attitude

Be grateful

The essence of mental adjustment and atonement can be summed up in one word: GRATITUDE. It doesn’t matter how disturbed you are, it doesn’t matter what’s bothering you, you can solve whatever it is - just be grateful. Gratitude is everything, it’s the antidote for all stress, anger and frustration, it’s the entire process of mental adjustment. I think that when you change your perception you can change your outlook of life.

“Wait like one who understands.”
— James Allen

The essence of our character

Two things define you in life:

  1. Your patience when you have nothing, and

  2. Your attitude when you have everything.

When you find yourself in moments of scarcity or when things aren't falling into place, your patience becomes a testament to your resilience and strength. It's during these times that your ability to endure, persist, and stay composed truly defines you. On the other hand, when you have abundance and success, your attitude speaks volumes about your humility, gratitude, and generosity. How you carry yourself, treat others, and handle success illuminates your true nature. It's easy to lose perspective or become complacent when surrounded by plenty, but maintaining a humble and gracious demeanour r reflects a deep-seated understanding of what truly matters in life. I think your ability to weather the storms with patience and your grace in times of plenty are the things that shape your identity and reflect the core values which will guide you through life's various stages and circumstances.


The magic word is attitude

One of the strangest things in the world is that we tend to minimise the things that we can do and the goals we can accomplish. For some equally strange reason we think that other people can accomplish things that we cannot. We are the only creatures who are disoriented in our own environment because we were given the faculties to create our own environment. If only we realised that we have reservoirs of talent and ability deep inside of us.

If I want to be free, I’ve got to be me.
— Burrellism

Watching brief

Whilst there is a need to keep a watching brief on the changing customer environment, their needs, and technologies, the benefit of a good education is the ability to think on your own. In effecting other people with words, I found something very interesting about communication, you have to learn to be nice as your attitude will make a huge difference to how you are received. Communication is 80% what you feel and only 20% what you know, I think it’s not so much what you say as how you say it. Your attitude will make the difference in both your sales results and in the quality of your life as most people are interested in how you feel not just in what you know. 

Once you’ve accepted your flaws no one can use them against you.
— Burrellism

Going through the motions

Now we are in the first week of 2022 and after the festive season many people are struggling to get back into the work rhythm. I think human behaviour is driven by our attitudes, and our attitude is based around the beliefs that we have. Maybe if you understand at a deeper level what you really want then you will really want to act. What’s your passion?

When you develop that something that’s bigger than yourself, it will help you to stay focused and stop your subconscious mind from hijacking your thought process. I think that if you learn to sell and share information, then selling products and services will become as natural as positioning yourself at an interview or on a date. When you are in a leadership position, you must be able to sell the organisation’s vision, goals  and your ideas with enthusiasm and energy if you want your team to follow without protest.

When it comes to developing your style, listen to other people and absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely yours.
— Bruce Lee

Understanding the source

Selling is not hard when you know what you are doing. Sales is a skill and you really need to know how to do it because it’s a skill that will be with you throughout your life. I recently worked with a sales team on 3 key areas:

  1. Attitude - How do you maintain a positive, possible attitude? Taking full responsibility for what you are doing, keeping an expectant attitude in place. How do you manage your attitude when things take a dip and go wrong?

  2. Competence – This is all about selling and understanding the methodology. How do you get buyers to really listen and learn about what the problem really is so you can go about a decision evidence model?

  3. Execution - Doing the things at the right time with the right people.

 

These things in combination are what drives the results you are going to get. The “old school” pitch, persuade and close the deal is the wrong starting point for the modern salespersons. Commit to helping the buyer make the best possible decision that benefits them, and tell yourself, “I’m at my best when I sell in this way.” I think you should always give buyers the room they need in order for them to really understand what they need, want and why from you.


Old dog...new tricks!

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In my early days of leadership, people centric thinking was not part of my business plan. I was a nice guy, I had a positive attitude but I wouldn’t say to you that I was sensitive to the impact of my initiatives on people. It was all about numbers and building shareholder value, not human value. My early days were very traditional, if I had to fire people - I just did it. I mean, that’s what you do in business! Unfortunately, that conventional thought still exists today, it’s not human, it’s just all about numbers.

I think the major problem with business leadership today is that there is no leadership; there’s a lot of management. It’s a very short-term attitude to just think about people as a resource that you pay and expect them to do their work. What will you lose if you take it from a human perspective? In reality we are responsible for the lives of human beings. And if you want to be cold-hearted about it, people who like coming to work are even more productive. People who feel safe and can trust the people they work with are more likely to offer bigger ideas, take better risks, be more innovative and more productive. That’s a whole host of good business reasons. When you are ready to look at your employees from a human perspective, just contact me via e-mail to arrange a confidential meeting.


The two things that define us

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A wise old man once told me that two things define us:
1. Your patience when you have nothing, and
2. Your attitude when you have everything.


My period of self-isolation ended last night and I am “officially” free to go outdoors. Now more than ever, I think it’s so important to tune in, look inward and listen to you intuition. It’s so easy to forget how to listen to that inner voice. This morning I took a moment to enjoy the silence and confirmed to myself how grateful I am to have come through B.1.351 (the South African variant) without any major symptoms.


Now we finally have an opportunity to focus on what matters most to us, make changes - and what better time to change your life than when it’s already changing?