Quit or carry on!

Working with sportsmen you often get to a situation where they talk about quitting because of frustrating losses when things are so tough and it's not going their way.

I'll always say to them, "There's only two answers to this. You either quit or you carry on, but if you carry on you can't carry on with a negative attitude." If you are serious about quitting, do it now.

I worked with a company director who basically was telling me his story, and wow this was a massive moan. Basically he portrayed to me like he carried the company on his back. He was doing everything, other directors were lazy, not pulling their weight, and he was the guy who was always having to deal with the staff, and he was the guy who was always having to motivate people, and it was just way too much for him.

He was simultaneously playing the saviour and the victim, rather than the mindset of a leader, or of a winner.

I came with the same thing, "Well there's only two answers to this, quit or carry on. If you carry on though, you have to transform your attitude, and stop behaving like attitude is not a choice. 

It is a choice and if you carry on then you must choose the way that you will behave. 

Nobody enjoys or respects a moaner, except other moaners! People are mostly too polite and let moaners vent, which is a disservice to moaners who interpret their silence as agreement.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if he was moaning to me, he was moaning to different people in the company and that's terrible for morale and poor leadership. Part of leadership is setting the example of a healthy attitude.

 He started saying no and not doing certain things, 

He is a bright guy, and began altering his attitude. The stuff that he did do, he did positively and well with a sharp focus, no longer moaning. 

Like I said to him, "You have the privilege of being in a senior position which gives you more freedom to choose than most, so choose wisely." 

Then we started to talk about what he wanted and what he was really good at and where he could influence and where he couldn't. 

Where he couldn't influence leave it be. 

Rather than trying to get involved when he couldn't really make a difference or a positive impact, learn to trust others to sort things out. 

He started to focus on his strengths and what he could do well and really forget about the rest, and of course that kind of tidied up his life because he wasn't worrying about things that really had nothing to do with him. 

I said, "Look, if people don't pull their weight and things mess up, it’s not your problem so relax about it. Somebody will tidy it up or they won't. Just make sure what you do is positive and good."

I think it's another fantastic story of what getting the right mindset can do. He loved the line  “tidying up his life” which became a mantra for him which was certainly better for him, and I'm pretty certain things got better for his colleagues and family as well.

Written by David Sammel