What Does Your Energy Say About You?

What’s the first impression people get each time you walk in a room or get on a call?  I was on a conference call last week and my dear friend and business partner, Jenell, brought up the question “What does your energy say about you?”  It is a GREAT question and I thought it would be a great thing to write about!

We all do it.  We all have those little voices that speak to us immediately when we are summing up a situation or a person.  Someone walks in the room…. whether it’s in our office, a social gathering, or home… and their energy speaks to us.   Do the voices say “WOW! Get me closer to that person!” ….or do the voices ask “DO I want to know that person or be around them?” OR worst yet….do the little voices say “AVOID…AVOID…RUN AND HIDE!!”

I can think of several friends or acquaintances I have who just light up a room when they walk in.  I feel good when I am around them and I love associating with them.

There are two sides to the AVOID- AVOID energy.  There is the person who walks in and is the one you know to be SO negative about EVERYTHING…. You say “WOW, the sun is shining so bright” and they say “yeh, but it’s going to rain tomorrow”.   They delight in attempting to zap your energy.  The sad thing is, sometimes they don’t even know they are doing it.   Can’t they just say “yes, it is and I am going to enjoy every moment of it!!”?  The other side of AVOID-AVOID is the person who is SO obnoxious and in your face you want to hide from them.

Ask yourself these questions about 3 different scenarios – Office, Home, Social Gatherings – you might find they are different for all three when they shouldn’t be:

• When I walk in to the room, do I walk in with confidence, standing tall with a smile on my face?
• Do I walk in slumped down and slouchy or with a grumble on my face?  (Who wants to be around people who grumble and complain all the time?)
• Does my body language send a strong message – opened or closed?
• Do I stand with my arms crossed in front of me as a block?
• Are my arms open and my smile genuine?
• Do I send off the snob message “I am too good to be here with YOU!”?
• Do I make connecting eye contact and let people know I hear them?
• Do I look at people with that “what do you want now look” or “I don’t have time for you look”?
• Do people feel open to come in to talk with me in my office or to approach me at a gathering?
• Do I intimidate people and if so, what is it I am doing?
• Do I always bring out the negative “what ifs”?
• Do I bring the problems or the solutions to a conversation/meeting?

People follow leaders who are positive, inspiring and open.  If you are trying to lead a team – and your team could be your family members – you need to really ask yourself the questions above.  Better yet, ask those closest to you to answer these questions about you.  We don’t always see ourselves as others see us.

What does your energy say about you?  Can you share any stories of encounters with positive, neutral or negative energy people and how it affected you?  Are you the positive energy in the room or conversation or do you bring the negative to the table?

If this post has added value to you – made you take a deeper look at yourself – Please share it with your friends, family & followers!

Related articles

• Negativity in the workplace and how to avoid it. (sherrylcook.wordpress.com)
• Is Your Intention to Spread Positive Energy? (coalitionofpositiveenergy.com)

LEARN TO LAUGH “WITH” YOURSELF

I owned a personal & professional development school in Alabama for 12 years before moving to Florida.  I used to tell my students “when you wake up in the morning, put a smile on your face and say out loud, IT’S A GREAT DAY AND I AM A BEAUTIFUL PERSON!!”  Now I always warned them….don’t look in the mirror first because that bed hair can really scare you!

Try it tomorrow morning.  It can shift your attitude for the entire day.  I don’t care if you are a young teen or an old grumpy grandpa it will change your attitude.  You just can’t say that with a smile on your face and not laugh.  It just makes you happy even if you are attempting sarcasm.

Laughter is good for the soul and we all need to learn to laugh WITH ourselves.  Too many people make mistakes and then get mad because others are laughing about it.  They think people are laughing AT them and their self-esteem goes down the toilet and suddenly nothing else matters.  Their attitude turns sour or they shut down.  They live in “perfection hell”.

When you can learn to laugh WITH yourself – laugh WITH others at stupid things you might do, life will be a much happier place for you.  I have a group of girlfriends we call “The Twisted Sisters”.  They are my best friends in life – the ones you know you can always count on.  On this one particular canoeing venture, I boldly commented that “I know how to do it – I used to teach canoeing”.  I failed to tell them it was at Girl Scout camp 45 years ago and I hadn’t been in a canoe since!

You know what happened next….the minute I got in that canoe I flipped it over dumping all the supplies in the water along with myself and my girlfriend.  The rest of the trip was a continuum of that story.  They were belly laughing and so was I.  To this day, years later, they still tease me about “teaching canoeing” and it is still as funny today as it was then.  It was a stupid thing for me to say because I knew nothing about canoeing!!

Point is, I could have gotten mad, gotten my feelings hurt and let it ruin my day or I could have done what I did and just laughed about it with myself and with my friends for all these years.  That famous statement will forever be a metaphor used anytime someone in our group thinks they know how to do something.  We made a life memory that day – actually we made a lot of life memories that day but we will save those for another story!

Can you learn to laugh WITH yourself?  Repeat after me:  IT’S A GREAT DAY AND I AM A BEAUTIFUL PERSON…..IT’S A GREAT DAY AND I AM A BEAUTIFUL PERSON….say it every day for the next 21 days as you put your feet on the ground in the morning (it takes 21 days to create a habit).  You will begin to really believe it and live it and you will start your day off laughing WITH yourself instead of AT yourself.

When is the last time you laughed WITH yourself?

Related articles

• Never Stop Laughing (tadams4u.wordpress.com)
• Laughter is the Best Medicine (judithmcguinness.wordpress.com)

ARE YOU A SAILBOAT OR RUSTY OLD JON-BOAT?

Have you ever noticed that in every household or office you have at least one “grump”?  That one person who can turn beautiful sailboats into rusty old jon-boats?  Are you that person?

What happens so often, is that we wake up happy….or for some….not unhappy, and then that ONE thing happens – the stumped toe, the razor cut or THAT phone call.

Maybe you woke up pretty happy but then you get to the office and that person….you know, the one that likes to ruin your day… comes up and says something that just really takes the wind out of your sail.  In that instance, you decide your attitude for the rest of the day.  You can’t move past it.  You decide TODAY will be a BAD day.  You actually say “this day is going to suck”.   REALLY????? Just that one little thing is going to choose your attitude for the rest of your day?

What makes someone become that person?  Is it all the bad things combined that have happened in life to set their belief systems? I believe that some people just like unhappiness.  They don’t feel they deserve more than that.  They wait for that one thing to happen to have an excuse  for who they really want to be that day.  They believe  that is who they truly are.

They are the ones who will hold grudges and can remind you 10 years from now that you said their hair looked bad or their nose has an extra bump in it.  They let those words eat at them and believe me, they will get that nose fixed at some point then blame the pain on the one who said THOSE WORDS.

Two years ago when I had my last surgery, I remember looking down at my scars and suddenly realizing the surgery I was about to have would complete a sailboat design on my belly.  I told my doctor to do his best to keep the incision in the right place so the sailboat would be complete.  I think in some sorted way in my mind, I knew it would be smooth sailing from then on if the sailboat were complete.

Maybe I think differently because of all the surgeries I’ve endured over the years that left so many visible reminders.  Life is more than that.  Those are the things that mold you in to the person you are.  They can mold you in to a beautiful sailboat or a hard, rusty little jon-boat that you have to put so much energy behind to row through the water of life – it is your choice.  IT IS ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE.  No one can make you feel mad, sad, glad or any way you don’t CHOOSE to feel.

It really is all in how you look at life.  You can just have a bunch of ugly scars or instances that define your life and who you get to be today…. or you can have beautiful sailboats that make it smooth sailing.  You can choose your attitude today – no matter what has happened – it is your choice how you let it shape you and how you let it shape this day.

Your attitude is a choice.  Choose to make sailboats.