Choosing Your Attitude...

Dr. Bruce Eichelberger

Have you ever noticed how different people sometimes respond differently to the same event? I was really struck by this a couple of weeks ago when I went to a local conference. There were speakers and hands-on demonstrations as well as booths offering various items and services.

As part of the day, I had the opportunity to talk with lots of people attending the conference. I noticed that each of them had a different response to the experience. Some people loved it, some were disappointed and some were neutral about it. Yet all of them attended the same event.

As I started noticing this I wanted to see if I could identify the differences in people and their reactions. Here are the variables that stood out in my informal exploration:

1. Expectation — The most obvious difference between those who loved the conference and those that didn't was the expectation they arrived with. One gentleman, who expressed disappointment, said that he hadn't seen anything new at the conference. He had come expecting to find something he'd never seen before. A woman I spoke with, who loved the experience, had also previously seen all of the exhibits and services being offered. Unlike the first gentleman, she used the experience to remind her of things she wanted to apply to her own work, and also of places she could refer people who needed certain types of services. She expected to find some value at the conference, and did.
2. Mindset — Those who grumbled about their experience also seemed to be generally pessimistic about other parts of their life. To use the old Zen saying, they were always looking at the half of the glass that was empty. Those who found things interesting tended to be more optimistic—they paid more attention to the half of the glass that was full.
3. Posture — One other interesting thing emerged while I spoke with people: it was possible much of the time to guess what a person's response to the conference would be. How? By simply observing the non-verbal clues of body posture, facial expression and tone of voice. Those who didn't like the conference were contracted in the middle of their torsos, had no smile and spoke in a way that lacked energy. People who liked it had a neutral to happy look on their face, were standing straighter and had much more energy in their voice.

Now obviously this little informal 'research' project isn't a definitive exploration of this phenomenon, however it was illustrative of the point: our attitudes strongly influence the quality of our experience in the world.

It made me re-examine my own attitudes, expectations and mindset about a variety of things. Like most of us, I've got places where I can improve my attitude. I've started looking more closely at this in relation to my daily life.

The upcoming EQ: Communicating with Power course will give you the tools to communicate much more effectively with yourself and with others, including ways you can improve your ability to choose your attitude.

See today's action steps for more about how you can change your attitude to help improve your experience of the world.

We hope you enjoy receiving "Let the Journey Continue". Our intention is to include articles and features that are useful and inspiring and above all, that help you achieve more every day!

We'd love to get your input to make this newsletter even more relevant and useful to you. We not only want to know what features you like, what features you don't like and anything else you'd like to see in this newsletter, but also welcome your articles, poems, stories, etc. We will do our best to use the best of your ideas to make "Let the Journey Continue..." even better and more helpful for YOUR journey.

In addition, we welcome articles and submissions by graduates and other readers.

Contact us at newsletter@empoweru.net. We appreciate your input.