Attitude.
How do you manage yours? Do you even manage yours or are you generally whipped around by the attitude that you woke up with depending upon the side of the bed?
I recently received an email from a management consultant coach, Kevin Eikenberry, and in there he hit upon attitude. This came through a couple days ago, and it got me to thinking about attitude.
I found his site as a resource for remote working guidance and remote office management/leadership best practices about a year ago. I believe his leadership guidance is quite valuable for many facets of life, and this recent email from him prompted this ‘skip the line’ post today.
If you have been reading my recent posts relatively regularly, you likely have noticed a continued theme of a default mindset and my journey to continuously question such a thing in all facets of my life. Some facets or dimensions invite the questions much more readily than others – likely given my past and currently embedded mindsets.
So back to attitude, I can remember one particularly charged Saturday morning back when I lived in Andover where I was force fed an attitude adjustment sandwich that I was not ready for. This was about a decade ago to set the scene. I will not go into who delivered the message, although it was a very strong man in my life that I have a ton of respect and love for. That shrinks the list down quite a bit, eh?
Anyway, we were working on a horrendous project at home. We were hanging an Ikea drawer of some sort on a wall in the main living area, and it was not going well. At all. Ikea projects are something I’ve outlawed in my life, although I’ll still buy the occasional piece – I refuse to put that stuff together. Anyway, this was pre-embargo – and it was getting increasingly charged as a situation.
Somewhere in there, this guy pulled me aside and gave me, as we say in Texas ‘The What For…’ somewhere in the haze of belligerence from my side and increasing anger the point was delivered, and it went something like this…
‘Just because you are having a bad day – you have no right to take it out on anyone around you – especially those that love you.‘
Well, I reacted with a raging silence.
He was right.
I was acting like a frustrated child.
I had really never had someone take me aside with that calm tone, and verbally knock me out.
I wish I could say that I’ve lived this truth 100% ever since, but I have not. I can tell you when I take a tone now – in any place in my life – I remember that conversation in my basement up there in Andover on that charged morning.
Damn, I still get angry when I think about that moment from time to time.
A constant reminder that attitude is something you choose.
In fact, I shared the exact quote with one of my sons yesterday, verbatim. It is that useful, and I wish more people could internalize this as a truth.
Another truth for me is that if I’m tired or overly stressed, I tend to have a degraded attitude. I have improved substantially over the last few years in this regard, to the point even if my attitude is a notch knocked down – many times – people do not recognize it.
For me, this is a hallmark of a true man. Of a true leader. Of a true father.
So back to Eikenberry’s piece – he claims atttidue to be the following bits:
Attitude is a habit – I could not agree more. It is an outgrowth of your daily conduct, if you have a generally rotten attitude – you should take a fresh look at what you are doing daily to grind yourself down to such a miserable place. Then set to begin digging out.
Attitude is highly valued – you ever work with someone who had an incredibly awesome and constructive attitude? Maybe they were not as talented as the guy next to you that had a shitty attitude from time to time, do you find yourself a bit more forgiving of those with a better than average attitude. Many successful people pride themselves on teaching those that can uptake the knowledge, and when you couple the technical learnings with a positive outlook – magic can happen. The attitude emanates from inside you, it cannot be taught or instilled by anyone other than yourself.
Attitude affects everything – I agree, it is pervasive across your life. It is also contagious. Emotions and energy are readily transferred and contagious for many people that are not as situationally aware and as emotionally mature as those that are mindful of this contagious effect.
Attitude is a choice – this was the final point in his email, and it dovetails beautifully with the combat I’ve kicked off against the default mindset. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. Sometimes we feel anxious. Many times we are unsure what the first step is take to move forward. If you stop for a second, it is a mindset. We do choose it every second of every day. This is a fundamental power of creation that we all possess. We get to create our mindset.
Finally, attitude can be reset. I find my go to is either 10 deep breaths or some form of physical activity. I ALWAYS feel better after hitting the gym or going for a longish walk of over 20 minutes. I’ll go into both of these as coping and reset skills in a future post.
Give it a try and choose your attitude today, create an awesome one!