Ouch! “Your attitude sucks!” is not an endearing statement and definitely not something that you want to hear directed at you from your manager.
Let me preface this blog by saying you will not learn anything earth shattering from it; but I hope that everyone who reads this can use it as a reminder to not let yourself get into the black hole that I let myself get into.
So let me take you back to last week… a week that any sales person, or quite frankly, any individual in business is quite familiar with and has certainly experienced. I had nothing but bad news: I lost deals, had to let people know their contract was ending, I missed deadlines, blah blah blah. Instead of being optimistic and seeing the positive in all of these events, I chose the path of frustration, anger and negativity. By the end of the week, I had really gotten myself into a dark place and could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.
As I do every Friday, I had my weekly meeting with my manager. During this conversation (after I proceeded to unload all of my negativity and frustrations on him), he spit out the words, “Your attitude sucks!”. After the shock of hearing it, it really hit home… my attitude DID suck and I was not only dragging myself down, I was dragging my team down with me.
He followed the daggering words with: “Open your window, turn on some good jams and get yourself out of this funk!” He proceeded to explain how many positive things I failed to acknowledge that had happened during the week because I chose to only focus on the negative.
So here it is… my not so earth shattering lessons:
- Do not focus on the negative. Address them in the moment as needed, do what you can, learn and move on!
- ABSOLUTELY do not let the negativity of your attitude bring down others! How selfish are we to bring our dark cloud to others? And let’s be honest, it’s usually the people we love and respect the most who feels the brunt of our pain!
- Do not ever lose sight or forget that without the negative and the failures, the positives and wins would not feel so good!
Cheers to everyone working through the hard days and bad news! I am sending my positive vibes to all of you! Keep your head up high, the smile on your face and always continue to move forward to get to your wins!
Closing note: thank you to my manager for always being such a great mentor and for always teaching me the hardest lessons in the most gentle way!