Attitudes Are Contagious, Is Yours Worth Catching?

What do you see written here?...

Do you see ‘Opportunity is Nowhere’?
Good. If you like that sort of thinking…..But, do you know what is better? What you SHOULD be reading?

‘Opportunity Is Now Here!’

It’s your choice, you decide, your conscious and unconscious minds conspire to read whatever it thinks you want to read. If you are wired to see ‘nowhere’ then your attitude is going to stop you from seeing Opportunity all around you.

How important is attitude to a Leader? How important is attitude, period? Underlying EVERYTHING we do is attitude….How we do what we do, how we engage with people, how we see and plan the future (our own and our company) and what we takeaway from any situation.
Bad attitudes are infectious. One person in a company with a bad attitude can infect the entire team until one day everyone is sitting on the steps outside with their office in a cardboard box asking ‘what happened?’ Have you ever gone to a meeting, or a party, and thought, ‘this is going to be a total waste of time’? It was wasn’t it? You made it so. You pre-conditioned your mind.

Somewhere between starting school and getting our first set of business cards printed we lost the importance of attitude. We focus on learning, skills and ability. But great attitude is infectious too. It breeds other great attitudes.

Try this….My New Years gift to you?

I am going to take you away from your job for six months and let you stay all expenses paid on my private island. All meals, drinks, entertainment, expenses: all covered. How cool is that? Not just for you but for ALL your family. What a deal? Am I a great guy or what?

I am also going to pay you your salary…as long as you do ONE thing….

Place an advert in the newspaper for your replacement. They have to be good. They have to be BRILLIANT at being you for six months. If they mess up, share prices drop, staff go on strike or they are just hopeless in the role….it will be your fault and I am bringing you back to reality in 12 hours…1^st flight home (economy).

You have TEN words in this advert to describe what you do. Ten words that define what you do as a leader. Ten words that sum up the attributes that person must have to take over from you while you sunbathe and walk on that white beach and swim in that blue ocean.

Does your list look like a little like this one?

1. Conscientious
2. People person
3. Punctual
4. Good with numbers
5. Smart
6. Confident
7. Good listener
8. Decisive
9. Positive
10. Can train staff

That’s a list a group of insurance salespeople wrote on a whiteboard last month and it is almost identical to the list I always get.

Notice anything?

For one thing, the 80/20 principle.

8 out of the 10 attributes are clearly ATTITUDE!

The other two have a foot in both the attitude and the skill camps.

We teach SKILLS…we assume people bring great attitudes with them.

As a leader our attitude is the most important facet of our being. It is the Mindset of a great leader. It is a magnet for success.