Adopting a Positive Outlook to Boost Your Profits

Alice, my sister, lives in Rockville, MD. She works for a large public interest lobbying firm in D.C. and is extremely well informed as to Washington D.C. politics. She reads the Washington Post and New York Times cover-to-cover every day. Like everyone else, she has strong opinions about what is right and wrong in the world of politics. She also has a clear understanding of how the country operates from inside the D.C. Beltway.

Alice and her husband recently took a short vacation to Tampa where she had a chance to visit with Mary and me, along with our daughter Stacy and her husband, Hayes. During the visit, she had the opportunity to observe a number of heated, political debates between me and Hayes. The debates ranged from gun control, the whereabouts of Obama’s birth certificate, reforming health insurance, the shortage of ammo, and illegal immigration to a host of other “hot button” political topics.

Hayes and I don’t even agree about when the sun rises each day, so it was no surprise that the arguments got pretty heated. Alice pretty much sat on the sidelines, listening to one debate after another.

On a couple of occasions, she would interrupt the arguments with her own opinions and views, but realizing how strong the feelings were between Hayes and me, she finally spoke up and made a suggestion. The suggestion she offered has actually has made a significant difference in my view on life, politics, and most importantly, my own financial future.

Give Up Talk Radio & TV

Listening to the bickering, Alice finally spoke up and said, “You know, listening to you guys for the last few minutes, I have a serious suggestion. John, you need to calm down. You need to go cold turkey and stop listening to guys like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow. And Hayes, it’s the same for you, only you need to quit listening to Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and especially Rush Limbaugh. Both of you guys are allowing your minds to be poisoned by entertainers. That’s right—entertainers—most of whom can’t hold a candle to your intelligence.” I liked that last remark!

“There’s no doubt that you both have strong beliefs, but both of you are allowing entertainers—not educators, not researchers, not individuals willing to explore the depths of an issue—to dictate your beliefs. These guys are pure and simply entertainers who make their living entertaining, and not educating.”

She added, “Not to pick on Bill O’Reilly, but anyone who believes his show or any of the shows on either side of the political spectrum represent ‘fair and balanced’ news coverage is terribly naïve. These guys don’t present news. Their shows are created, produced, and built around their entertainment value, and certainly not for their intellectual contributions and analysis.”

“The both of you ought to give these shows a break. Stop listening to them, and stop listening to folks who listen to them. Just change the channel. If you don’t, you will find yourselves getting more worked up and accomplishing little!”

Alice then suggested that if we still felt some strong desire to get a better handle on what is happening in the world then at least give the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS a try for a while.

I Went Cold Turkey

Well, guess what? I followed her advice. At first I tried to compromise by switching back and forth between Olbermann and O’Reilly, but that still wasn’t enough.

I finally went cold turkey about two months ago and my life has improved immensely. Now I catch a bit of NBC or ABC national news and then switch over to the News Hour.

Amazingly, things started looking up. Sure, Mary and I have faced some challenges in the printing business in recent months, and even my consulting and publishing business has been affected. But you know what? Things are improving.