This article is an excerpt from my new book, publishing February 2012: One Simple Thing That Changes Everything. You can get a sneak peek and have access to the companion workbook with my all-new One Simple Thing Growth Kit. Enjoy!
In the many years that I been an entrepreneur and mentoring and coaching clients around the world, a consistent theme in my programs, products and services is that in business, absolutely everything counts. From the day we start our business until the day we leave the business, we are shaped by our surroundings—our business environment; our schooling; what we read, listen to and watch; the friends and colleagues we associate with; our home environment; our life partners; the neighbours around us and the communities we belong to—and become as a result, the quality of everything we see and do contributes to the evolving beings that we are in our business.
In addition to the idea that everything counts, I also talk about action and reaction and about manifesting what you put out into the world.
For every cause there is at least one effect. It’s a simple wisdom: everything counts and it is up to us to determine how much our business will count for. If we wish, we can go passively through business letting the influences of the world take over our minds and actions. We can also, if we choose, be completely unaware that we’re part of anything at all. You’ve met entrepreneurs like this. You can talk to them about all kinds of frivolous things, but try to take the conversations to a deeper level and you hit a dead end.
I find that entrepreneurs who hit dead ends like this are very draining on the rest of us.
I am in a mastermind group ( a team that I mentor and coach) and for three weeks I had people emailing me and asking me to not put them with one of the members to brainstorm in our sessions. Out of 7 people, 4 people had told me Negative Nellie (not her real name, of course) was too negative to mastermind and brainstorm with while on our calls.
So now I had a dilemma, what was I going to do? Talk to her about her attitude? Ask her to stop coming to the calls, even though she is a team member? Literally, every week the other people she masterminded with would approach me and ask me to NEVER put her with them again. This left me in a leadership dilemma as to how to turn this around without alienating her and I knew the group was watching to see how I would handle it.
So I partnered up with her personally for the next two weeks and observed her communication style. Negative Nellie is what I call a “socialized negative”- she gets her attention and fulfillment by focusing on and sharing with you the negatives of her day and business. To her she is connecting with you while to others she was repelling them. I knew that if I talked to her about it she wouldn’t be able to even “see” what I was saying as she saw what she did as “socializing” not as being negative.
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Hi Big Thinker!
I’m tired of unhappy entrepreneurs.
I’m convinced that happiness is 10% actual experiences and 90% is how you perceive those experiences. I have millionaire colleagues and clients who seem to have business altogether, but are quite unhappy because they view their business through fairly clouded lenses. I’ve had colleagues and clients that live pay check to pay check who are always bright, optimistic, and generally very fun to be around. Life is way too short to hang around and work around entrepreneurs who view life through very pessimistic lenses. These entrepreneurs interpret every conversation negatively, they imagine the worst in people, usually are passive-aggressive, and infect those around them even happy ones to become more negative.
It seems like in the past few weeks, I’ve noticed more of them than usual and I’m tired of it. Literally! I get tired and worn down by these entrepreneurs. It does no good for my soul, it changes my outlook even briefly as I “perceive” more closed doors in my business than open ones even though the opportunities are greater than ever. The old saying “you are the company you keep” rings really true for me!
Most of my entrepreneurial colleagues and clients are very happy people and perceive the world full of opportunities and not dead ends. I get so much energy and drive from them. Our world could use more of those entrepreneurs, they are the ones that create opportunities, seek to solve big problems, dream big dreams, and infect those around them with happiness as well. Can you imagine a super pessimistic entrepreneur trying to innovate something in business? Why would they even try? Can you imagine an unhappy entrepreneur, wanting to give back to the community and trying to solve severe poverty? Just seeing the stories around the planet would send them down a negative spiral. It takes vision, an optimistic and daring entrepreneur – an entrepreneur who perceives negative circumstances as opportunities.
We are drawn to happy entrepreneurs. We want to follow happy entrepreneurs. They create confidence, seek change, find purpose, and succeed even in the midst of difficult circumstances. An entrepreneur doesn’t mean a “yes” person, but it means that they are able to see opportunities like you and can create new ideas, fresh perspectives, dare big dreams that accomplish the same goal. They are solutions entrepreneurs.
I believe that one can choose happiness and that very little of it depends on circumstances. I choose to enjoy the entrepreneurial journey. I’m absolutely blown away by how fortunate I am each day to be able to go into work and do what I get to do each day. It’s crazy. People working together to achieve something great, helping others fulfill their big dreams while we fulfill ours and I get to be a part of it.
Here’s to BIG dreams!
Learn about the One Simple Thing that changes everything and my all-new, it’s your sneak peek to my new book, publishing February 2012:
