing To Create the Deeply Satisfying Life You Desire.