Power of positivity
Does it pay to have a positive mental attitude? According to an article that I read recently, that highlighted research on how repetitive negative thinking can eventually lead to cognitive decline, it would seem that there are indeed some benefits to keeping a stiff upper lip and focusing on the positives.
It’s certainly true that an awful lot of successful people – in business and in life – would not have got where they are today by mooching around every time they failed or faced an obstacle.
James Dyson went through 5,127 prototypes before creating a successful vacuum cleaner, Colonel Sanders is said to have been rejected over 1,000 times before finding a restaurant that accepted his secret fried chicken recipe and Thomas Edison is famously quoted as saying he didn’t fail, but instead found thousands of ways that didn’t work before inventing the lightbulb.
With that in mind, there is little doubt that many glazing industry businesses continue to face challenges as we head into the Christmas period, and many will be working very hard to ‘stay positive.’
That’s supported by the latest Insolvency Report from Insight Data, that shows a sharp rise in construction sector company closures in October, including 124 fenestration firms going under – a 36% increase month on month.
The imminent Autum budget is doing little to boost confidence and the government seems to be doing all it can to drain every last drop of optimism from businesses up and down the country.
According to Roger Hartshorn, CEO of Sheerline, “It’s hard not to feel that the people running our country are anti-business. If I ran Garnalex the way the Government is running the UK, we’d probably go bust!”
So how can we as an industry keep a positive mental attitude?
In his latest column for Glass Times magazine, Roger also talks about a ‘quiet resilience and an enduring sense of purpose’ in the industry, as well as ‘shoots of hope’ for 2026.
You can read his thoughts in full here