Improving Your Attitude

In my past, I was fearful of people who caused me problems or disagreed with me, and would not confront them. I wanted to be known as a “nice person” all the time.  

Although the people who caused me problems did like my “nice” attitude, it was nothing but a mask of fear. I was running from my problems and eventually lost good friends, respect and worst of all, valuable time. This was the time I could have spent making more proactive choices and correcting my mistakes. Even had I failed…well, so be it; failure is better than fearfulness.  

I had great visions and potential to bring the business ideas to fruition. But back then, I was so afraid of what people would think of me, I wouldn’t seek help to solve any of my problems. My fearful attitude led to blaming others for my mistakes. My bad attitude led me away from the path I charted. Unfortunately, it was with three businesses over a period of about ten years. This was a lot of wasted time and energy.

So how did I change my attitude? I went back to school and surrounded myself with wise people who gave me great advice. I learned from my mistakes and realized that it is better to face problems and challenges head-on in the long run, especially with other people.

But perhaps you are at a much younger age. Maybe you’re even still in high school and have already taken steps to start your own business. No matter when in life you begin, be aware that it takes more than a good idea for a product or service and then creating your vision. It takes the right mindset and attitude.   

Developing the Right Attitude

Your attitude needs to reflect your spirit, vision, strength, talents, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and positive outlook.

You also need realistic expectations and self-assessment, along with an ability to persevere and hold onto your vision. Additionally, there are so many activities you need to focus your time and energy on when starting and launching your business. Continually developing and keeping a positive attitude may be hard, but it must be done from the very beginning, in order to help you assimilate everything necessary for accelerating growth as your business develops.  

Consider this also: as you first start, then grow your business you will face unforeseen challenges. Some of those challenges may come from your clients or customers. Your relationship with your customers is only as good as their last experience. A bad attitude undermines the best ideas, plans, strategies, locations and worst of all, your customers’ opinion of you.

Putting Your New Attitude to Use

Imagine you develop an idea you know will outdo your “competition,” an idea that will truly make your product/service the best and most efficient. You are set in your vision and the method to accomplish it, however, your customer feedback indicates it would be better to do something different.

Will you look at the feedback as opportunities to make changes to benefit your business? Or will you take offense and ignore their words? After all, it is your business and you know what is best. Most likely, your customers are not disrespecting you, they are simply giving you constructive criticism so you can serve them better.  

What do you think will happen if you treat their suggestions as insults, and continue to do it your way? Such an attitude normally leads to a loss of business followed by discouragement, and in some cases, anger. Are you seriously willing to lose business? Are you ready to spend time trying to attract new customers, which takes away from productivity and sales?

Suppose your customers were actually stockholders.  From a certain point of view, this is actually the case: by investing their money in your business, they are also investing in your company just as stockholders do. It is your job to make your stockholders feel they are heard. You want them to respect your business and continue to fund you. If you take on the attitude that they are not important and ignore them, there will be problems down the road. Remember, although you own your company, you work for your customers-stockholders.