Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Are You a Building Crew or a Wrecking Crew?

A speaker at a conference I attended recently asked that question.

In other words, do you spend your time building other people up or finding fault and tearing them down? In an economic crisis, doing the latter is easier. If you find faults in and problems with other people, perhaps your own problems won’t seem so dire.

If you are one of these people, you are probably fixating on all the problems rather than throwing solutions onto the table.

Why not start acting as though things are going to get better? When Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937 during the Great Depression, he noted the power of positive verbal affirmation. In fact, he was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to do a study of the wealthiest people of all time, noting that one of the common characteristics of these people was that they were positive thinkers. Even when things weren’t going right, they came out with positive affirmations about how well things were going.

By the very act of pretending that things were getting better, things got better.

Today’s Challenge: Now is the time to fake it until you make it. If people ask you how things are going, tell them things are unbelievable. Say it positive and enthusiastically. And when other people talk about their problems, give them kudos for all they have accomplished. Encourage them by providing support and affirmation. Become a building crew.

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