Positive Attitude: Tough to Keep

What a wonderful day. Yes it is 106, but it is a wonderful day anyway.  I know the yard needs mowing and the house needs some maintenance done outside, but I tell ya, it is just one wonderful day.  I realize that I need to run down the guy who just hit a golf ball through our window and I have not forgotten that the wreaker is on its way to pick up you car that is dead in the driveway,. But I tell you, I cannot get over how wonderful this day is.

What a great place to work.  I know that the guy I did a favor for and produced his PowerPoint presentation he made to the Board today was just promoted to President of the company, but this place rocks as a place to work.  Oh all of that talk about out there in the hall about the boss being a hard ass and only letting his ‘fair hairs’ have the opportunity to show the company what they are worth doesn’t even attempt to dim the glow around this place and its abundance of greatness and being a fantastic place to work.  

Is this an outstanding country club, or what?.  Yaw the clubhouse needs to be torn down and brought into the 20^th century so the plan to bring it into the 21^st century can begin, but I am telling you this is one hell of a country club.  No matter how much the club manager is cutting back on the maintenance budget to keep from loosing is annual budget or how the members will run over anyone in their way to be put on the board of governors so they an prove their worthiness to their corporate bosses this is just one bitching county club.

What fabulous place to eat lunch.  The menus is so full of well balance meals that are priced like five star dinners I can’t tell you how excited I am that I was invited to eat here and then get stood up by the person I was to meet.  And that cellphone call an hour and half after wards was simply the best thing that could have happened.  And that look that waitress gave me when she looked at the door where there were a hundred people waiting and I was holding a table of four…well I think she was trying to hit one me…makes an old fart me just want to keep on going.

Wow, have you looked at what time it is?  I tell you this has been one hell of a productive day.  That computer virus that hit this morning from an email providing me a tip on how I can make my wife happy tonight, well it was the most touching thing anyone could have given me.  And how about those phone calls?  Especially form the guy wanting to know if I was interesting in him making me a few thousand dollars in the next few minutes.  Gosh, I wonder what he would have made for me if I had given him another hour to talk to me. I am sure it would have been in the millions.  To bad my finger slipped when reaching for a pencil to take notes and cut him off.  Oh he will call me back I am sure and then I will make it up to him.

And that email I got from someone I was introduced to that needed my services, man I tell ya, I cannot describe the excitement to hear that he wants to set up a five minute phone call two weeks from now for us to visit. How gracious of him.  I could have probably told him everything I offer in two minutes, but he gave me five.  Just goes to show you that there are people out there who really want to find out how I can help them and build those solid business relationships.

OK, enough of the BS.  How many people have you run into who just drive you crazy with the constant false positive attitude?  If you are like me, just about every other person is falling for the notions that if you are not positive in every aspect of what you say to a person or how you act you will turn them off.  Believe me, and listen close people, trying to turn every negative into a positive or to be positive about something that is down right grossly negative is just as bad as the fake positive attitude.

This reluctance of many of the people who are in the sales groups I work with who are taking the ‘positive mental attitude’ thing too far by trying to find something positive in every negative is starting to ware on peoples’ nerves.  And it is not just me, it is a number of people I happen to be watching recently in restaurants, in meeting rooms, at socials at someone homes and in the cubical empires of corporate America. 

One lady I was over hearing talking to another lady got really upset because the other lady wanted to be ‘Miss Gussy’ about a situation at work that was causing tremendous stress amongst the office.  The debate I, and the rest of the people within 20 yards of this couple, overheard was over need to stay positive or people are going to stay away because they don’t want to be associated with anyone negative.  The rebuttal was to site that it made no difference.   Many people are not going to like anyone who is trying to make light of a serious situation by telling everyone to join them in signing Komb-ba-ya .  I kinda like that so I made a note.

The other day, I was in a meeting with three people and one of the guys came in with this possum eating grin on his face asking ‘how is everyone?  Did everyone have a great lunch?’.  He was 30 minutes late.   We had gathered to talk about him being late on launch of the web-site he was developing for a company that had several thousands of dollars invested in joint advertisement and marketing. He just shucked off the fact that he was risking a considerable profit with explaining that life was too short to worry about something he couldn’t do anything about.   While that was going on the other guy I the room was on the phone talking to his staff and they said they could have it up in ten minutes if they had known anything about it.  His explanation, Oh those silly people, they have known about this for weeks, they just like trying to not make me enjoy life.”  The outcome…well the smiling faced lawyers are probably looking into his business as a lean on the clients investment.

I have a business coach friend I haven’t seen in a while who is still my bright light of hope and guides me to a better understanding of positive attitude through example and not words.  But even she can be over joyous sometime.  But I enjoy mentoring her on having a balance with the positive mental attitude and being aware of how long she has the positive attitude switched on too long in he presentations.

I have many years experience of being the person of reason and rationality on why you need to stay positive.  Along with the years of training and application, I went to all of those seminars people go to that enrich a person’s sole to knowing the power of positive attitude.  I sit there and I listened to the lectures on how the evils of negativity will eat away at a person’s credibility and integrity if is constant.   I had to play that game so I know the damage that having the positive switch on too long can have on a person.  Having it on too long is just as damaging as being negative all of the time

Yes, I have the credentials to say where the limits are with this positive attitude skit people are now convinced they have to be playing 24/7.   I can tell ya, there are a lot of people who are taking it too far.  So far in some cases these people I finally spend time with to get to know and who have that On-Switch broken to On, are on the verge of dementia or not knowing what is real anymore.  It sometimes is sad to see their fanaticism on the need to portray a positive image in order for them to feel accepted.  By who?   Usually the person that is in their lives who mandates they be positive.  Most of the time it is a demitted boss who only wants his/her people on a sale every minute of the day and sometimes it is their insecurity to being portrayed as bitching if they say anything negative.

Well these examples sum up the need to temper the positive mental attitude to only e used when there is really something to be positive about.  Now, to my critiques who think I am part of an attempt to perpetuate the need for a negative attitude and with their assumption of me having a negative attitude will keep be from never succeeding. 

Well, I tell ya, I don’t know what I would do with you guys.  You are absolutely the best when it comes to knowing what would really make my day.  If it wasn’t for you guys providing me with some much needed inspiration I don’t think I could sit in here and type on this article anymore due to the excitement your criticism proves me.  In fact the excitement of what you are providing me being so much full of crap just make me want to …well, delete your comment because I am so excited and positive about what I have to say is an accurate reflection on the wrongs many people are making in business.  That is probably the most positive thing I could do since I really wouldn’t want anyone to see how negative I could be…

Oh, Mr. And Miss False Positive, have a nice day