Wedding Business Solutions

You can't motivate in the negative!

• Alan Berg, CSP, FPSA, Global Speaking Fellow

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 8:46

Are you leading your team by reminding them of what not to do—or are you focusing on what you want to achieve together? Do negative approaches hold you back from moving forward after setbacks? In this episode, I dig into why positive motivation is the key for yourself and your business, share lessons from my experience, and hint at practical ways to get past sunk costs and focus on winning together.

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for guidance on choosing positive motivation, moving past failures, and leading your team forward, no matter the challenges.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


Are you going to Wedding MBA? Use the promo code - Alan - to save $20 off your tickets, at www.WeddingMBA.com 

And don't worry, if you can't use your tickets this year, they're transferrable or you can hold them to use next year.

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

You can't motivate someone in the negative. Listen to this episode, see where I'm going. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Uh, something sparked this memory for me the other day about you can't motivate people in the negative. And unfortunately, this is the way some people manage, right? You manage by telling people what they're doing wrong instead of encouragement. I just think about in, uh, in sports, let's say in baseball, the catcher sees the next batter that's coming out and goes up to the pitcher and says, whatever you do, don't pitch low and inside to this batter, right? You got that? Not low and inside, right? Where do you think that ball's going? Low and inside, because that's what's put into this person's head, right? If you're playing golf or think about any sport, you're doing something, right? Somebody tells you, whatever you do, don't do this. That's where your mind is.

That's where your mind is at. That matter of fact, when you let go is when very often things really good happen, when you get into that zone. Like I'm playing the piano, and if I stop thinking about what I'm playing, that's some of the best playing that I do, because I just let it come. I don't let my, my conscious brain get in the way of the unconscious, which just wants to let it go there. So whether it's yourself you're trying to motivate or whether it's somebody else, instead of focusing on the negative, focus on the positive that you want to do. So if that catcher had walked up to the pitcher and said, okay, this next batter here You know what the best thing would be? High and outside. That's where you want to go. High and outside.

Got that? Right. So now what are they focusing on? High and outside, away from the spot where this batter does its best hitting, right? So for yourself or for your team, if you're managing people, right, managing people in the negative is like, you know, beating the dog and then expecting the dog to be obedient. It will, but not for the right reasons, right? If you don't want your people to be afraid of you, you want them to be there on your team team, carrying the flag with you into battle and making this happen together, right? Getting onto the field, what a field of play, and playing as a team, not playing as individuals, right? Focusing on the negative, right? Motivating in the negative and saying like, don't do that, don't do that, that doesn't help.

Uh, I've mentioned this story before. Westinghouse, you might have heard of the brand Westinghouse Electrical Products and things going back well over 100 years. In the early times of the 1900s, there was a mistake made by a mid-manager at Westinghouse. And I might be getting the facts of this story a little bit skewed, but the meaning is the same. And it cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars then, which is a ton of money then, and it's even more money now.

And somebody was talking to Mr. Westinghouse and said, you fired them, right? He said, fire them. I just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education, right? So instead of firing a person 'cause they made a mistake, it's okay, we're not gonna do that anymore. Here's what we're gonna do instead. Here's how we're gonna do this going forward.

Uh, I remember a time when I was VP of sales and there was something that we wanted for the team, and I spoke to my directors about it, and I, I, I went to the C-suite and I fought the good battle and I lost. I lost. We weren't gonna get it.

And I went back to my team And back, back to my sales directors. And I said, okay, they're not gonna do it. This is what we're gonna do instead. We're gonna do this. We're gonna go forward. And one of my directors said, how can you always be so freaking positive? And I said, I'm being realistic. I fought the good fight. Believe me, I did everything I could do to try to get this for us.

And I lost. So I can sit here and cry about it, or I can say, okay, well, let's play the hand we're dealt. And the hand we're dealt is this. So let's go forward. I don't, and I said, I don't want you going to your team and saying, "Well, we couldn't get that, so we got this." I want you going to them and saying, "Hey guys, here's what we're gonna do today. This, we're gonna do this going forward," right? Don't tell them we lost the battle. It has nothing to do with them. And don't make them think about the thing that they can't have.

That's what you're doing. If you do that, you're gonna tell them what they can't have. So now they're gonna focus on, "Oh my gosh, we could have had that, but we can't." No, you never could have had that. Right? Just because you want it doesn't mean you can have it. And believe me, I fought a good fight on that. I lost. And I said, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to go forward, and this is the messaging.

Because you can't motivate the team in the negative. Now, my directors knew that we had tried. And I said, I can't erase that from your brain, but I can say this is where we're going to focus. We're not going to focus on the negative here. We're not going to sit and cry about it, and we're not going to think anything worse of the people above us because they have their reasons for that. What we're going to do is we're going to take the hand hand we're dealt, I'm going to move forward with that. And that's a choice. It's a choice for every one of us, right? You can motivate and try to motivate in the negative, or you can motivate in the positive.

You can talk about what you can do instead of what you can't do. Now, that doesn't mean don't try, right? I tried and I lost that particular fight. There's plenty of things I've tried that haven't worked. I'm working on my next book, and I had— I'm actually converting Wit Wisdom in the Business of Weddings to a version that's good for any business, not just for wedding and event businesses. And the first go-through of it, I don't like it. I don't like it. So I could do it again. Now I could think about all the time that I spent on it and go, oh, look at all that time.

That's called a sunk cost. And a sunk cost is it's gone, it's spent. Time, money, whatever it is spent, there's nothing you can do about that, right? I did, uh, did a big project for Wedding MBA. Uh, my friend Brian had a great idea, so I thought We both thought, and I invested time and money and it flopped. And you know what? Move on. 'Cause there's nothing I can do about the history, right? That would be trying to motivate in the negative. Well, that sucks. And the, you could keep thinking about that.

Well, yeah, it does. It does. And I had my moment, right? And then I got over it because if I'm focusing on that, what I'm not focusing on is moving forward. So same thing for yourself, same thing for your team. There's always more than one way to express something for yourself or express for the team. Is it okay to feel bad when something doesn't work the way you want? Sure it is. But how long you feel that way is up to you. It's not up to anybody else.

It's up to you. So think about it next time you're having a negative thought and say, okay, can't do this. What can I do? Right? I was driving down a road recently and there was a tree across the road and I was like, oh, okay. Right? So I have a choice. I'm going to turn around and go around. I'm going to be late getting where I'm going. There's nothing I could do about that. I don't have a car that can drive over a downed tree.

So that wasn't an option, right? I could call and say I'm going to be late. That was on me if I wanted to do that. But I knew there was another way around. I can go around. And there's almost always another way to get to the destination you're trying to get to. As a matter of fact, there's usually many ways, but we tend to focus on one. And we can't get that one. Do you focus on the negative? Or do you focus on, oh, well, can't do that.

I'm gonna do this. That's a choice. Choose wisely.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2026 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


Head Shot

Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Host