When I woke up this morning, my thoughts immediately concentrated upon the opportunities that this new day would bring. Instead of hitting the snooze button, I jumped out of bed the second my alarm indicated that a new day was about to break. Many people wonder where I get the energy. They hear their alarm and wish they could sleep just another twenty minutes instead of dragging themselves out of bed and through another monotonous day at the office. The reason it is so easy for me to get started is not because I was born with a positive attitude. When I was in college, I would sleep until 2 PM if I could, blocking out the day and turning to my warm covers for consolation from my lack of direction. So what changed? Part of it may be maturity, although I feel like the same person that I was fifteen years ago. I used to spend a good deal of time asking older people about the mistakes they made in their lives and what they would do differently. This may have helped to broaden my perspective, but I don’t feel it had much of an impact on my attitude. Being positive when I first entered the work force was a difficult thing. At the time my wife-to-be and I were cramped in a one bedroom apartment. We couldn’t afford to go out and do the things we wanted to do because we were focused on saving for a down payment on a condominium or a townhouse. What really changed things for me is when I sat down and gave a good deal of thought as to what was important in my life and what I could do to make my dreams a reality I knew that I loved my wife-to-be and family, I wanted to be able to provide every opportunity for the children we would eventually have, and that I never wanted to sit and wonder if my next paycheck would cover all of my bills. I wanted complete job security, to constantly learn new things within my industry without ever hitting a plateau, and to move towards an upper level managerial role within my industry on a fast track. Effectively, I made the decision to live my dreams and build for my future rather that just existing to get through another day. I knew that I needed to believe that things could be better, and that if I applied some focus to my goals, that I could achieve everything that I imagined. I recommend that you pull out a piece of paper and a pen right now and do exactly the same thing. Unless you have a clear idea of what is important in your own life and what you are driving towards, it is very easy to get lost along the way. Make sure that the goals that you set for yourself are aggressive yet realistic, as it is easy to become discouraged if you don’t feel that you are making any progress towards your objectives.
A positive attitude is extremely contagious. When you are optimistic about your company, the market, or the world, people tend to get drawn into that positive vibe. For example, about a year ago my company underwent a significant renovation as the market demand escalated to record levels. Even though our delivery performance dipped from >90% on time to under 40%, I strongly believed that it was a temporary situation and that we were building a program that would make us much stronger in the future. When customers would get upset or frustrated with our poor performance, their attitude would quickly change when I would empathize with their situation and then express my optimism about what we would become due to the renovation. Instead of canceling orders or moving their business elsewhere, my customer base placed ADDITIONAL orders with us, building extra inventory to buffer against some of our late shipments. They saw that I believed in our future so strongly, that they too became convinced about our upcoming market strengths. Even though we were not there yet, they wanted to solidify a partnership with our organization.
If your business is doing poorly, management can react in one of two ways. They can either sullenly crack down on their team, pressuring subordinates to work harder, or they can continually investigate what needs to be changed within the organization in order to improve the overall process and optimistically look to the future.
Attitudes are bred from one’s expectations, existing knowledge base, and perceptions. If you are meeting with someone for the first time and they show up half an hour late looking disheveled, you will immediately form a preconceived negative attitude about what they have to say, even before they open their mouth! However, if there is a blizzard outside and you have met with that person one hundred times in the past and they have never been late, you would likely be more concerned than angry about their tardiness. In order to optimize your effectiveness, you need to be able to positively affect the attitudes of those around you. Not only do you need to have your customers in the right frame of mind when you come to visit, but having a constant level of positive energy will also make your colleagues better. So how do you go about improving the attitude of your customer before you even arrive for a visit? People’s attitudes are highly contingent upon the fulfillment of their expectations. If they view your visit as a necessary evil, yet deep down feel it will be a waste of their time, they have had the opportunity to predetermine their own attitude. On the other hand, if you prep the meeting by giving them an indication of the value that you can bring them, formalize things with an agenda, commit to a specific time frame for the meeting (i.e. 30 minutes), and show up 5 minutes prior to your scheduled time, their expectation of you and ultimately of what you have to sell will dramatically improve.
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Create, Maintain and continually demonstrate confidence in yourself, your decisions and your actions , While remaining accountible and retaining responsibility for the decisions you make
create environments for yourself that stimulate action,
The power of “I can” is cumulatively beneficial towards excelling in a given activity,
Look at your life and be able to confidently say I can do better than this in a particular life area. Create your own opportunities by setting things into motion. Build skill set and maintain determined to propel yourself to the next level.
Calculated Risk taking – az story,