Tired of Bad News?

I was the keynote speaker at the Duluth Business to Business Expo yesterday in Duluth, MN and got the opportunity to present to a group of business owners. I started my presentation with the whole idea that it is becoming increasingly difficult for business owners and anyone else to stay positive and upbeat in light of the constant bombardment of bad news by the media. If we do a side by side comparison of this recession to the one on 1981-82 it will show that this one is not really any worse than that one, however one big difference is the fact that in 1981-82 we didn't have the internet, we didn't have multiple news and business channels constantly overwhelming us with not only the news but their gloom and doom predictions. I never thought I would say this but I long for the days of election coverage and red maps and blue maps just so I don't have to listen to anymore gloom and doom.

I think the biggest challenge we all have is trying to tune out the distraction of the constant bad news and focus on those things that we can control, I have written about that before but I think today it is crucial in order to stay on task and do the things you need to do to keep your business moving forward. And look for good news, I hear stories everyday about businesses that are doing just fine and even having more success today than they did a year ago, so there are success stories out there, unfortunately those aren't nearly as appealing as the gloom and doom the networks like to cover! Maybe we all need to watch the clip of Howard Beale from the movie Network and proclaim in one voice to the media "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore".