This piece is surprisingly profound. Here is the key insight:<p><i>Negative thinking feels good.</i><p>I think this is exactly right.<p>A compounding factor is habit. Once you've being doing the same thing over and over, it feels good to keep doing it and uncomfortable not to.<p>Another reason why negative thinking feels good is that it's passive, and it's easier to be passive than active.
In regards to running a startup I have found that analyzing the worst case scenario (negative thinking) has helped shape smart decisions a lot more than positive thinking. I find that this is especially true with entrepreneurs where positive thinking has frequently been the downfall of many great companies (ie. build products -> make free -> ??? -> make money)
This is a great post and should almost be a sticky here on Hacker News. I've been involved in some performance oriented activities both in school, business, sports and the military. I have never seen anyone succeed by focusing on the problems.<p>When focusing on problems or prematurely on the solution, you'll get anxious and start seeing problems everywhere. The planning process will get more important then the actual implementation and you'll focus on the smallest problems. Even things that will go away by themselves.<p>Then without knowing it you'll be one of those people who asks "why?" instead of "how?". And I, like most, don't want to be around a person like that.
Positive thinking is a good start but positive acting is even better. For instance it works perfect in raising children. See Triple P
<a href="http://www.gov.mb.ca/triplep/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gov.mb.ca/triplep/</a>