Get Out of the Cesspool

LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER 

The unhappy minority are dramatically louder than the happy majority. The media makes the world out to be a vampire, when there is far more good occurring than you’ll ever know about. It doesn’t matter who’s in office; hasn’t that been proven over and over? I spend my time devising ways to make myself happier. That’s my focus.

A video post by Edison, New Jersey, native and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk recently appeared in my Facebook feed. If you don’t who Gary is, I highly recommend that you acquaint yourself with some of the countless hours of business, marketing and personal development wisdom that appears to flow endlessly from his media machine. Go check him out at GaryVaynerchuk.com, and be sure to scroll down the page for the social media links.

Besides the usual lemonade stands and car washing in his youth, at age 15, Gary began making several thousand dollars a week selling baseball cards on eBay. He is perhaps best known for turning his father’s Springfield, New Jersey, liquor store into a multimillion dollar online retail enterprise. Gary
was one of the early pioneers to leverage YouTube by posting over 1,000 wine review videos to build a vast customer base of wine connoisseurs.

Gary’s Facebook video told a tale of a faction within the ranks of his employees; the unhappy, negative minority, and his challenge to resolve any current or potential effects the few were having on the majority. Many of us that work or have worked in corporate America are no strangers to this minority.

I ask, what is the value of negativity? I often equate negativity to a cesspool—an underground container for the temporary storage of liquid waste and sewage. So, what is the value of sitting in a cesspool? When you can begin to lift yourself out of the $#%&, you can then walk over and get into a clean pool where you will begin to smile, laugh and even frolic, and enjoy this life that will soon be over before you know it. Based on this analogy, I ask again, what is the value of negativity? Does it make you feel good? No? So why engage in it? Everything we do is a choice, especially how we react to people, circumstances, and especially our past traumas.

You’re free to remain miserable in the cesspool until your dying day and miss out on all the endorphin-producing fun to be had…or you can choose to get into the clean pool with the rest of us and enjoy yourself.