Let’s spend some time on a personal inventory today. Get out your journal and list three people in your personal and professional lives that have impacted you; include both positive and negative influences.
Make two columns on a page, one headed Personal Life, one headed Professional Life.
List three people in each column and place a – (minus) or a + (plus) next to each name, based on their influence on your life. Then answer the following questions:
What common threads do you see among those who were positive influences?
What common threads do you see among those who were negative influences?
When you evaluate your current circumstances, in both your personal and professional lives, is your attitude the same, or different, in each aspect? Describe your current attitude in both areas of your life.
As we’ve discussed, there are times when the only thing we can control is our attitude. When you look at the areas above that you marked as negative, wht choices can you make to be more positive in those circumstances?
One of the more positive influences in my life was Mac Bledsoe (if you’re a football fan, you might know him as Drew Bledsoe’s dad). Mac was a teacher when I was in high school, as well as the football coach. He taught a few classes, but the one that made the most impact on me was a class he called “I Can” and it was based on the philosophies and teachings of Zig Ziglar. It’s been 30 years since I was in school, but I can still remember Mac and the many lessons he taught me, as if they were just last year. Thank you, Mac!
I look forward to hearing what you’ve come up with through this exercise.
