Category: Success Attitude

As I read the newspaper and forums daily, it seems that the majority of comments and news I read about is negative. People tend to spend more of their time complaining about how bad things are and focusing on what they don’t have rather than focusing on their blessings.

What many of these people do not realize is that they are actually sabotaging their happiness, health and future success. There is a powerful universal law in life that says that we attract whatever we focus on. By complaining and focusing on everything that is wrong (e.g. lousy government, too many foreigners, not enough money etc..), these people are actually attracting more poverty, ill health and unhappiness into their life.

When you don’t feel grateful for what you have, you are sending a message to God that you don’t deserve to get more of what life has to offer. When you are in a negative emotional and physical state, you will not have the passion and physical energy to notice and pursue the abundance of opportunities around you.

If we want more success, more happiness and a greater level of heath, we have to adopt the attitude of gratitude. Learning to be sincerely grateful for what you have and putting yourself in a state of ‘thankfulness’ increases your psychological as well as physical well-being.

When you focus on the blessings that you have, you put yourself into an emotional state of happiness. Not only does this make you feel good, it initiates a healing effect on your physical body. The left pre-frontal cortex of your brain is activated and positive hormones like Serotonin are secreted into your body. Serotonin is a ‘happy hormone’ that further boosts your mood. This natural ‘drug’ improves your physical health by strengthening your immune system!

Psychologists Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California, Davis and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, have found during their ongoing Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness that people who keep weekly gratitude journals had lesser health problems, had a more optimistic outlook on life, and were more likely to reach their goals.

Gratitude Attracts Greater Abundance

“Nothing new can come into your life until you are grateful for what you have.” 

Besides just making us feel good and positively improving our health, having an attitude of gratitude actually attracts greater success and abundance into our life. How does this work?

Every thought we have is a quantum of energy that vibrates at a particular frequency. Negative, pessimistic and unhappy thoughts vibrate at a much lower frequency as compared to positive, happy and optimistic thoughts.

Since all matter in the universe is actually made up of vibrating atoms at the quantum mechanical level, our thoughts actually attract and shape the kind of people, object and events we experience in our lives.

We tend to attract events and people that vibrate at the same frequency as our dominant thoughts. Simply put, if you constantly have positive, happy and grateful thoughts, you tend to attract even more happiness, abundance and positive circumstances into your life. You get more of what you focus on. This is a universal law of life. At the same time, if you always focus on lack and what you don’t have, you tend to attract more lack and more of what you do not want.

What Is There to Be Grateful For?

I once had a participant who attended my ‘Patterns of Excellence’ programme who was going through a really tough time in his life. He had recently been declared a bankrupt (he could not pay the debts from his failed business) and his marriage was in the final stages of divorce. He was potentially losing his kids and even his house. Nothing in his life seemed to be working. He felt as if the whole world was going against him.

“Gratitude is for people who already have a lot and want to achieve even more. What can I possibly be grateful for, with everything going downhill in my life?,” he said. At times, when we all go through rough patches, it may seem impossible to find something to be grateful for.

However, I believe that no matter how unfair or hopeless things may seem at times, there are many blessings that we can choose to focus on. Focusing on our blessings changes our energy from negative to positive and it is the first step we have to take if we want to turn the events in our life around. When we focus on what we have as compared to what we do not have, we draw the strength and the inspiration to turn our challenges into opportunities.

During the training, I got this man to start focusing on and writing down everything in his life that he was grateful for. While it certainly wasn’t easy, he gave it a shot and stretched himself to focus on his blessings. He began to realize how much he had to be happy about. He was in good health and had the knowledge, energy and experience to start all over again. He had a great network of friends who were there to support him and two children who loved him dearly. He began to realize that he had the chance to find someone new who would truly love him and stand by him should he go through tough times again.

He realized that he had the opportunity to learn from all the mistakes that he made with his former business partners and focus on starting a new business that he could own all by himself. Although he was temporarily broke, his reputation for honesty and connections would allow him to find investors for his new venture.

As he focused more on being grateful for he did have, you could see the excitement building up inside him again. His fear and depression faded away and the fire inside him was ignited once again. That is the power of gratitude!

If you wonder why you are losing business, the story below may be useful. I run several groups call the Business Growth Experience (www.businessgrowthexperience.com). During one group I mentioned how frustrated I am with contractor not showing up on time or not showing up at all and not letting me know. My specific comment was “if I am not yet a customer how will they treat me when I am a customer?”

This lead to a discussion of how disrespectful it is to be late. When you are late you are telling me that I am not important, you do not respect my time and effectively you do not respect me. Each member of the Business Growth Experience talked about how difficult it is to be on time and one gentleman stated, “when I am late I am not honoring who I am, I am not in sync with my values of honesty, respect and dignity towards myself. With that said, I am almost always late and people think nothing of it.”

Have we reached a point where we have no respect for our time or the time of others? I realize that people run late, do not returning call (people I know) or respond to emails, are not necessarily the people I want to do business with. I decided I would not do business with any contractor who was late, did not deliver the proposal when they said they would or did not show, even if they had a good reason (without a call).

I do not think I am too different from the average business owner. I do not have time to waste. I want to associate with people who value my time as much as they value their own time.

How much business is this costing you when you are late? What message are you sending your prospect, associate or friend?

Fear can have a powerfull negative impact on our lives especially when it spirals into dread that grows from anticipated unknown  or troubling possibilities.

Our imagination can run wild with vivid details that can chain us to a life that is unwanted an unhappy.

The fact is no one can scare us better than we can. Most “what ifs” focus on worse case scenarios…”What if I lose my job?” or “What if I can’t pay my bills?” or “What if someone gets angry at me?”

Years ago I was having coffee with a colleague and the topic of fear came up. He asked me about one of my fears and I answered, “I have a fear of losing everything and being out on the street living as a homeless woman or a bag lady.”

He challenged me to heighten that fear and suggested the following scenario:

Imagine that I found myself in a town where I knew no one, had no money, no clothes except the ones I was wearing, no family, and no friends. As if I was just dropped there and had nothing except myself. He asked, “What would you do?”  I could feel the panic beginning to escalate and I didn’t want to play.

After my initial shock, my answers began to pour out. I said, “The first thing I’d do is look for work. I would accept any kind of job I could get to earn immediate cash. Then I would look for some place to sleep, any shelter that felt safe.”

The more I talked about what I would do, the calmer I felt. This “what if” scenario reminded me that I’m a thriver and willing to do whatever it takes to land on my feet. I always have and reminding myself of my abilities, tenacity, and courage was comforting. Whew!

In the same situation, what would you do?

Playing the “What if?” game can help to expose the truth about your fears so that you can claim responsibility for what you will do if the worst happens. You can realize that these horrific situations are more manageable than you imagined. AND you can also see that many of the things you imagine never, ever happen!

Our negative fears view life through a narrow lens and eliminate creative options and solutions. This game can help to expand your viewpoint and invite you to see things from a fresher perspective.

Here’s how to play:

Make a list of the specific fears that occupy your thoughts and might keep you up at night. After each “what if?” write down what you would do if your worse fears actually came true. Describe in detail what would happen and what you could do about it. Consider your options, resources, support, people….

After you’ve done that exercise, consider the opposite position

Make a list of all the best scenarios you can imagine. In other words, “what if everything you ever desired, dreamed about, yearned for…. happened.”

• What would you do?
• Would you be able to receive all this good with open arms?
• Who would you become?

I recommend journaling your feelings and observations. Reflect on what you learned about yourself that can become your growing edge.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a story recently about 7-year-old Ransom Duel who noticed his classmate choking after eating a bite of a Nutella sandwich. Ransom picked up the jar, read “hazelnuts,” and knowing that his friend has an allergy to nuts, ran to get his teacher who brought an epi-pen and saved the friend’s life.

When asked about it afterwards, Ransom said, “I just did the right thing. I didn’t think, ‘Oh I’m gonna be a hero.’”

What can we learn from Ransom about business ethics?

First, do the right thing regardless.

At first, you might think, “What else would Ransom do?”

Nothing.

He could have done nothing as his friend grew sicker by the second.

The opposite of doing the right thing isn’t necessarily doing the wrong thing. Doing nothing is just as damaging to your business operations. Apathy drains profits. Lack of engagement lessens productivity. The more employees there are, the easier it is for you to say, “Somebody else will do it.”

Take personal responsibility for acting. Make it your business to do the right thing regardless.

Second, depend on someone always watching you.

Ransom didn’t realize his right-thing action would be so public.

At work, when you face an ethical decision, assume someone is watching you. Odds are good they are regardless of whether you see them or not.

If you catch yourself saying, “No one will ever know,” you’re headed down a slippery ethical slope that leads away from doing the right thing. Be assured—someone will know. At the least, you will know. Knowledge of deliberate, unethical behavior erodes your core values, maliciously rearranges your priorities, and removes power from your unique contribution to a profitable business.

Depend on someone always watching you.

Third, deal with consequences either way.

When you do the right thing regardless while fully aware that someone is watching you, you create consequences that are far easier to deal with later. Ransom’s greatest challenge is dealing with all of the attention that comes with being dubbed a “hero.”

When you do nothing or the wrong thing and hope no one sees you, your consequences are extremely difficult to explain away when they come to light. The business you work for eventually displays your unethical choices either through loss of customers, key employees, or critical supplier relationships—all of which lead to lower profits.

You deal with consequences from every decision. Choose easier outcomes to live with.

Work Positive with Ransom Duel today. Do the right thing regardless. Depend on someone always watching you. Deal with consequences either way.

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Work Positive coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette

The banks aren’t calling to loan you money to grow your business…or start one. So how will you expand in the most profitable manner?

Here are 3 Low Cost Tips to Positively Profit at Work.

Discover

Think of business as a discovery mission. Daily you have multiple opportunities to discover more customers, more niches, more problems your business can solve, more…you fill in the blank.

You must invest some time in creating conversations in order to discover.

Ask your best customers, “Who do you know that we can help the way we do you?”

Ask your best clients, “What other _______ problems do you wish we helped you with?”

Starting your conversations with questions that solicit an opinion are very powerful. Everyone has an opinion and loves to share it. Your discovery mission is targeted at “best customers,” i.e., the ones you want more of.

Avoid assuming you know more about what they want than they do. Discover by asking.

Do

The opinions you gather will cluster around themes. You’ll discover common groups of people are referred, usually according to gender, age, season of life, and socioeconomic status. You’ll discover stackpole problems that focus on common challenges.

Pick one combination of people and problem and do something about it. Select an easy one if you want. Or, pick a huge, hairy one. Either way, make a choice and do something.

Your action is targeted at a specific people and problem so you’ll know who to aim at and what to solve. It’s simply a matter of doing something. Of taking the time to plan an action and make it happen.

Yes, it will cost you some time and attention. Yes, it may cost you money.

You will get results from doing something. The question then becomes, “How did it work?”

Debrief

That’s when you debrief. You ask for feedback. In fact, you can ask for feedback before you ever do it by getting your targeted customer involved. Ask, “How do you think this will work?” or “Look at this postcard and tell me what kind of response it’ll get.”

At least, ask the targeted customer after your actions, “How did that work for your friend?”

Recycle the feedback into your discovery mission and you’re on your way to more profits. Your actions are more strategic. Your debriefing guarantees continuing improvement.

So discover, do, and debrief to positively profit at work! 

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Work Positive coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.