Monday Morning Motivations Tenacity Pays

Published by Robert A. & Vicki L. Prentice of Professional Development Systems
February 5, 2007 Issue 234

From the Desk of Bob

Driving past a church on the west side of Rapid City last week there was a saying on the marquee that really got my attention: “To belittle is to be little.”

Immediately, I called my wife and had her write it down for me. I did not want to forget it being that it was so powerful of a statement. It stayed with me all week long. It looks like it is with us another week. There must be a reason for it. Go ahead and read it again–maybe even a couple of times. It is doing wonders for me.

Enthusiastically! Bob

In this week's issue

Life Attitudes

Seeds of Success: Be A People Builder

The Triple-Filter Test

The Prairie Beacon

Mr. Attitude's Life Tested Tools

MMM "Subscription" Policy

Life Attitudes

“If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.”
~Alice Duer Miller~

“There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us, to talk about the rest of us.”
~Edward Wallis Hoch~

“In our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything before us, only to find, too late, that it is our ideals we have consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts but only diminished"
~Pico Iyer~

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Today's Administrative Solutions

Seeds of Success: Be A People Builder

By Robert A. Prentice

I hate to admit it, but sometimes I can easily slip into the habit of speaking negatively about people. I do not like this about myself, and I normally feel embarrassed once I realize what I have done, and I quickly take responsibility for my shortcoming and try to make things right.

Everybody knows that tearing others down, being derogatory, and spreading nasty negative things are simply not the traits of a person of good character and moral fiber. Still, it often seems so much easier for us to find the negative in other people, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can learn to stop tearing others down and become 'people builders.' I believe that whenever people invest their time thinking of healthy and positive ways to build people, it makes it a lot harder to be so critical of others. When we actively look for ways to say something positive to, or about someone else, and take time to recognize people’s strengths, we are ready to ‘expose’ the good we know whenever the opportunity presents itself. And that is people building!

When we have taken time to notice the good and positive about people, rather than the negative, it is much easier to steer negative conversations in the right direction. I often do this by saying something like, “Let’s get to the good news!” and then proceed to say something uplifting about the person who was being bashed.

Face it. All of us are ‘a work in progress’ and none of us can say we don’t need to improve in one area or another. And yet, don’t we all want people to think and say the best about us anyway? Shouldn’t that make us all the more willing to look for ways to be building others rather than tearing them down?

I encourage you, this week, to recommit to being a person of high standards and quality–one who looks for and exposes the good in others. Determine right now that from now on you will be a “people builder.”

The Triple-Filter Test

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day, an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”

“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple- filter Test.”

“Triple-filter test?”

“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple-filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and–”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“No, on the contrary.”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test, though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

Bob "Mr. Attitude" Prentice is available for Keynote, conference engagements, and in-house company training assignments Call to schedule Bob TODAY! 800.437.9715

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What a great way to let them know you are thinking of them!

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