Magic is in the simplicity. Only four ingredients are required for production of beer – water, barley, hops and brewer’s yeast. Arthur Guinness knew this also, he founded a brewery near Dublin in the middle of the 18th century, with an inherited symbolic fund of 100 pounds. The “fifth ingredient” was and always will be Arthur Guinness. Everything actually revolves around some “fifth ingredient” which first starts the gears of change.

There is a “fifth ingredient” in each of us, only we rarely activate it. Very often, activation is related to uncertainty and fear of change. The more we try to be sure, the tide of uncertainty approaches. “I don’t think aboutincertitude! That is forbidden! I only think positive!” In a novel, Dostoevsky described an attempt not to think of the polar bear. You know what’s going on? Damn polar bear comes to your mind every moment. Try not to think about the polar bear for 1 minute? Start now.Tell yourself you don’t want negative thoughts in your mind? What we try to avoid comes to our minds magnetically. I don’t believe in many self-help books. I don’t believe in gurus who change your life overnight. I don’t believe in instant solutions that you stick to for 15 days after which gates of Heaven open.In his cynical “Devil’s Dictionary” Ambrose Bierce describes the future as a period when our businesses will flourish, our friends will become real while our happiness will be guaranteed.

Was Arthur Guinness sure of his decisionwhen he leased a land for 9000 years to build a brewery? He had no negative thoughts? Was he overwhelmed with positive thoughts? He improved his vocabulary in order to not accidentally utter a negative word? Because negative words can provoke a negative outcome? Has he undergone motivation training? I believe that  Arthur just boldly started swimming towards the unknown with the complete burden of uncertainty, fear, negativity, ups and downs.

My son Petar is 17 years old and he plays professional sport. A few days agowe talked about the moments before the performance –

“I don’t think neither too negatively nor too positively, I don’t think that way at all. I don’t think I will be the first because it kills me even more. I am focused on giving my best, I am focused on the performance, I am fighting to the end”. Peter seems to have kicked the polar bear out of his mind.

Let’s go back to the world of adults, the world of businessmen. Positive thinking has become a business in itself. Trainings, books, consultants – they all offer us a magic potion!

Is it necessary to work on crashing this cult of optimism? In times of greatest changes in human history, the “fifth element” is needed more than ever. A man with all his characteristics that we interpret in various ways, a MAN written in bold! Pessimism is a part of human nature and it doesn’t need to be destructive. It’s important that a vision comes from it – how to proceed? In the same way as out of optimism.

German psychologist Gabriele Oettingen a few years ago conducted an experiment that calls into question the success of positive thinking:

A group of employees were asked to think about how the next week at work will be extra successful. The other group was only told to think about next week at work. The result was that the group that thought positively about the following week had a less successful week.

If a vision of the development of a market is negative, that’s completely fine! What matters is what will we do about that today and tomorrow? Do we have a vision of which direction we are going in through the turbulent negative waters of the environment? We rely on the “fifth ingredient” which thinks, takes risks, makes mistakes, falls, gets up…we are working on activating the” fifth ingredient “in employees. We don’t need robots who think positively. We don’t need perfectionism! Legitimately successful people are not perfectionists. We need people who think differently.

One of great corporate religious dogmas is sometimes the system of setting goals. We start from the top of the pyramid with a goal that everyone generously accepts and cascades in their organizations. Then we realize during the year that the goal is a completely missed topic, but no one has the courage to say it. Then we invest even more positive energy and effort to suppress negative thoughts about the goal that is definitely wrong. That’s when we make even bigger mistakes in business. I’m not saying that we should not set goals, but we can’t allow ourselves to set goals just for the fear of the future. By fearing the future, we invest a lot of energy to create a vision of the future that suits us, not because it will help us achieve it, but for the reason of reducing the fear of the future! Insecurity makes us idealize the future! Maybe it’s easier to learn to live with insecurity as well as to utilize the potentials which lie in our hidden “fifth element” right here and right now in order to be more successful in future.

Imagine working in an industry that is highly competitive, where everyone has equally quality, identical products. Market has a tendency to decline and merely not a bright future. How do you create a sustainable business model? How do you differentiate yourselves? Very simple – only with people! We don’t need gray mice,but people with charisma. It’s the “fifth ingredient” of our century. Communicate a realistically pessimistic picture of the future, no embellishments, no unnecessary self-help phrases! The team around you doesn’t need it. You don’t think about the positive nor the negative! Adjust your vision and give your best. Then paddle in the vision’s directionwhile recognizing differences.

(Nedeljnik, March 2013)