A friend of mine gave me this advice when I was having a bad day. What she meant was, instead of whining or playing the victim when you’re having a bad day, step back, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “I’m going to rewrite the rest of today’s script.” Then make it your mission to brighten the day of everyone around you by saying or doing something that brings a smile to their face. When you do this, they will feel compelled to say or do something that makes you smile, and pretty soon your bad day will be in your rear-view mirror. For example, I was feeling down during the holiday season last year. My wife Marcia suggested I go to Trader Joe’s and tell the employees there how much I appreciate them and all the joy they brought to my life. I took her up on her suggestion and returned home a grateful and energized person. The lesson here is you can rewrite the script when you’re having a bad day.
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Recommended Reading
Instant Turnaround!: Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard
Transform Your Workplace!
Imagine a company where people are excited about coming to work and giving their best efforts every day. In this innovative and engrossing business parable, Harry Paul and Ross Reck show managers at all levels how they can immediately and easily increase productivity by tapping into the discretionary effort of the people who work for them. Starting from the most basic aspect of business reality—that people intentionally regulate the amount of effort they put into their jobs based upon how they feel they’re being treated—the authors point out that the most important part of the job of every manager, team leader, supervisor, and executive is to treat people in such a way that they become excited about applying all their discretionary effort toward performing their jobs.
At the book’s center is the story of Nancy Kim, a human resources director at a magazine that is struggling with all the problems associated with unhappy employees—low productivity and morale along with high absenteeism and turnover. After she openly challenges the CEO’s new management-by-the-numbers system, she’s charged with turning the situation around immediately. Filled with real-world studies, Instant Turnaround! shows anyone how to turn the workplace into a destination—a place where working hard feels like hardly working because it’s engaging, enjoyable, and fulfilling.
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