Dale Carnegie once said: “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
Attitude is contagious. Good ones uncover possibilities and bad ones cast shadows of doubt over everything.
People desire hope. Often we create hope in our art, but are we living hope in our attitudes? It’s not easy. We shouldn’t have to “fake it”, but we have to remember that the attitude we have is setting tone. Attitude sets the climate for how people react, feel, process, act and believe. The only person who wants to be around negativity is a person who is negative. But people who are positive are like magnets. They bring out the best in others.
Sometimes we have to work a little to find the silver lining but it exists, and it is worth the effort to uncover it:
• We get to do this
• We get to create
• Some of us get paid to create
• We are part of a movement that is changing our community, city, state, and country…WORLD!
• Most of us get to work with amazing people. (I am SUPER blessed to work with an amazing team)
We all get upset and frustrated from time to time, that is natural, but choosing how we deal with issues matters. We tell our team all the time: “We are going to choose to respond not react”. Responses are thought through and deliberate while reactions are filled with emotion and often are not what we really mean.
Attitude even trumps talent, eventually. The lie is that talent permissions people to act how they want because if they are really good at what they do people will put up with them being difficult, for a season. Then, eventually, the balance of talent and attitude will shift and people will get tired of dealing with jerks. You can’t be a jerk and have longevity. At some point, some day, someone will decide they are done dealing with jerky attitude and ask you and your talent to move on…but what would happen if you took your immense talent and you were nice. You would be lethal.
Our attitudes matter. Today. Now. What is yours saying? Let’s choose to break the stereotype of cranky artists and be nice, speak life, and allow not only our art to speak for us, but our attitude as well.
I may not be artsy, but I find it easy to be negative. Good point here Brewster, our attitude speaks louder than our talent! Thanks for the reminder!
Great post, especially the opening quote and the last few lines. I often think about the way reality is mediated through perceptions, and the way in which “truth” is formed this way (i.e., when you go looking for bears, you will usually find them). I had not really given “attitude” much thought, but it is essentially the same thing. I also appreciate the relationship between talent and attitude that you brought up – its displays and implications seem all around us!