Be Responsible for Your ACTIONS and Your ENERGY by Floyd Wickman

You know, I'm often invited in to do leadership meetings to help managers and team leaders better understand how to manage and adapt to an office filled with different personality types.  From High-Energy Edie and Top Producer Pete to Negative Ned and Sourpuss Sally - it is amazing how much even just ONE spoiler in the bunch can do to detract from the positive ebb and flow in an organization.

Managers and team leaders are the only ones that need to be mindful however or understand how different people rub off on you -- or even-- how YOU might be rubbing off on them.  Have you ever had a bad day, bad week or bad month and looked back to think -- hmmmm...maybe I'M the common denominator?  (Well maybe not you - but the guy next to you right?)

We all have a responsibility to the people around us for the energy and actions we bring to each day. From your family and friends to your colleagues and clients -- what you put OUT - you're going to get back - and sometimes not in a way that you like.  Imagine if you came home grumpy from work and you barked at your spouse or children--how that might deflate their sense of worth and ruin their night.  The same is true of the people you work with, and the clients and customers you come across every day.

My challenge to you is this -- find a way to bring your BEST self to the table every day.  If you're in a bad mood- then by all means- go do whatever you need to do to turn that particular ship around.  Take a nap.  Eat something.  Exercise.  Call a friend.  Read something inspiration.  But DON'T -- bring that bad apple stuff into your office or home.  Because when you think about it - we're all rubbing off on the people around us-right?  It's just a question of whether you are going to do that in a POSITIVE way or  NEGATIVE one.  The choice really is up to you.

In our leadership meetings managers come away with some terrific tools for managing the culture, attitudes and positive flow in their offices.  We work on solutions for finding the right mix of people to create a dream team that gets on track and stays there.  In our agent training sessions we work a great deal on developing a PMA -positive mental attitude and how as salespeople we can learn to make every day count-- and when necessary even "kick our own butt" to get back to the core values and forward momentum we need to realize our goals.

I often think sometimes just raising the AWARENESS of a topic is a great start to helping people STOP and THINK before they ACT or SPEAK.  So just for today -- think about how YOU are rubbing off - and make this a day where everyone around says, "WOW - I'm really glad I ran into YOU today!"  What do you say?

Love,