NASHVILLE, Tenn. – In a book I’ve mentioned, “Switch, How to Change Things When Change is Hard" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, There is a thorough section on our propensity for the negative.
Which some of you know is right up my ally.
The Heaths wrote: “In an … exhaustive study, a psychologist analyzed 558 emotion words – every one that he could find in the English language—and found that 62 percent of them were negative as opposed to 38 percent positive. That’s a pretty shocking discrepancy. According to an old urban legend, Eskimos have 100 different words for snow. Well, it turns out that negative emotions are our snow.”
Mike Mularkey has spent a lot of time with the Titans emphasizing the positive and trying to go with the 38 percent there. Not long ago he talked about how, while the Titans may have a plan for third and long, he and his staff don’t prepare for anything negative, don’t expect anything in the plan not working.
In a different vein, Mularkey asked his team to read “The Energy Bus, 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy” by Jon Gordon before the season, and Gordon talked with the team.
