JJ's (Jan 2012) Tips in this issue: 1. The Worst Can End Up Being Your Best ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Use the following tips as training tools. Present this situation to your group and brainstorm solutions together, or submit your own situation question to be answered in an upcoming newsletter. ------------------------------------- A reader wrote, "How can I stay positive when something seems to be falling apart around me? I want to be a good influence to people working beside me and at home, but I find myself sounding so negative. How can I be up when I feel so down? I'm noticing that when I make a negative comment others join in and it gets worse. Help!" --------------------- Talk about a solution instead of how bad your situation is. In your own self talk, think "cancel, cancel" when you have a negative thought! Replace it with a positive thought that is a possible solution to the situation. When others say negative comments to you, they are programming you also, so say "cancel, cancel" to stop their negative influence. Replace it with the direction you want to go. Some people might be offended by your saying "cancel, cancel," so you can say "oh" instead. It means the same thing as long as you think it does. Give other people at work and home permission to say "cancel, cancel" to you and it will turn both environments into more positive and happy places. Life happens and situations will occur to pull your spirits down at times, but it's how you deal with them that matters. An upset or crisis can make positive people feel the negativity of the situation but they don't stay down long. They jump into action to make changes and deal with it as quickly as possible. If you look back in the past, many times the worst thing that happened to you ended up being one of your best. Even though it seemed devastating at the time, it became a positive catalyst that made you grow. It propelled you in a direction that gave new insights! These are lessons you learn along the way. Then you grow and become even more than you were before it happened. A woman I have been coaching for years was promoted several times and now finds herself enmeshed in a huge corporation headquartered in New York. She worked her way up from being a sales person to a regional manager overseeing several states. As the recession became deeper her bosses gave her more states to manage instead of hiring more managers on her level. In one of her new states, one of her sales managers quit his job. She had to fill in as their sales manager until she could hire someone to replace him. When all of this was happening, she often used me as a sounding board in our phone conversations. She was generally a very positive person but the extra travel, long hours and pressure from corporate to increase her regional sales pulled her down. She was thinking seriously about quitting herself, but as a single mother of two little girls and a mortgage to pay she felt stuck in her position. I told her, this too would pass, and to do the best she could under the circumstances. I also suggested she nurture herself, make some quality time to recharge and look for innovative way to do her job more quickly and efficiently. A few months later, she called to say there was a silver lining to one of her unexpected crises. In filling in for the manager who quit, she found she enjoyed motivating the sales people again. It was fun and rewarding! She was making a difference in the quality of their work and lives. She now knows she will look for that kind of interaction in her next job when the timing is right! She's also realizing that her current job is teaching her to work smarter with more creativity and better time management. Here's another situation with a silver lining. An older friend called last week to tell me her elderly boyfriend had passed away. They had met at a widow and widower's monthly luncheon about a year ago, and had been having the time of their lives. They were giving dinner parties, traveling and being romantic. She was sad that he was gone, but she had also known he wasn't well. She said, "The best part of having him in my life was learning I could be sexy again at my age. Yahoo! I sat around for two years by myself when my husband died and now I know I have more choices.....and I'll probably find another boyfriend too. I know I don't want to miss out on the fun anymore!" From these stories you can see how life gives you challenges, but you can find something good from each one of them. Challenges usually cause change for the better. The worst at the time can bring you the best lessons for the future. Surrender to the changes and stay positive as you look for solutions! And don't forget to say "cancel, cancel" when fear of the unknown gets in your way! "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every "Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DO YOU WANT TO IMPROVE in an area? Service? Sales? EVALUATION OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT Have you had an Evaluation of Your Environment lately so you could receive suggestions on improving it? (It's like the doctor's check up, you often don't know you need it, until after you've had it.) http://www.jjlauderbaugh.com/about.html **************************************** JJ Lauderbaugh, CMC JJ works with companies that want to give exceptional customer service to increase sales,
and with Directors and Call Center/Help Desk Managers who want to improve human
performance. ---------------------------------------------------------- jj@jjlauderbaugh.com REFERRALS Requested: Please pass this newsletter on to friends and colleagues who would
also benefit from it. If you want to unsubscribe, reply Unsubscribe on the subject line.
Our database is "never-sold or shared." |