By Edward Deeb, Editor-in-Chief
March 1, 2008
Sports teams and the arts have cheerleaders to inspire them to do good or better. Businesses, educators, labor unions and all people of Michigan should also be cheerleaders and keep a positive and upbeat attitude.
One of the best-selling books of all time was titled, “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale, who was an ordained minister. He celebrated the success of ordinary people to relate his inspirational stories.
But the last few years have been difficult for Michigan businesses. Back in September 2005, a poll released at a Future Forum conference in Traverse City found that 69 percent of executives surveyed thought Michigan’s business climate was going in the wrong direction, and 67 percent thought things in Michigan overall were on the wrong track. Also the same year, a national poll found that Michigan was dead last in the rankings of current business conditions (net negative 2), those who see business conditions improving (net negative 9 percent), those who said sales are good (net 20 percent) and those who reported profits were good (net 4 percent).
During our current trying economic times, we need to be more positive than ever. We should all think more positive, work more positive and not be so negative -all the time - especially during the present struggling economy, and issues like health care, mass transportation, increased gas prices and our educational system.
It seems that many people today prefer to play the Blame Game. People want to blame anybody or everybody for all that is wrong. Admittedly there is a lot of sad or bad news out there, but this is the time for all of us to emphasize the positive to keep our spirits up. Let’s all work together to improve our businesses, our jobs, our educational system, our health and our attitude.
Businesses would be extremely happy to get rid of the unfair surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax so they can make a decent profit and survive, and our entire state would be happy to see alternative energy and fuels developed to help reduce the price of gas, food and other items - and in doing so, perhaps create jobs here.
All of us need to work together like a football team or a symphony orchestra, so we can cheer everyone on to better things and better times. To get the best results we need more cheerleaders.
Bottom line: Let’s all be cheerleaders!
