It's all about attitude

I attended a conference this week, where Damian Hughes, a sports psychologist and speaker on leadership, talked to the attendees about leadership styles. He was fascinating to listen to, and I would highly recommend him as a motivational speaker. He covered a lot of areas, but the one part that stuck most in my mind was around individual attitudes and their importance in the change process. Changing behaviours in organisations begins with altering individual behaviours, which in turn begins with individual attitudes. Damian talked through many topics, but two that stuck with me were:

1) Don't worry about being ridiculed.
Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, said that ideas tend to go through three stages of being:

- ridiculed (that'll never work)
- violently opposed (not while I'm working here)
- accepted as self-evident (of course that's how we do things).

If you are in constant fear of being ridiculed, you'll never get your idea through to being accepted. Likewise, if your colleagues are aware of these stages, everyone can help to allow ideas to grow.

2) You choose the day you're going to have
He reminded me that every day I can decide the kind of day I'm going to have. It's up to me to decide how I want the traffic jam, the cold weather, the last minute presentation changes, to affect me. My attitude to how I react to these petty examples will help define the outcome to the day. No-one expects a 100% positive individual 7 days a week. Yet, you know that the days you arrive home exhausted wanting nothing more than bed, probably had much to do with how you approached that day.

So, keep positive and you're half way there.