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Intentional Leadership — D1, W1, M9 — Attitude

You’ve likely heard the story that it took Thomas Edison 10,000 tries before successfully inventing the lightbulb. Some would consider that a lot of failure on the path to eventual success. He didn’t appear to take it that way. In fact, I’ve heard his response was that he hadn’t failed 9,999 times, rather, he had discovered 9,999 ways NOT to make a lightbulb! To me, that speaks of a pretty positive attitude; certainly one who would not be daunted easily by what some might consider a set-back.

Or what about the scientists at 3M who invented Post-it Notes. The story goes that they were attempting to create a sticky glue substance, not one that held lightly for a while, but was easily detached. Was what they discovered a failure? Not by a long-shot! While they weren’t immediately successful in creating what they had set out to create, they created something extremely useful and valuable. I’m sure 3M would say this “failure” was worth billions, literally!

The key is how we choose to look at and respond to the things that happen to us. I’d say these two examples demonstrate some folks who have chosen to approach their lives and work with a positive attitude.

Two weeks ago, I was in Orlando, Florida, with the John Maxwell Team, and we were blessed to have Nick Vujicic with he. He spent a considerable amount of time sharing his story with us. If anyone were to have an excuse for having a negative attitude, Nick would likely get a pass. He was born without arms and legs. Today, at 30, he is happily married and has a 6-month old son. He travels the world bringing awareness to a variety of issues that touch his heart, motivating others, and displaying the value and fruits one may harvest if one faces life with a positive attitude. He swims, has been surfing, sky-diving, and, again, travels the world. He has an undeniable zest for life and is not willing to let anything stand in the way of achieving his heart’s desire.

If you ever have the chance to see or hear him speak, I highly encourage you to do it! His attitude is contagious in a very good way.

Personally, he is a reminder to me that very little in life is truly impossible. His story reminds me that although I will face adversity in my life, and I may not be immediately successful in everything I endeavor to do, there really is nothing holding me back except for me. I find, it’s an effective attitude adjustment.

Today, as we begin these four weeks focused on attitude, it’s good to have a baseline to measure from. Take a close look are your attitude in both your personal and professional lives. What is working well for you?

What do you need to change?

How is your attitude impacting the people around you?

As John Maxwell often says, in every relationship, you have the opportunity to be a plus or a minus. What do you choose?

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Intentional Leadership — M7 — Legacy Wrap-Up

Well, we’ve spent the last four weeks focused on Legacy…what you leave behind, how people think and talk about you, when you are gone. Now, this may simply be because you’ve taken on a new role, left the organization for a new position with another company, or have passed away.

We’ve learned, by example, that you have the power and ability to design your legacy; you can influence what you want it to be.

What if you had the opportunity to know what it would be…would you be likely to make changes in your direction or behavior?

Let’s look into the story of a man who unexpectedly had just such an experience!

In 1888, an infamous Swedish industrialist received news that his brother, Ludvig, had died in France. You can imagine his dismay when he read the obituary and discovered the editor of the paper had mistaken his brother’s identity for his own!

The headline read, “Merchant of Death is Dead.” The obit went on to explain how the man had built his wealth through the invention, manufacture, and sales of dynamite. He was considered a heartless profiteer for having introduced the world to such a devastating innovation.

To be sure, reading one’s own obituary is a rare occurrence, indeed; but what an opportunity! Profoundly affected by this experience, Alfred Nobel determined to make a change, resolving to put his wealth to to work in hopes of reviving his legacy. In the eight years before his death, Nobel created an endowment worth more than $9 million to reward exceptional humanitarian effort. Today, the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the world’s best known and most coveted awards, bestowed annually to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to humanity. *

While it’s not likely any of us will have this same experience, but we do have the opportunity to increase our self-awareness and become aware of the legacy we are building. If we choose to do it now, we have time to make changes if what we learn is not in tune with what we desire.

What do you know about how you are perceived, about what people think and say about you when you are not there?

Is it in line with how you wish to be remembered and talked about?

If not, it’s not too late to make a difference.

*From the Intentional Leadership booklet, by Giant Impact. 

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What window are you bumping up against?

Perception = Reality.

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This beautiful bird spent the better part of four weeks fluttering up and down this window. You see, it thought it was flying into a tree. And it was persistent! It literally fluttered up and down this window most of the day; occasionally flying off into the trees you can see beyond it. The window has reflective film on it, to keep the heat of the sun out of the office. If you look at the window from the outside, you see the trees and bushes (which you can see as you look beyond the bird in this photo) reflected in the glass — pretty clearly, too. No wonder the bird thought it was flying into a tree…and behaved in a frustrated manner that it couldn’t get into the tree. It’s perception was that the window was a tree, and so it continued to try to find a way into the tree, because that was its reality.

Clearly…it wasn’t a tree and the bird was unsuccessful!

This is one of the key concepts I teach when I’m teaching communication skills. It fits in nicely with my two key lessons — self-awareness and intentionality are key to your success.

Understanding the power of perception is important because someone is always watching you, especially when you are a leader. And they make up stories about what’s going on based on snippets of information — often incomplete — combined with their beliefs, values, past experiences, and rumors. What they come up with may be accurate, close to accurate, or a million miles away from the truth, but because they don’t have access to the whole story, the one they create makes sense to them, and they move forward based on it.

My question to you is, how is someone’s else’s perception of you affecting your performance and chances of success? How is it impacting  your relationships?

What about your own perception about yourself? About your abilities, skills, and talents?

Whether you believe you can or your can’t, you’re right. ~Henry Ford

This quote says it all. What you believe to be true about yourself will determine your future. Knowing that, it’s important to examine how you perceive yourself and understand why it is so. Then, what can you do to make it different, if you need to make some changes to move forward into your potential?

And, what perceptions do you have about others that may be affecting your path forward?

Please, don’t waste your time and energy fluttering up against a window that is NOT a tree, and expect it to magically become what you want it to be! Make the effort to have clear vision and understanding about who you are and what’s going on in your life…and then move forward with confidence!

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