The heroic superpower of flipping negative to positive
By making this small tweak to the way you speak, write, and even think, you have the power to change your life in a big way.
For days, I’ve had a musical hook running through my head. Just five notes. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’d likely recognize it as the theme that plays when Kylo Ren strides onto the scene. It’s a subtle variation of the infamous Darth Vader march.
Fun fact: For Episode 9, when JJ Abrams first pitched the idea of morphing Kylo Ren’s dark, foreboding theme into something more bright and uplifting, legendary composer John Williams was left scratching his head.
“I’ve never done that,” he remembers saying. “I didn’t know how to do it.”
But he tried anyway. And turns out, Ren’s evil riff morphs brilliantly into a heroic theme by merely tweaking the harmonic support. Specifically, Williams changed the chord from a C minor to a G major.
If you’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker, then you’ve heard this historic shift in action. It comes toward the start of Act 3, when a fresh-faced Ben Solo races to join Rey in their epic face-off against Emperor Palpatine. Subconsciously or not, when you heard the shift in Ren’s theme, you sensed that he was going to do something new.
Something better.
That was the idea. As JJ put it, “Now, [Ben’s] trying to be the best he can be, versus trying to be as bad as he can be.”
Words to live by, really. If you want to be better in work and life, there’s a simple thing you can do: change the subtle harmonics of your melody. In other words, flip negative (minor) to positive (major). And you can do this in all facets of your life—as you write, as you speak, and even how you think. Here’s how.
Write it: “Do—or do not”
I’m a writer, so I’ll start with the thing I find easiest, which is to be more positive when I write. I first learned about this idea in college, from a lovely little handbook by Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, originally published in—would you look at that—1918. (Perhaps they were inspired to help people communicate better in a crisis.)
They point out that phrasing things negatively often adds extra words (do vs. do not). And it makes your reader have to do mental gymnastics (à la the lightsaber duel on the watery grave of the Death Star) to figure out what you actually want them to do. Like in this example.
Instead of: Don’t be so negative.
Try this: Be more positive.
See how the second sentence is shorter and straightforward? In a duel of words, that second one would win. Yet despite the fact that Strunk and White have preached about this issue for more than a century, negative writing still abounds everywhere. Particularly in the workplace. We still tend to tell people what they can’t do, rather than what they can. Like this.
Instead of: Don’t destroy valuable equipment with your lightsaber.
Try this: Save your lightsaber for the sparring room.
Speak it: “It’s not my fault”
This one’s harder, but doable once you start listening for it. It all comes back to the #1 tip in the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.
Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
In other words, look for ways to speak positively and constructively about people and things. By making a tiny shift in how you phrase things, it reflects well on you, builds others up, and also builds trust with the person you’re talking to.
Let’s say you’re giving your boss an update on how things are going. One of your colleagues is driving you up a wall. And you’ve got a super full plate. Here are some positive ways to message about this.
Instead of: Hux is really hard to work with.
Try this: Hux could use some pointers to be a team player.
Instead of: Things are really crazy right now. I might murder Hux.
Try this: We’re getting to the exciting point on several projects. Maybe we should reassign Hux to sanitation.
Think it: “Your focus determines your reality”
Now for the hardest one of all: being more positive in your thinking. I’ve never been a huge fan when someone trills at me to “think positive!” Each time, I tend to think less than positive thoughts at them. Because my thoughts come and go as they will. In yoga, they call it your monkey brain because of how it tends to mindlessly chatter away.
Even right now, as I write this, my brain is dropping some doozies. My own personal Snoke is telling me things like: “This article isn’t worth writing. No one will read it.” I can’t prevent my brain from telling me I’m a know-nothing hack. My brain, as it were, has a mind of its own.
But I’ve recently learned a new (old) trick that’s making a big difference in how I think. For some light reading during the pandemic, I picked up the classic book on cognitive behavioral therapy: Feeling Good by David Burns. In it, Burns makes a simple yet striking claim: Our negative thoughts cause depression. What we think directly affects how we feel. And so an antidote to depression is to edit your thoughts.
Which brings us back around to our music motif. Our brains, he says, are like a radio station.
“Your blue moods can be compared to the scratchy music coming from a radio that is not properly tuned to the station. The problem is not that the tubes or transistors are blown out or defective, or that the signal from the radio station is distorted as a result of bad weather. You just simply have to adjust the dials. When you learn to bring about this mental tuning, the music will come through clearly again and your depression will lift.”
Even though we can’t control what we think, we can go through this mental tuning. We can be more mindful of what’s going on in our minds—just like we read over an email before we send it. Before I let a thought really sink in, I can take a quick pause and look for any built-in cognitive errors I’m making. Basically, I can refuse to accept any lies that my brain is telling me. I can find my uplifting melody.
Take the examples that my brain so helpfully supplied earlier. I can easily flip these around to something that’s closer to the truth.
Instead of: I’m a know-nothing hack. (Error: I’m labeling myself.)
I tell myself: I’m a professional writer who gets paid for my words. That’s hardly a hack. And though I might not be an expert on this topic, writing about new things helps me learn.
Instead of: No one will read this. (Error: I’m being an unhelpful fortune teller.)
I tell myself: I can’t control who reads this. But it doesn’t matter. It’s still worth writing. I get to explore a topic that interests me—and share my undying love for Ben Solo.
Same 5 notes, a whole new hope
Sure, this stuff feels stupidly simple. But it really works. After all, I got this article written. Despite my brain doing its best to guide me otherwise.
Being positive can take a heroic effort. It’s not easy to think before you speak. Before you send that next email or text. Or even before you let an errant thought sour your whole day.
But it’s worth it. Big time. Because being positive really is a superpower. It helps you change how others see you, and how you see yourself. It helps you stop focusing on bad things—and start looking for the best things. You can change the timbre of your whole day, merely by rejecting a few flighty thoughts.
So my challenge to you (and me): Don’t sound like the foreboding miasma of Ren. Sound like the unfettered joy—and hope — of Ben.
Have a listen to the song that sparked it all. This post was inspired by Samuel Kim’s orchestral take on Kylo Ren’s Redemption.
