The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results

129 Pages·2013·0.68 MB·English

by  Bob Knight

Text copyright © 2013 by Bob Knight
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477807248
ISBN-10: 1477807241
To my grandmother, born in 1878, who first taught me about negative thinking
when she said, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1 Keep Pollyanna on the Bench
2 What Is There about the Word No?
3 A Limit to Negativism
4 History’s Negatives, Starting with the Bible
5 Napoleon, Hitler, and Other Positivists
6 Negative Thinking in the First Job
7 Negative Routes to Big, Big Wins
8 By Your Pupils…
9 A Time to Aim High
10 “You’re Representing Your Country”
11 The Proud Author of a Cliché
CONCLUSION
Negative Thinking Led Bob Knight Positively to the International Basketball
Hall of Fame
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
Many of us are not aware of our optimistic tendencies.… Data clearly
shows that most people overestimate their prospects for professional
achievement; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted;
miscalculate their likely life span; expect to be healthier than their
peers; hugely underestimate their likelihood of divorce, cancer, and
unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will
be better than those their parents put up with. This is known as the
optimism bias—the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of
encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the
likelihood of experiencing negative events.
—The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain
(TALI SHAROT, PANTHEON BOOKS, 2011)
THERE IS, ADMITTEDLY, a large helping of my version of humor in the title chosen
for this book, an obvious play on a work that has been almost a bible for much of
America most of my lifetime: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman
Vincent Peale.
It came out in 1952, when I was in elementary school. It sold more than
two million copies its first year out, and it’s still in print, with total copies sold
now over five million. Taking the opposite position starts me out millions of
books behind in the sales race. I’m very comfortable being a contrarian and
stating my argument for The Power of Negative Thinking.
I didn’t know, until I did a little research for this book, that Norman
Vincent Peale also is from northern Ohio. We’re separated by two generations,
born and reared about 100 miles apart; he’s from the western side of the state,
and I hail from the east. That makes us products of pretty much the same middle-
American, small-town upbringing and culture, each of us even raised in the same
Methodist denomination. He switched to Dutch Reformed; I am more of a
theological free agent, though definitely more theo-than atheo-.
For all his book-selling, preaching, lecturing, and TV success, the Rev. Mr.
Peale did have his disbelievers. His partner in a couple of earlier psychological-
theological books split with him over The Power of Positive Thinking. Thought
it could be dangerous. To at least some degree, so does Tali Sharot, apparently.
There is a story that Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson
was advised before a campaign speaking appearance at a church that he probably
wouldn’t get any votes out of the audience, because Bishop Peale had urged his
followers to vote as a bloc for Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower. His
own biblical knowledge—and wit—showing, Stevenson quipped in response: “I
find Paul appealing and Peale appalling.”
I was too young to vote at the time, but I’m sure I’d have gone for
Eisenhower over Stevenson both times they ran. Still, give Stevenson his due—
he knew what it meant to be an underdog and kept his sense of humor.
Beneath the irony of turning Peale upside down, her book offers a thesis
that I have advocated for years. Ms. Sharot is described on her book jacket as a
researcher “on optimism, memory, and emotion” with “a Ph.D. in psychology
and neuroscience from New York University,” and a research fellow at the
Wellcome Trust, among other academic positions. In Orrville, Ohio, that would
raise skeptical eyebrows, but it is interesting company for a basketball coach.
In her book The Optimism Bias, Ms. Sharot states:
The reality is that most people perceive themselves as being superior
to the average human being.… A survey conducted in the mid-1970s
revealed that 85 percent ranked themselves in the top 50th percentile
for the ability to get along well with others and 70 percent did so for
leadership ability.… Another survey showed that 91 percent believed
they were in the top 50th percentile for driving ability.…
[I]mpossible. Most people cannot be better than most people.… We
can, however, all believe that we are at the high end on most positive
attributes, and indeed we do. This is known as the superiority
illusion.
I don’t agree totally with her conclusions. I’m a basketball coach who
tends from experience and instinct to see more graphically the things she
describes intellectually. But I wholeheartedly agree that we as people and as a
nation are by nature inclined to see things optimistically—above and beyond any
push in that direction by the Rev. Mr. Peale. And I do see some dangers in that
—as I did for more than forty years of coaching college basketball. What seems
too good to be true usually is—there is a genuine need to be cautious, to look
both ways before crossing any streets in life. Paying attention to the downside is
a difficult but essential quality for achieving long-term success in any
occupation or family situation.
Throughout this book, I will speak largely as a coach, in coaching and
basketball terms. And since my turf was men’s basketball, I am going to be
using the “he” pronoun more than “she.” But I intend everything to be
interpreted much more broadly than that, for both sexes and metaphorically,
because the principles I established and followed in coaching carry over
perfectly to the way I think leadership works best in business or any other area
of life. Coaching is leadership, and leadership is leadership, whether in a gym,
an office, a classroom, or a family.
Let me be clear: I am not arguing for being a strict negativist, for walking
around with a sour look, for always seeing the dark side, always expecting
failure. That’s not my intent at all. Quite the opposite.
I’m saying that being alert to the possible negatives in any situation is the
very best way to bring about positive results. And the reverse is true, too—
ignoring or failing to spot potential hazards in advance makes failure all the
more likely. For example, I’m talking about being aware that it can rain. You
can plan the greatest outdoor event in the world—food, games, entertainment,
decorations—but if a rain shower would turn everything into chaos and you
don’t allow for that possibility, you’re risking disaster because of blind
optimism.
Don’t be caught thinking something is going to work just because you
think it’s going to work.
Planning beats repairing.
And good planning avoids the need for fixing up a project that plowed
ahead without thought at all about potential pitfalls.
Stop and think. That’s a phrase we’ve all used to introduce a new way of
considering something, to argue for stepping back from a situation and looking
at it in an all-new light.
Stop and think: That’s what I’m saying is always the best approach before
rushing forward with carried-away zeal.
One of our most lauded qualities is the ability to think fast. In an
emergency, that’s great. But it’s also risky. When time permits, it’s much better
to be sure you’re thinking clearly. How many times have we read or heard of
someone who made a rash decision and now faces criminal charges, or lost his
job, or broke his family apart by an unwise act? There are so many unintended
consequences in any important action that we need to at least consider, like the
best chess player, how our next move could produce an unexpected chain
reaction down the line.
I’m expressing the case for making sure, for not taking success for
granted… for getting that regular mammogram or rectal exam… for protecting
health and life and possessions with insurance… for planning your retirement in
the prime income years; in short, for the wisdom and value represented by the
simple, common sense of The Power of Negative Thinking.
I want you to feel provoked by this book, perhaps to learn from it, and
certainly to have some fun and be entertained as we change your prescription on
your rose-colored glasses.
COACH BOB KNIGHT