Jeffrey Gitomer can be uncomfortably blunt and even course sometimes, but I’m a fan nonetheless of his energetic writing and speaking style.
I recently grabbed his 2007 book “Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude” off the shelf in my office and started to go through it again. It’s a fun and helpful tour through the differences between a positive attitude and a Yes! Attitude.
Why Yes! Is Better
- Yes! is an automatically positive response.
- Yes! is more declarative and active.
- Yes! tells people what they want to hear.
- Yes! makes you more appealing as a colleague or leader.
The Yes! Factor
Yes! is that feeling of crossing a finish line, winning a game, or completing a big task. It’s that fist-pump moment of celebrating success.
You’ve had the experience many times. It’s easy to visualize and understand. “Yes!” is what everyone screams when something great happens.
Gitomer rightly points out that finding, building and keeping a Yes! attitude requires preparation, planning and regular practice. Here are his 20.5 (he uses decimal points in all his lists) attitude primers to get you started down the path to always thinking Yes!:
- Change your input to change your attitude. You must expose yourself to positive information and hang around with positive people.
- You were born to win. But, “You must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” – Zig Ziglar.
- “The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win.” – Vince Lombardi
- You will get whatever you want if you help enough people get what they want. Quoted by many but hard to attribute definitely.
- Make every day as productive as the day before you on vacation. Everything gets done on that day.
- Ignore people who tell you “You can’t.” (Except your boss.)
- If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing. A famous quote everyone’s heard from our moms.
- Don’t dwell on the problem, concentrate on the solution. Resolve how you can, not why you can’t.
- Forgive and go forward. Grudges block positivity.
- Self-talk equals self-performance. Telling yourself sets the expectation and right frame of mind.
- What is the picture you have of yourself? Think about that for a few minutes daily.
- You will hear the word “No” thousands of times. Convert as many as possible to Yes!
- What you do off the job determines what you are likely to do on the job.
- Strengthen your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses at the same time.
- Failure is an event. Think of failure as “it,” not “me.”
- It’s not what happens to you; it’s what you do with it.It’s all about the response.
- Every obstacle presents an opportunity, if you’re looking for it. It’s a choice to look for it.
- Hard work makes luck. Work and preparation create the right circumstances for getting to Yes!
- How many of your problems are cured with ten grand? If money can do it, attitude can do it, too.
- It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Tone and enthusiasm make a huge difference to you and those around you.
- Resign your position as general manager of the world.Don’t try to fix others until you are problem-free.
A positive attitude is everything. But it doesn’t just happen, it takes practice everyday.
So say “Yes!” for more success.
Have a great week.
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