Attitude is More than Everything - 3 Part Series from Spark Plug

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Attitude is More than Everything

3 Part Series from Spark Plug

Part 1

You’ve heard that attitude is everything, but that does not go far enough. Over time, attitude shapes

identity. More than any other factor, the person you see looking back at you from the mirror is shaped

by your choice of attitude. You are your attitude.

To put it bluntly, a bad attitude will make you a bad person.

A bad attitude will make you a bad employee. Employees with negative attitudes won’t go above and

beyond the job description to serve customers or patients. They tend to be emotional vampires who suck

the joy out of the workplace and suck the energy out of coworkers. They tend to be passive-aggressive

cynics who do everything they can to prevent positive progress, and who denigrate positive people with

insulting terms like overachiever, brownnoser, and quota-buster.

The ultimate irony is that their bad attitude will threaten their own job security and, if it becomes

contagious, and threaten the very existence of the organization (more on this in Part 2).

A bad attitude will make you a bad friend. The toxic emotional negativity of a bad attitude is malignant

and it is contagious. One of the greatest disservices one human being can do to another is to dump

their bad attitude, to “vent” their toxic emotions, and suck that friend or coworker into the depressing

state of cynicism, pessimism, and distrust that are part and parcel of a bad attitude.

I was once speaking with someone going through a tough regimen of cancer therapy. She told me that

her physician had told her that it was a matter of life and death that she avoid the emotional vampires

who would steal her energy because she needed all the energy she could muster to survive the

treatment. She told me that in the coming days she learned the difference between a true friend and a

bitch buddy, and that she would never again make room in her life for the latter.

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A bad attitude will make you a bad parent. People whose attitude is that “work sucks then you die” set a

horrible role model for their children and run the risk of setting those kids up for a lifetime of

frustration and failure. Anyone going into the world of work with that sort of attitude will soon be

competing for the best jobs in the best organizations with people who have a positive attitude that work

should be a meaningful and enjoyable experience. And they will lose, ending up dead-ended in dead-end

jobs. And, tragically, they will continue the cycle by teaching their own children that work sucks and

then you die.

In his book The Coming Jobs War, Gallup CEO Jim Clifton wrote that if we could double the number of

people who are engaged in their work it would do more than every federal stimulus program ever

enacted to galvanize this nation. He’s right. The same thing applies to the organization where you work.

And the same thing applies to the life you live.

If you want to change your life, start by changing your attitude. In Part 2 of this series I’ll talk about

how attitude shapes the culture and competitive positioning of every organization. In Part 3, I’ll share

practical tools for how you can have a more positive attitude yourself, and influence those around you

to do the same. But for now let me encourage you to devote your day to keeping Tuesday’s Promise of

The Self Empowerment Pledge - personal accountability - which says:

I will not allow low self-esteem, self-limiting beliefs, or the negativity of others to prevent me

from achieving my authentic goals and becoming the person I am meant to be.

Click here to view my slide show on The Self Empowerment Pledge.

Part 2

I recently took this picture at an airport. Southwest Airlines has long been known for its unique

corporate culture. They are now creating a competitive advantage by advertising the great attitudes of

the people who work there. They are in the same business as United Airlines - they buy the same planes

from Boeing and use the same jet fuel to power those planes. But the experience of working for or flying

with Southwest and United could not be any more different. And Southwest Airlines is now the busiest

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air carrier in America. When it comes to employee and customer experience, attitude is more than

everything.

I once had a conversation with the senior HR executive at Texas Roadhouse, the fastest growing

steakhouse chain in America. He told me that the primary source of their competitive advantage over

Lone Star and Outback was making sure that their customers had fun, and that the only way to make

sure that consistently happens is to make sure that their employees have fun. If you’ve been to a Texas

Roadhouse restaurant you’ve seen employees wearing “I Heart My Job” t-shirts.

Texas Roadhouse has four core values, and one way or another they all relate to attitude: Passion,

Partnership, Integrity and Fun. The Texas Roadhouse Code of Business Conduct and Ethics says:

“Working here should be fun and exciting for everyone. You can help us accomplish that goal by

honoring your team members, caring for people and showing mutual respect for all.”

In his new book Finish Big: How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top Bo Burlingame wrote:

Of all the lessons that can be drawn from the experiences of the people in this book, I believe

this is the most important one. The stories remind us that a business is not only an economic

organization, but also a social one, giving purpose and meaning to our lives and providing the

camaraderie, direction, and fulfillment most of us feel a compelling need for.

A personal story: My wife Sally (pictured above with Dumpster) has an enlarged ascending aorta. We

had an appointment for her to see a cardiac surgeon at the Mayo Clinic that happened to be scheduled

on the very day that they displaced Johns Hopkins as #1 in the U.S. News rankings of American

hospitals.

The visit started with a one-hour meeting with a nurse practitioner. She was thoroughly prepared for

the session, answered every question (even my dumb questions) with the utmost respect, and for that

hour made us feel like we were the only people in the building. When we had thoroughly exhausted our

questions she told us that she would see if the surgeon could see us sooner than our scheduled

appointment two hours hence, since we had a long drive home.

Now, my daughter the neuroscientist had googled this surgeon beforehand and reported that he was “a

rock star” in the medical community, so we didn’t get our hopes up. But ten minutes later he came in

and spent the next 45 minutes making us feel like we were the only people in the building.

Between leaving the cardiac surgery clinic and the front door three different people - including a

housekeeper and someone pushing a food tray cart - stopped to ask if we needed help.

I’m sure there are fine surgeons in hospitals that are closer and more convenient than the Mayo Clinic,

but when the time comes for Sally to have her surgery that is where we will go. I know I can trust a

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hospital when everyone from the guy pushing a food tray to the world-renowned cardiac surgeon is

thinking and acting like they own the place.

It’s often said that culture eats strategy for lunch (an aphorism coined by the great management

philosopher Peter Drucker) and it’s true. For more on this you can view or download my PowerPoint

presentation 12 Reasons Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch. But this is a key point about cultural

transformation:

Culture does not change unless and until people change.

Culture is a reflection of the collective attitudes and behaviors of the people who work in the

organization. And the only way to sustain positive culture change is to inspire individuals to make

positive changes in their attitudes and in their behaviors.

In Part 1 of this series I made the provocative statement that a bad attitude will make someone a bad

person - a bad employee, a bad parent, a bad friend and a bad citizen. Of course, there is no attitude

light switch - it’s not good/bad with no in-between. We all have days where it’s a struggle to maintain a

positive attitude. And I guarantee you, one of the most important investments you can make in yourself

is consistently having a positive, optimistic attitude.

In Part 3 on Friday I will share a handful of practical, powerful, and proven strategies to shift your

attitude in a more positive direction. It will be a great way to start your weekend.

Part 3

Over the past several months Values Coach has conducted Culture Assessment Surveys for 13 different

healthcare organizations and associations with more than 5,000 responses. On this question – which I

consider to be the acid test for being a great place to work and for providing a great customer/patient

experience – two things are obvious (and appalling): 1) more people disagree than agree with the

statement that they work in a positive and respectful culture and 2) less than 6% strongly agree with

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that statement. That is the real healthcare crisis, and it’s one that we inflict upon ourselves. If 95%

instead of 5% of people who work in healthcare strongly agreed with that statement, there would be no

internal healthcare crisis and the external healthcare crisis would simply be a series of manageable

problems. And it’s not just healthcare. While there are notable exceptions, we see similar results in

other industries as well. And that gets me to a key point that I mentioned in Part 2 of this series:

Culture does not change unless and until people change.

The good news is that the changes people must make in order to be part of promoting a more positive

and productive organizational culture – a culture of ownership – will also help them in every dimension

of their own lives: as professionals, as citizens, as parents, as partners, and as citizens.

There is an age-old debate about what must come first: a change in your attitude or a change in your

behavior. Why take a chance? If something in your life is not working satisfactorily, change both,

starting right now. Don’t wait around for someone to empower you, because it will never happen. The

only one who can empower you will be the one sitting around waiting. So in Part 3 of this series on why

attitude is more than just everything, I’ll share a dozen practical actions you can take, beginning

immediately, to have a more positive and optimistic attitude yourself.

Action #1 – Take off the rose-colored glasses

When we conduct a Culture Assessment Survey for client organizations, executives there are almost

always shocked by how negatively their people perceive the culture of the organization; survey results

are a challenge for them to remove the rose-colored glasses and objectively acknowledge the reality of

the situation. The same thing is true for you at a personal level.

Most of us really don’t want to admit, to ourselves or others, that we have a bad attitude. But of course,

we all do – at least in some parts of our lives and at least on some days. One of the most eye-opening

exercises you can do is to carefully track your attitudes for one entire day. Carry around a pen and a

notecard and every time you think a negative thought; every time you catch yourself whining about

something, feeling sorry for yourself, or blaming someone else for your problems; every time you catch

yourself worrying and being pessimistic about what the future will bring, take out your card and make a

mark.

At the end of the day, count up all your marks. That is how much of your life on that day you wasted on

negative attitudes, disempowering thinking, abusive self-talk, and pessimistic expectations. Everyone

who does this exercise is appalled by how much of their day is wasted in this way – I know I was the

first time I did the exercise. As in medicine, diagnosis is the first step to treatment. Simply being aware

of how much of your life is being wasted will help you shift your mindset in a more positive and

constructive direction. As you do that, you will start to see positive and constructive changes in the

results you achieve.

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Action #2 – Get clear about your personal core values

Almost by definition, if you are reading this you intuitively have good solid values. But if you’re like

most people, you have never taken the time to think clearly about what those values are, much less how

they are reflected in your attitudes and behaviors. And an objective observer would see a significant gap

between those attitudes and behaviors and what you profess to be your core values. The Values Coach

course on The Twelve Core Action Values ™ is a 60-module course on values-based life and leadership

skills. Take a minute to review the course outline reproduced below and honestly assess how much

happier and more successful you would be if these twelve values and the 48 cornerstones that put

action into the values were reflected in your attitudes and in your actions.

Action #3 – Change your inner dialog

You might have taken a class on public speaking but I’ll bet you’ve never taken a class on the most

important speech that you will ever give – the one you give to yourself all day, every day. Negative self-

talk is telling yourself lies and then falling for those lies – which eventually makes them become your

self-inflicted truths. Psychologists tell us that the mind naturally gravitates toward negative self talk

unless it is consciously directed toward more positive thought patterns. Most of us allow that negative

inner voice to talk to us an abusive manner that we would never tolerate from anyone else. And we’ve

been listening to it for so long that we don’t even recognize the harm it’s causing, we don’t see the fraud

behind the lies it is telling us. In the special report that you can download from the link below, I share

my formula for using Metaphorical Visualization™ to reprogram negative self talk into a more positive,

constructive – and more likely to be true and authentic – inner dialog.

The Most Important Speech You Ever Give

Action #4 – Be a Dionarap

Don’t look that word up in the dictionary because it’s not there – at least not yet. I made it up. Dionarap

is the word paranoid spelled backwards. Being a Dionarap means that you assume the best of other

people and that they are acting in good faith, even when you don’t like what they are doing. It means

assuming that other people like you and that, unless and until they prove otherwise, they want you to

succeed and will help you succeed if you ask them. It means expecting the best even as you prepare for

the worst. And because of the law of the self-fulfilling prophecy, you tend to get what you expect.

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Action #5 – Be more curious and ask better questions

In his new book A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (with Charles Fishman), movie producer

Brian Grazer writes: “Questions create a mind-set of innovation and creativity. Curiosity presumes that

there might be something new out there. Curiosity presumes that there might be something outside

your own experience out there. Curiosity allows the possibility that the way we’re doing it now isn’t the

only way, or even the best way... [Curiosity] sparks inspiration in whatever work you do.”

One of the best ways to spark a more positive attitude is to set aside fixed assumptions, reawaken the

spirit of wonder that animated you as a child, and start asking better questions. And then taking the

trouble to seek out answers to those questions. In his book Grazer describes how he schedules

“curiosity conversations” with interesting people. Try it yourself: in every conversation you have with

another person, try to ask at least one curiosity question, then listen to what they have to say without

judgment. It will help you be a Dionarap (the previous action) and you will learn things you didn’t know.

One more thing: just because you believe something doesn’t make it true, and just because you don’t

believe something doesn’t make it false. Being curious and asking better questions often begins with a

spirit of humility and a willingness to step outside of your ego and take a fresh and objective look at the

world and the people around you.

Action #6 – Take The Pickle Pledge

This is a simple promise that can change your life and, if enough of your coworkers will take it to heart,

transform your organization. There is nothing you can complain about that cannot be turned into a

blessing or a constructive suggestion. “My head is killing me” becomes “Thank God for modern

pharmacology, and since the first symptom of dehydration is a headache, I should drink some water.” I

think of complaining as the anti-prayer, because when you are complaining about something you

cannot simultaneously be grateful for the many blessings in your life. Moreover, complaining is almost

always a waste of energy – whining about a problem or an inconvenience will not change anything.

When you turn the complaint into a blessing and/or an action you go from the mindset of victim (which

by definition is what complaining is proclaiming) to the mindset of resilient achiever.

The Pickle Pledge and the front door of the Human Resources Department at Midland Memorial

Hospital in Midland, Texas – where The Pickle Pledge is now integral to their culture

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Action #7 – Laugh more and get your body into the act

There was a fascinating study in which two groups of people were asked to rate how funny a set of

cartoons was. They were the same cartoons, but one group consistently rated them as being hysterically

funny while the other group consistently rated them as being not funny. Here was the catch: each group

had to hold the pen in their mouths when they were filling out the evaluation form. One group was told

to hold the pen with their teeth, forcing a smile, while the other group was told to hold the pen in their

lips, forcing a frown. Which group do you think rated the cartoons as being funny?

The implications of this are absolutely staggering! Before participants had even seen the cartoons, the

shape of their mouths were telling them whether or not they would be funny!!! If you get into the habit

of smiling all the time, not just when you feel like smiling, it will profoundly influence your attitude and

the way you see the world and the way you see other people. And it will have a positive impact on the

way other people see you.

But wait, there’s more! In one of the most viewed TED Talks online, Harvard Business School professor

Amy Cuddy speaks about how the body posture that you choose every day (and yes, it is a choice)

shapes your sense of identity and profoundly influences how other people see you. Act the part you

want to play, she says. Don’t just fake it till you make it, fake it till you become it. And she backs up the

assertion with research findings. For example, the choice of posture will significantly influence the

likelihood that a job candidate will ace the interview and get the job. The 20-minute video is well worth

watching and can be viewed at this link.

Action #8 – Welcome challenges and plow through brick walls

Harold Kushner’s book title was When Bad Things Happen to Good People, not IF bad things happen to

good people. Bad things do happen to good people. Bad things will happen to you, inevitably. When they

do, you choose whether to have a positive or a negative attitude about the situation. You can choose the

attitude of the victim, whining and complaining about those bad things. Or you can choose the attitude

of the winner, determining yourself to take effective action and not allow yourself to be deterred by those

bumps in the road. In his beautiful book The Last Lecture (with Jeffrey Zaslow) the late Randy Pausch

wrote: “Brick walls are not there to stop you they are there to make you prove how much you want

something.”

Action #9 – Spend time with silence and solitude

In his book Solitude Anthony Storr wrote: “The capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes

of mental attitude are required… The capacity to be alone is necessary if the brain is to function at its

best and the individual to fulfill his highest potential.”

Every year I try to spend a week alone, or with a few close friends, in the back country of the Grand

Canyon. Before I start down the trail, I think of one piece of emotional baggage that I want to leave

behind when I come out – the fear that is stopping me from taking a necessary action, the resistance

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that is preventing me from starting a new book, the negative attitude that is clouding over

the sunshine in my life. I pick up an ugly rock and carry it in my backpack for a week

letting it represent that emotional baggage. On the last day I ceremoniously leave that

rock, and the emotional baggage it represents, behind in The Canyon. If others are with

me I invite them to join in. I have seen people, myself included, make such incredible

personal changes as a result of this exercise that I’ve now incorporated it into my

workshop on How to See the Lion in Your Mirror.

My second home in Arizona

But you don’t have to spend a week in the Grand Canyon to experience this. Instead of watching reality

TV, turn off the tube and go outside to watch the stars. At lunch take a slow walk around the building

and feel the wind. Close your eyes and listen to the birds singing (that’s what legend says inspired the

first movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony). And when you come back inside, leave your bad

attitudes out there where they belong – with the birds.

Action #10 – Practice Neuro Attitudinal Positivity (NAP)

In his book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great

Performance Tony Schwartz (with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy) writes: “If physical energy is

the foundation of all dimensions of energy, sleep is the foundation of physical energy. No single

behavior, we’ve come to believe, more fundamentally influences our effectiveness in waking life than

sleep… Nevertheless, sleep is also one of the first behaviors many of us are willing to sacrifice, on the

mistaken assumption that doing so will allow us to be more productive.”

He goes on to say that the single-most effective action any organization could take to enhance

productivity would be to encourage its employees to get enough sleep. Indeed, one of the most exciting

areas of scientific, and organizational behavior, research relates to the benefits of adequate sleep and

the detriments of chronic sleep deprivation.

Of course, you don’t need to read scientific studies to know this, do you? You just need to think about

how crabby you are, and how bleak the world looks to you, when you haven’t had enough sleep, and

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how much more energized you are, and how much brighter the world seems, when you are well rested.

In one of his novels, the late Tom Clancy went so far as to say that the outcome of battles, and thus the

fate of nations, has been determined by which side was well-rested and which side was sleep-deprived.

If you want to win the battles of your day-to-day, one of the best strategies is to turn off the TV, shut

down the internet, have a glass of warm milk, and go to bed early enough to get the 8 hours that sleep

researchers say most of us need to be optimally effective and productive.

One more thing: while this is probably not possible in many workplaces (okay, in almost every

workplace that is not Google or the home office of a solo writer) the practice of Neuro Attitudinal

Positivity (taking a NAP) can dramatically help shift your attitude. Any time you feel overwhelmed by the

present, pessimistic about the future, and find yourself hating other people and your life – take a nap. It

might be the case that the problem is not with your circumstances or prospects, but only with the fact

that you are too tired to see the upside potential. As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi famously

said, “fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

Action #11 – Use DDQs (Direction Deflection Questions)

You’ve heard the definition of insanity that it’s doing the same thing over and over, and expecting

somehow a different outcome. And a variation on that is asking the same questions over and over, and

somehow expecting to get a different answer. And the Direction, Deflection, Question, the DDQ, is a

powerful tool for you to hold yourself accountable by asking new and better questions, and by taking

more effective actions to achieve your goals and to become that best self. In a very real sense, the DDQ

is like a guide post to that proverbial road less travelled that leads you to be your best self and to

achieve your most important goals.

The DDQ starts with this quintessential question; will what I’m about to do or say help me be my ideal

best self? That is really three questions in one. Question number one, you cannot even begin to ask a

DDQ if you haven’t thought about who you are when you are being your ideal best self. The non-

negotiable first step of holding yourself accountable to that standard is knowing what that standard is.

Who are you when you’re being your ideal and authentic best self?

How does your best self act as a parent? How does your best self act as a teacher? As a manager? Can

your people rely on you to consistently be that best self every day? How does your best self act as a

salesperson? Act as that best self person and you’ll close more sales. How does your best self act as a

caregiver? How does your best self manage your money? How does your best self manage your time?

You will make different and better decisions about spending time, spending money, when you get clear

about that. How does your best self make decisions and set priorities and deal with conflict?

So the second question is a variation of this: will what I’m about to do or say right now help me be that

best self? Here’s a hint. If you don’t hear that little voice in the back of your head say, “No,” a lot more

than you hear that little voice say, “Yes,” then you’re probably not being honest with yourself.

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So the third question becomes what would I do if I were being my best self in this situation? You ’ll hear

an answer in the back of your head. Here’s another hint. If what you hear is more difficult than what

you’re about to do or say, you’ll know it’s probably the right answer. Why? Why is doing the right thing

almost always more difficult than doing the easy thing than what you’re about to do? That’s human

nature. It is human nature to take the path of least resistance. It’s easier to eat a doughnut than it is to

go to the gym, so we eat a doughnut. It’s more fun to go shopping than it is to invest in your retirement,

so we go shopping. Doing the hard thing though is very often doing the right thing.

The DDQ is infinitely adaptable. We’ve seen people use it to lose weight and get into better physical

conditioning; to get out of debt and get their finances under better control; finally take action on a long-

postponed goal (including applying to college or graduate school, starting a business, writing a book,

submitting a completed manuscript to publishers, and a lot more). Following are just four ways that the

DDQ can be used to help you shape a more positive attitude and more constructive habits:

Action #12 – Practice the Nedlog Rule

I'm sure you are familiar with The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto

you. There’s a reason that, in one form or another, this rule appears in almost every spiritual tradition -

because helping other people the way you wish they would help you is the right thing to do. You should

also practice the Nedlog Rule (again, don’t try to look that word up in the dictionary because I made it

up). The Nedlog Rule is The Golden Rule in reverse. It’s an essential corollary because in order for you

to be able to serve others, you must periodically ask others to help you. The Nedlog Rule says:

Whatever help you would be willing to give to someone else if they asked you for it, be willing to

ask them for that same help when you need it.

In healthcare we ask “who cares for the caregiver?” It’s an important question because, as is often said,

you cannot pour out of an empty pitcher. It’s wisdom as ancient as the I Ching, which says that just as

every now and then a well needs to be taken out of service and relined, so too a person needs to

periodically be renewed and refilled. In our Lone Ranger culture, we are often reluctant to ask for the

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help we need. We mistakenly think it’s a sign of weakness to ask for help. But actually, the reverse is

true. It takes a strong person to ask others for help. Think of how much more positive and productive

our organizations - and our families - would be if everyone were to practice The Nedlog Rule:

Passive-aggressive behavior would be replaced by people openly and honestly confronting the issues

and discussing their differences.

Martyr complex would be replaced by people asking for help before they become overwhelmed, and

asking for a break before they reached the breaking point.

Chronic complaining would be replaced by people asking for help to fix the problems that can be

fixed and for support to cope with the predicaments that are beyond immediate solution (a

restatement of the Serenity Prayer).

Burnout would be replaced by the sort of collective spirit one sees in a support group, where people

who are facing intractable problems reach out to one another to share hope, inspiration, and

courage - and a culture where it’s almost impossible to distinguish between helper and helpee.

Most important, people would dream bigger dreams, take on more daring risks, and make more

substantial commitments knowing that they didn’t have to do it all alone.

Of course, people are more likely to be enthusiastic about helping you if you have first cultivated a

reputation for being willing to help others. Here’s the paradox, and the best part of the whole equation:

Any time one person reaches out to help another, two people are helped. You cannot help someone else

without the act in some way also helping you as well. In AA it’s referred to as the principle of mutuality:

helping one helps two. Always.

Action # Bonus – Memorize the seven promises of The Self Empowerment Pledge

Conclusion

In The Book of Virtues William J. Bennett wrote “There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.” Your

choice of attitude – and it is a choice – is one of the most important choices you ever make. And it is one

that you make all day, every day. Choose wisely.