Category: Success Attitude

It is Just Feedback – Part 2

I recently did a blog post called It is Just Feedback.  This article received more comments than any article I wrote. I am not talking about blog comments but actual phone calls and email from people saying things like:

“I finally get it…”

“I connected the dots…”

“Thank you, I get it now…”

After the comments, I received the same questions over and over and I want to address it here. The question in all its various forms is this, “How do create the mindset that it is just feedback. How do I not take it personally?”

A very good question. I will provide an answer that some of you will not want to hear. Before I do, let me create an example we can use to provide some context.

“I love what I do but I am afraid to pick up the phone. When I finally talk with someone, I know I can help them but I am so afraid of rejection I get afraid just thinking of picking up the phone.”

Does that sound like you?

If we were together I would use a simple technique to reframe that experience because it does not matter where it came from or how long it has been with you. YOU CAN CHANGE. I use a simple swish technique on me. I see the fear, big and bright and I move the picture to a small black and white picture off in the distance. I then create a new picture of what I want to feel. I then replace the negative picture with the new picture by switching them. I create a picture of a client who is so happy with what they achieve in working with me and how good I feel knowing I was able to help them. I then switch the picture of rejection and replace it with the feeling of happiness, knowing I helped someone.

After doing this a few time, I am thinking about how I can help the next person I want to call and I successfully replaced the fear of rejection with feeling of satisfaction.

This is important, stop moving away from pain and start moving toward your desired outcome. Stop thinking of how people will reject you and start thinking about how you are moving toward your desired outcome. Are you helping them change their lives? Are you moving toward a financial goal? Focus on the outcome and not the rejection. Stop thinking about what you do not want.

This can be difficult because as human being, we tend to take the path of least resistance. It is easier to move away from pain then it is to move towards something we want. Why, because most of us are afraid to define what we want. It takes some work? It takes a bit of risk? It is always easier to take the path of least resistance.

BTW, it is very easy to determine what we want. Just write down what you don’t want and think of the opposite. It I do not want to be poor that means I want wealth. If I fear rejection that means I want acceptance.

Focus on what you want – not on what you do not want. Learn the skill necessary to move forward. If you find you pick the wrong goal, that’s ok. Think of what you learned and how much closer you are. Try again.

Who doesn’t have desires and dreams?

Let’s face it, staying motivated and inspired can be challenging especially when we get caught up in daily stresses. One of the books I keep handy is “The Four- Fold Way” by Angeles Arrien, PH.D.

The author is an anthropologist, author, educator, and corporate consultant. On page 21, she references  the way self-talk and negative beliefs govern our behavior by citing a conversation between Alice and the queen from Lewis Carroll’s famous book – Through a Looking Glass (Alice in Wonderland).

Angeles remarks that the queen recognizes personal power and takes a no-nonsense approach to “doing what must be done” regardless of any obstacles. She highlights the importance of dreaming the impossible dream in the following excerpt from Alice in Wonderland:

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice

“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying.” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.

Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

How about you?

How often do you talk yourself out of believing something is possible?

Do you set the bar low because you fear wishing for too much?

Do you see your life as full of possibilities or problems?

How many dreams have you given up?

Here’s a fun exercise to reclaim your dreams

Make a list of 100 dreams

Suspend judgments about whether they are possible or how you will achieve them. Be outrageous. Add dreams of any size – big or small. Have fun with this.

Let your inner child come out and play in creating your dream list. Notice what you learn about who you are and what you want.

Use this as a tool to ignite your passions and joys that will lead you to the next steps in creating your dream life and living your Divine destiny.

It’s the day after Labor Day. You’re back at work. Or, are you?

Millions of Americans have yet to find work. You’d think the ones working would be satisfied to at least have a job, right?

Worker surveys report about the same number of us are dissatisfied—more than 55 percent—as when employment was higher.

So how do you move from job dissatisfaction to Work Positive career?

Here are 5 Strategies to Work Positive today:

Perceive the Positive

Business is not the way it used to be, and probably never was.

Find one positive aspect of your job and focus on it every morning.

For instance, did your last payroll check clear and make your mortgage payment?

Some days it seems like Murphy’s Law rules. Discover one positive factor in play at work.

Focus on it.

Conceive the Positive

Every business has negative people. Call them customers, clients, employees, or bosses.

Or, call them Eeyore Vampires. Nothing ever works for them and they’ll suck you dry of every bit of time, energy, and attention you’ll give.

Avoid them. Like they have the plague…because they do. They will infect your morale, productivity, and profitability with negativity if you let them.

Run from them to the positive people.

Believe the Positive

Ever find yourself so mired down in the minutia of the mundane that you neglect to look up and see in which direction your business is headed?

Imagination is the jet fuel of your rapid growth of profits. Do you fill your business tank with this high-octane propellant?

Take a few minutes weekly to ask yourself, “Am I going where I want to go?” and “How do I get there from here?”

Engage your imagination to see yourself there.

Achieve the Positive

Your business has a GPS that will lead you to the pot of gold at the end of your rainbows.

You simply “recalculate” often.

Your customers help you recalculate as you listen to their problems you can solve.

Your team members recalculate you from their mistakes.

Failure is an experience, not a person.

Make a U-Turn when legal and drive your business to increase sales with greater productivity so you can leave the office early to be with your family.

Receive the Positive

The two most powerful words in any language that leverage more business are “Thank You.”

Be specific in describing positive behavior.

Be special in delivering gratitude to your community.

Be old school and handwrite a thank you note. The pen is mightier than the sword…and the email or text message.

Want to be more than just grateful to have a job and Work Positive at Labor Day?

Employ these 5 Strategies today to Work Positive in any job.

About the Author: 

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/speaking.

The annual U.S. celebration of the Declaration of Independence’s signing is this week. While many just eat hot dogs and watch fireworks, let’s Work Positive and discover 3 strategies from the Founding Fathers’ experience that we can use to achieve our own positive business independence.

Attention

The U.S. Founding Fathers viewed “taxation without representation” as the negative mental model cast by a negative British government.

What negative mental models receive your thoughts’ focus? It could be anything from the way you determine your attitude each morning by watching TV “news” to a scarcity mentality from which you grab and rake everything you can wrap your arms around.

Who are the negative people that get your attention? From an employee or coworker, vendor to regional manager, they suck your positive time and energy even after you go home. It costs too much to do business with some people.

Is your business positively growing this way?

The first strategy is to determine today to develop a more positive mental model independent of your status quo. Feed your attitude something more positively nutritional for breakfast. Grow an abundance mentality by thinking about all you do have instead of what you don’t.

Determine to give your attention to positive mental and social energies so your business will positively grow independent of current negativity.

How?

Intention

The second strategy is to declare your positive determination to transform your attention.

The Founding Fathers of the U.S. signed a document that clearly stated what they believed to be true as the positive recasting of their attention and why. It’s known as the Declaration of Independence.

Our positive thoughts and relationships to which we give attention organize and crystallize when we declare in writing what we believe to be true. The most powerful fuel for focus is your pen.

Write down what you positively declare your independence from today. Write about more than just what you’re against. Notice the U.S. Declaration of Independence primarily focuses on positive truths that to the signers are self-evident. Keep your word count tight and positive as you declare your positively transforming mental model and social relationships.

Action

You’ve determined to do business more positively by transforming the thoughts and people who receive your attention. You’ve declared your determined beliefs.

Now it’s time to act—the third strategy.

The British response to the U.S. intention for a more positive focus of attention was “Bring it on.” While the U.S. may have preferred acquiescence, war ensued.

Every action has a consequence. In business as in life, you are 100% responsible for your actions and their consequences. You start your journey to Work Positive with the first two steps when you determine to positively realign your thoughts and relationships and then declare them. There are many more steps down that path. Sustaining the positive change means you perpetually act in the 5 core practices of a Work Positive lifestyle.

The Revolutionary War came at a great cost to both the Americans and the British. Yet it was necessary for global growth to occur.

What one action will you take today to positively grow your business?

Create your own celebration as you implement these 3 strategies for your positive business independence.

About the Author: 

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/speaking.

What stops people from daring to set big goals and taking action is the fear of failure/rejection and the limiting belief that they do not have the resources to achieve the life they want. It is very easy to feel defeated and disheartened when things don’t go the way we want. It is easy to give up and think ‘impossible’ when obstacles/problems seem to make the task impossible. That is why 90% of people in life are so ordinary. They make the easy choice and quit. Remember that the Winners of the world (the top 10%) face just as many obstacles/problems as everyone else. In fact, in most cases, they face even greater obstacles. The difference is that they make the tougher choice of finding a way towards they goals REGARDLESS of how impossible it seems.

I recently watched a documentary about Aimee Mullins who is a true role model of the power of possibility. In times of our life, we always need to be reminded by people like Aimee that our problems are nothing compared to the problems of so many others out there. Yet despite their problems/obstacles they go for their goals because they refuse to accept anything less than an extraordinary life.

Aimee Mullins was born without fibula in both her legs and her parents made the painful decision of amputating both her legs when she was a baby. Despite being a double below-the-knee amputee, she set the goal of becoming an Olympic athlete, a catwalk model and a Hollywood actress. BY the age of 28, she had set world records in the 100m, 200m and Long Jump Para-Olympics. She became a catwalk model and was voted ‘The 50 Most Beautiful Women in the World’ by People Magazine. She has also become a Hollywood actress, staring in movies like ‘The World Trade Center’ in 2006. As someone who has the learnt the power of focusing on what is great in her life, she lives an extremely happy and fulfilling life dancing, roller blading, skiing and swimming. I hope the video inspires you as much as it has inspired me to keep going for my dreams despite the odds.