Become the Most Positive and Enthusiastic Person You Know
I have a picture on my desk that is called the 20 Rules for Successful People.
#1 Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
When I first read that over a decade ago I thought it sounded a little crazy. But then I started to observe successful people. I started to see how they acted and behaved. Guess what? They were all positive and enthusiastic.
I’ll admit that at the time I was not the most positive person. I could even be described as negative. I was really good at seeing the glass half empty. I could tell you all of the reasons why things would not work out for me and I really liked to blame others for the issues happening in my life. And I was really good at using my realistic, analytic self to talk myself out of anything and everything. I was a real ray of sunshine, not!
I remembered back to when I was in college and I had a boss that was one of the most positive and enthusiastic people I had ever met. He was the athletic director at Michigan Tech while I worked my way through college working in the athletic laundry room. It was a pretty fun job. I got to fold A LOT of towels and meet a lot of athletes, which was really cool. I did not realize how big football players are until I met some face to face. Wow!
While I worked in the laundry room I was always shocked when I would be walking down the hall with a bin of laundry and that athletic director would say, “Hi Allison, how ya doing today?” The man literally had hundreds of athletes to lead and I was just the student that washed the towels. Yet, every single time I saw him he would say hello and talk with me. Not only that but he smile-talked. Seriously, he would somehow smile and talk…all of the time. The smile-talking freaked me out at first and then I started to really appreciate it. He was truly one of the most positive and enthusiastic people I had ever met.
So, when I got out of college and I thought about how I wanted to present myself to the world I thought about the athletic director and said to myself I think I want to be like him! I want to be the most enthusiastic and positive person I know. I want to laugh, smile and snort (only sometimes on accident, ha!) because I was enjoying life and encouraging people. I wanted to be the person that could light up a room when they walking in…..not when they walked out. I wanted to meet new, interesting, amazing people and I figured that if I would become more positive then maybe, just maybe these awesome people would want to talk to me too.
I can’t say that I’ve met Oprah or anything (although she is on my bucket list as someone I hope to meet). But, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and learning from the amazing leader John C. Maxwell and my amazing mentors. I know that if I would not have decided over a decade ago to become the most positive and enthusiastic person I know that I would not have had the opportunities that I have had so far. So, I’d say it’s working.