4Attitude Is Everything
4Your mind and your body are part of the same system. They influence each other. When you’re happy, you look happy, you sound happy and you use happy words. Try to be miserable while you jump in the air and clap your hands, or try to be happy as you slouch in a chair and let your head droop. Your attitude controls your mind, and your mind delivers the body language.
Attitudes set the quality and mood of your thoughts, your voice tone, your spoken words. Most importantly, they govern your facial and body language. Attitudes are like trays on which we serve ourselves up to other people. Once your mind is set into a particular attitude, you have very little ongoing conscious control over the signals your body sends out. Your body has a mind of its own, and it will play out the patterns of behavior associated with whatever attitude you find yourself experiencing.
No matter what you do or where you live, the quality of your attitude determines the quality of your relationships—not to mention just about everything else in your life.
I have been using the same bank branch for the last eight years. From time to time, someone I’ve never heard of before sends me a letter (spelling my name wrong) to tell me what a pleasure it is to have me as a special customer. No matter how hard they try to improve their “personalized” service, however, banks are pretty much the same all over, and my bank is really no different from the rest. So why do I still bank there even though two new, competing banks have recently opened much closer to where I live? Convenience? Obviously not. Better rates? Nope. More services? No. It’s none of these things. It’s Louanne, one of the tellers. What does Louanne offer that the institution can’t? She makes me feel good. I believe she cares about me, and other customers feel the same way about her. You can tell by the way they talk with her. This charming lady brightens up the whole place.
How does Louanne do it? Simple. She knows what she wants: to please the customers and do her job well. She has a Really Useful Attitude or, to be more precise, two fully congruent Really Useful Attitudes. She is both cheery and interested, and everybody benefits: me the customer, her colleagues, her company, no doubt her family and, above all, herself. What Louanne sends out with her Really Useful Attitude comes back to her a thousandfold and becomes a joyous, self-fulfilling reality. And it doesn’t cost a cent.
Any two people can have wildly different attitudes toward the same set of experiences. However, when two people react to the same experience with the same attitude, they share a powerful natural bond. Attitudes have the tendency to be infectious, and because they are rooted in emotional interpretation of experiences, they can be distorted and shaped; they can be wound up or wound down.
What happens when people lose control and become angry? They look belligerent (body language), their voice tone is harsh and they use menacing words. They can be very scary to be around. From the point of view of making people like you, or even getting willing cooperation, we call this a Really Useless Attitude. How often have you seen infuriated parents berating their children for knocking over the bananas at the supermarket? Or bored, uninterested shop assistants? Or cranky, impatient doctors? They are all putting out useless attitudes. I’m not saying whether this is right or wrong; I’m just pointing out that from a communications standpoint it doesn’t deliver the message very well. Assuming they have a message. And that’s often the point. Useless attitudes tend to come from people who don’t know what they really want from their communication.
Remember, the “K” in “KFC” stands for “Know what you want.” If you don’t know what you want, there’s no message to deliver and no basis for connecting with other people.
Most people think in terms of what they don’t want as opposed to what they do want, and their attitudes reflect this. “I don’t want my boss yelling at me anymore” comes with a whole different attitude than “I want my boss’s job” or “I want to be promoted.” Similarly, “I’m sick of selling neckties all day long” sends a completely different attitude and set of signals to your imagination than does “I want to run a charter fishing boat in Honey Harbor.”
Your imagination is the strongest force that you possess—stronger than willpower. Think about it. Your imagination projects sensory experiences in your mind through the language of pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes. Your imagination distorts reality. It can work for you or against you. It can make you feel terrific or miserable. So the better the information you can feed into your imagination, the better it can organize your thinking and your attitudes and ultimately your life.
The good news is that attitudes are yours to select. And if you’re free to choose any one you please, why not choose a Really Useful Attitude?
Let’s say you just flew into Miami International Airport and you missed your connection for Omaha. You simply have to get on the next flight at all costs, so you go up to the airline desk and shout at the representative. This is a Really Useless Attitude. If what you want is to get the attendant’s maximum help, the best thing you can do is to find a Really Useful Attitude that will create rapport and get his cooperation.
I’ll probably regret saying this, but I’ve talked my way out of dozens of automobile-related tickets (I’ve also failed a few times) and not just for parking infractions. I’m absolutely convinced that if I’d started by telling the officer his radar was off or by losing my temper and getting angry and telling him I’m the mayor’s cousin and I’ll never visit this town again, I’d be doomed from the start. If I want the officer to like me, to be understanding and not give me a ticket, then I have to assume a Really Useful Attitude like “I’m sorry” or “Fair enough” or “My, what a fool I am” or “Oh wow, yes, thanks!”
The last time I got stopped, the officer followed me into the village supermarket parking lot and pulled to a stop across the back of my car; I got out and walked to his car. From his physical appearance, with his beard and body set, I figured he was a Kinesthetic, or feeling-based person (you’ll learn more about this later), so the first words out of my mouth were “Fair and square.” That’s because there was no doubt I was in the wrong. He gave me a well-deserved speech about what I’d done and let me off with a warning. The point is that my attitude set the tone of the encounter—because I knew what I wanted.
In face-to-face situations, your attitude precedes you. It is the central force in your life—it controls the quality and appearance of everything you do.
It doesn’t take much imagination to dream up some Really Useless Attitudes—anger, impatience, conceit, boredom, cynicism—so why not take a moment to contemplate and feel a Really Useful Attitude? When you meet someone for the first time, you can be curious, enthusiastic, inquiring, helpful or engaging. Or my favorite—warm. There’s something intoxicating about warm human contact; in fact, scientists have discovered that it can generate the release of opiates in the brain—how about that for a Really Useful Attitude? Needless to say, any of these are more useful than revenge and disrespect.
Ask yourself, “What do I want, right now, at this moment? And which attitude will serve me best?” Remember, there are only two types of attitudes to consider when we are dealing with fellow humans: useful and useless.
How many times have you seen a newsmaker give a TV interview when she’s frustrated? Or a salesperson serve you in a store when he clearly wishes he were somewhere else, a colleague who is sarcastic to the very person who can get the photocopying done faster if desired, or passengers being rude to the cab driver who is the only person with the means to get them to the church on time? These are all Really Useless Attitudes. As far as communication is concerned, they are virtually guaranteed to fail.
A Really Useful Attitude is one of the major delivery vehicles of the likability factor—and it works like a charm. Your posture, your movements and your expression will speak volumes about you before you even open your mouth.
The sooner you know what you want and which is the most useful attitude to help you get it, the sooner your body language and your voice and your words will change to help you get it.
The conclusion is obvious. People who know what they want tend to get it because they are focused and positive, and this is reflected outward and inward in their attitude. Take on a cheery attitude the next time you meet someone new and see how your whole being changes to the part. Your look will be cheery, you’ll sound cheery and you’ll use cheery words. This is the full “communication package.” Other people make major adjustments in their responses to you based on the signals you transmit. The next chapter will take a detailed look at how these signals combine to present a positive image.
Triggering Happy Memories
You know how certain sounds can remind you of something special in your life? When I was eight, my mother took me to a resort where I stood next to a man making fresh doughnuts while Paul Anka sang “Diana” in the background. Now, whenever I hear this song, it triggers the smell of fresh doughnuts and the memory of that happy holiday. It’s the song that triggers the memory. A trigger can be a sound or something visual. It can also be a feeling or action. And believe it or not, it can be a clenched fist.
Follow the steps below, and you’ll see what I mean. Use the hand you write with and clench your fist tightly. Then release. Repeat the action a couple of times. This will be your trigger.
1. Pick a Really Useful Attitude—one that you know will be useful when you first meet someone. It can be curious, resourceful, warm or patient, or any attitude you think will work for you. But it must be one that you have experienced at some time in your life and can recall on demand.
2. Find a comfortable spot, quiet and not too bright, where you won’t be disturbed for 10 minutes. Sit down, place both feet on the floor, breathe slowly into your abdomen (not your chest) and relax.
3. Now you’re ready. Close your eyes and picture a time in your life when you felt the attitude you have chosen. In your mind’s eye, make a picture of this specific event. Put in all the detail you can remember. What was in the foreground and background? Is the picture sharp or fuzzy, black-and-white or color? Is it large or small? Take your time and make it as real as you can. Now step into that picture and look out through your own eyes. Take note of what you see.
4. Next, bring up the sounds associated with this picture. Notice where the sounds come from: the left, the right, in front or behind? How loud or soft are they? What kinds of sounds are they? Music? Voices? Listen to the tone and the volume and the rhythm. Listen deeply, and the sounds will come flooding back. Listen to the quality of each sound and try to hear how it contributes to your chosen attitude.
5. Bring in the physical sensations associated with the event: the feel of the things around you, the air temperature, your clothing, your hair, what you’re standing or sitting on. Next, notice the feelings inside your body. Where do they begin? Perhaps they move around in your body. Move your concentration deep into these wonderful feelings and enjoy them. Ride with them. Notice any smells and tastes that want to be included, and savor them, too.
6. With your “outside” eyes still closed, look out through your “inside” eyes again at the scene. Make the pictures sharper, brighter, bolder and bigger. Make the sounds stronger, clearer, purer and more perfect. Make the feelings stronger, richer, deeper, warmer. Follow the intensity of the feelings if they move from one place to another, then loop them back to the beginning and intensify them. Loop them over and over as they get stronger and stronger. Let the feeling flood all over you.
7. Make everything twice as big and strong and pure. Then double it again. And again. Now your whole body and mind are luxuriating in the experience of it all. Seeing it, hearing it, feeling it. Make the sensations as strong as you can, and just when you can’t make them any stronger, double them one more time and clench your fist hard and fast as you anchor the height of the experience to your trigger. Feel the sensations pour through you. Intensify them again, then clench your fist at the height of the feelings and release. Relax your hand and feel the sensations pour through your body. Do this one more time, then relax your hand and the rest of your body. Come down in your own time and relax.
Wait a minute or so, then test your trigger. Make a tight fist and notice the feelings rush into all your senses. Test it again after a couple of minutes. You are ready to use this Really Useful Attitude whenever you want.