What’s Your Attitude Environment?
Think about this:
We in the music profession train young musicians with utmost care from early childhood, urging them to achieve extraordinary technical mastery and encouraging them to develop good practice habits and performance values. We support them to attend fine summer programs and travel abroad to gain firsthand experience of different cultures, and then, after all this, we throw them into a maelstrom of competition, survival, backbiting, subservience, and status seeking. And from this arena we expect them to perform the great works of the musical literature that call upon, among other things, warmth, nobility, playfulness, generosity, reverence, sensitivity, and love!
(excerpted from “The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund and Ben Zander)
And now, think about this: What kinds of thoughts fill your head as you work? How do you think about yourself, what you do, and the people you serve? What ‘attitude environment’ do you marinate in, day in and day out?
Isn’t that going to come across — somehow, someway?
Imagine what you can do to transform this, starting now. And, let’s talk; share ideas. You never know what your idea could do for someone (and vice versa).
Image by the Zanders, courtesy of Amazon.
And thanks to all who have commented on the previous post so far: Char, David Airey, Dawud Miracle
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Intuitive purpose finder and meaning maker.
This must be the best sentence I’ve read today!
My marinate is a mix of various spices: conversations with and for customers (where for is constantly being aware of their needs and adjusting my blog and websites accordingly), high but sustainable values for our customers and us.
Smiles, yes, that spice is added as much as possible too, even in writing
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
What attitude environment do I marinate in day in and day out? Well, for starters my CheerfulMonk.com blog is “Devoted to Happiness as a Spiritual Practice”, so maintaining a positive attitude is always at the top of my priority list. Yesterday’s post there was on The Secret of Happiness, and I ended it with:
“Nathaniel Branden says, “The secret of happiness is to ask yourself every day: What’s good about my life? What needs to be done?” I would add a third question: “How can I get this done and enjoy the process?” Since no one is forcing me to build this blog, I figure the only failure would be if I didn’t enjoy myself doing it. How stupid would that be?”
And my June 4th post at StressToPower.com/blog shows a picture of a squirrel standing in deep snow, with the top of his head covered with the white stuff. I ended the short post with:
“So this little squirrel is my role model at the moment. He’s got a nice warm coat and isn’t letting the snow get him down. He’s also in no hurry. So I’ll be patient, too. And my warm coat is the confidence that I’ll get it all sorted out in the fullness of time. There’s no great rush…just enjoy the process as well as the results.”
Thanks Karen & Jean… I like your focuses on positivity. I know it can be a trick to maintain, but if your intention is there, that makes a huge difference.
Adam… I try to keep a balance with the people I spend time around. By that I mean if I’ve spent some time with negative people, I balance that with extra time around positive people.
Even with having a fairly disciplined mind myself, I still need to absorb encouragement from others.
Dave, that’s a wiser idea than you may know… in Sufism, there’s a saying: “States steal from states.” Meaning, we have the tendency to either slide into someone else’s state of being, or someone else slides into yours… it just depends who is stronger in their state at the time.
So when you’re feeling blue, and you meet someone who’s feeling chipper, it’s easy to feel better. But if you’re seriously down, and they’re tenuously holding on to their glee, then they’ll probably come down into your pit with you.
So, “absorbing encouragement” is a great thing; it’s how we help each other out.
Ah, yes, the marinade. It would have to be a hope base. Most days it tastes of dedication, joy, and humor. Once in a while, though, somebody (maybe me?) throws in a couple of pinches of confusion. Not a bad place for my mind to tenderize, even with those confusion pinches tossed in.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it when people pick up a metaphor like that, Carolyn!
Sounds tasty; let me know when your jars hit the shelves.
At the moment confusion is the base of my marinade, so I’m practicing welcoming and appreciating it. It just means I’m learning a lot and am about to learn a lot more.
Adam, I love metaphors, even when they’re mixed
Jean, watch out for that confusion, especially before bedtime
Confusion before bedtime…there’s definitely the danger the subconscious mind will keep working to make sense of things and interfere with sleep. I try to switch gears for an hour or so before going to bed to keep that down to a dull roar. It is fun to have the answer come, though, even in middle of the night.
Actually, I don’t think of my “attitude environment” as a marinade, I think of it as a garden that needs regular tending…pulling the weeds, nurturing the flowers. If yours were a garden, what would be the weeds that need pulling? The flowers you’re trying to nurture? What tools do you use?
Well, I started writing a response for this one, because I love the gardening metaphor that Jean introduced… but it grew so much (no pun intended) that I had to turn it into a post. Here you go!