Volume 8  Number 6   |  June 2018

The Morning Attitude Check

I imagine just about every morning you check how you look. You observe your hair, face, teeth—whatever ritual grooming and ablutions take place every day. Even on a casual day you want to look decent, and on a business day with meetings you want to look professional and impressive.

But as diligently as we do that, we seldom check something far more important—our attitude.

We don’t ask ourselves what our outlook is at the moment. We may check the outside weather, but we don’t check our internal temperament. We may see no clouds in the sky, but we’re operating under clouds in our thinking.

I’m convinced, having been at this for a long time and having coached thousands of people of every type, that we begin the day in one of two mental sets:

1. Another great day, full of opportunity which I can find and leverage to help others and myself.

2. Another threatening day, a long, slow crawl through enemy territory.

You think I’m kidding? I’m sure you’ve encountered surly coffee shop employees at 7 am, nasty security people and employees arriving for work, indifferent workers at your gas station or, for that matter, similar attitudes in your clients.

Your attitude informs your behavior, so you must check your attitude before you get ready for your own work.

Change your settings

“Waking up on the wrong side of the bed” is a phrase from old Rome, when it was believed arising on the left side of the bed was unlucky. Today it simply denotes a grumpy person. For a lot of us, it seems there is no “right side” of the bed!

My advice is simple: When you go to sleep, deliberately think of several things that went well that day, personal and/or professional. When you awake in the morning, think of a few things that you look forward to doing that day. Start with the positive (walk the dog, collect a payment) not the negative (talk to a difficult client, pay taxes). These simple acts influence your subconscious, which is responsible for how you’re looking at the new day.

All of us deserve an “off day” when it seems like only difficulty awaits us. But that should be the rare exception. Instead, we need to treat every new day as my dogs do: Stunned and appreciative that the yard is still there awaiting them.

Summary

The more positive you start your day, the more positive things inevitably occur for you. If that’s not the most basic component of a Million Dollar Mindset, then I don’t know what is.

© Alan Weiss 2018

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