In a world where media coverage has become increasingly negative over the past 170 years, it’s hardly surprising that most people in most parts of the world believe they face a more uncertain future than generations before them.

And that’s despite tangible evidence that most people in most parts of the world most of the time have a considerably better standard of living and personal wealth incomparable to previous generations – and don’t forget painkillers…

A recent paper for the National Bureau for Economic Research in the United States found that despite an almost universal improvement in living standards in most places, media coverage over nearly two centuries has become more negative.

Using tech, they analysed a billion news articles from 13,000 US newspapers over 170 years and found their hypothesis to be accurate.

One of the reasons the researchers suggest is that as media has become more competitive, especially since the dawn of 24-hour news channels, traditional media outlets have become more sensational in order to draw attention to particular issues, leading to more negative coverage of news events.

Bad things happen all the time, and we are more likely to hear about them all the time, but as Atomic Habits author James Clear puts it: “The information you consume is the soil from which your future thoughts grow.”

If you constantly allow yourself to be dragged down to the level of the lowest common denominator of misery, then you are unlikely to be able to find the Upside of Down.

This is why I was so touched by the recent delivery by advertising supremo Mike Abel of M&C Saatchi Abel of my very own pair of Upside of Down socks. A useful reminder always to understand that there is never a single narrative.

You can choose whether to be sucked into the dirge of negativity or give yourself a superpower – historian Noah Yuval Harari describes it: “True Power means knowing what to ignore.”

It’s a valuable lesson. You cannot have better outcomes than anyone else if you find yourself trapped in their narrative.

If you’re looking to build better outcomes for your teams, follow the link below to my keynotes page.