Choose Your Attitude
Choose Your Attitude
Have you ever read Attitude is Everything?
It serves as a constant reminder to me that I get to choose who I am and how I feel. Too often society tells us to blame someone or something for our lot in life. âItâs the economyâ, âmy mom was meanâ, âcold calling doesnât workâ, âif only my employeeâs worked harder and longerâ, ââIf only my prospects and clients would ___________â(I could fill in that black with a few dozen excuses) âIf traffic wasnât so bad I could see more prospectsâ, Positive or best of all âEveryone around me is negative, itâs hard not to beâ. All of these excuses play on our attitude. So, what to do?
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Choose to be optimistic. Jack Canfield, in his book The Success Principles, calls it âinverse paranoiaâ. Â Simply put, believe that the world is out to do good for you and you for it. The sky is not falling, your boss doesnât hate you, customers WANT to buy, etc. This comes with creating the habit of starting every day with a decision to have a positive mental attitude or a foundation. A positive attitude should drive your beliefs, behaviors and ultimately dictate your outcomes.
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Believe that people are your strongest resource and source of accomplishment. Technology puts us into our cubes, walking with our head down, our nose in phone, picking up our devices instead of engaging with the world around us. We were created to be a community and to interact. Most people inherently want to do good and help one another. Find your allies, invest in them and shed the negative people.
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Know that your past does not dictate your future. Whether youâre overcoming a bad childhood or overcoming a streak of ineffective cold calling, you get to decide where to go next. Get the help you need to get better. But you need to chose to do it! Â Help comes in many forms and from many sources. Especially if you BELIEVE that the world is out to do you good...you inverse paranoid!
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Fear nothing! Do you remember when you were little and afraid of the dark or what was under your bed? Silly when you look back on it, right? Well itâs mostly the same with todayâs fears; thereâs usually not much to be afraid of. Itâs the games we play in our head, itâs the irrationality of our imagination. Folks, Iâve made hundreds of cold calls and door knocks and I still have all my teeth. If I had a nickle for every âNoâ Iâve heard, Iâd be retired. Shed the fear and replace it with persistence.
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Act as if! What does that mean? A great mentor of mine, Joe Murzanski used to tell me; âJim, act as if you have a million dollars in your pocket, that you havenât a care in the world and that you have the solution to your customerâs problemsâ (at the time I sold advertising for the Tribune Companyâs spanish language papers). That bit of advice allowed me to not worry about closing out of desperation because I told myself I wasnât desperate, and it also gave me great confidence in what I sold. As my customers businesses were positively impacted and their sales rose, I only became more emboldened to sell more. The result was, 4 consecutive years of award winning highest production in both revenue and column inches sold.
The bottom line is, as Dr. Charles Stanley said, I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me, and 90 percent how I react to it.
And so it is with you... We are in charge of our attitudes.