I think everyone who has been around personal growth and development for any length of time has probably heard the famous Zig Ziglar quote: “It is your attitude, more than your aptitude, that will determine your altitude.” 

And I would say this is not just a quote – this is a truth.

Your attitude, without question, has a direct effect on your results and on your life. And once you understand this, three things happen.

First, you become much more intentional about watching your attitude. You become much more aware of what your attitude is in any given moment.

Second, you keep your attitude in check.

And third, you do whatever you can do, no matter what the situation is, no matter how hard it is and how negative it is, to do the best that you can do in that moment. It’s the proverbial “making lemonade out of lemons.”

My friend, Wayne Dyer, who passed away many years ago, would say you need to harvest the good.

Let me give you a good example of how I’ve seen this show up in my life and my business.

As the president of the John Maxwell Team, one of the things that do is we host large certification events twice a year in Orlando. We have about 3000 people attend the event, from 80 to 100 different countries, over a 5-day span of time. 

Just imagine all the details and the logistics that would go into a production of this magnitude. 

The visa documents for all those coming from countries who cannot normally visit the US. The meal plans for 3000 people, with all the different dietary considerations. Making special accommodations for the attendees who have physical limitations. The communication to those people who are traveling on their own, without their family for the first time, and helping them get oriented. Arranging the lineup of 12 different speakers (and we are very fortunate to have Dr. Bruce Lipton on our main stage for this upcoming event in a week). 

There are also all the logistics of working with John Maxwell and Mark Cole, our Founder and our CEO, and making sure we create the agenda in such a way that maximizes and honors John’s and Mark’s time.

There’s the physical prep work of the setup itself. We have three 18-wheeler semi-trucks full of stuff that we transport to Orlando for each event. 

And then of course, there’s the most important part of all, and that’s the member experience. Making sure that every member’s experience is positive and smooth. Making sure that every person’s name is spelled correctly on their name tag (As Dale Carnegie said, “a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”).

We have members at 3 different levels, all with different colored lanyards, and we have to make sure that’s right. There are the additional tickets for the different breakout sessions and photo packages and video packages.

Whatever expectations the members have when they show up at our registration desk, we need to not just meet those expectations, we need to exceed them. And all of this is truly a herculean effort.

I’ve been in the Certification industry for speakers, trainers and coaches since 2006. For nearly half of my adult working career, I’ve been certifying speakers, trainers and coaches. In fact, I’ve certified more speakers, trainers and coaches than anyone else, living or dead. There is an art and a science to this process. And you have to get it right if you’re going to sustain it.

And so, in all of this, perhaps the most important part is in having the right people on my team and making sure they have the right attitude.

Several years ago, as our events were going from 300 attendees to 700, to 1000, to 2500, and now to 3000 and above, the prep for the event has only gotten more time-consuming and more challenging.  And over these last 13 years that I’ve been working in this industry, there has been one woman who has been my right hand and who has helped me organize and lead the logistics, admin and setup teams for all the behind-the-scenes work.

And her name is Cheryl Fisher. And here she is getting everything ready for next week’s event.

As we have grown bigger and bigger, you can imagine that it takes the logistics team 2 to 3 days straight just to get the registration packets filled. There was a time when we were making that jump from small to big, and we could sense that the attitude of the team was one of overwhelm. It takes a lot of energy just thinking and planning out the tasks that have to be completed to run these events smoothly.

So, Cheryl and I came up with an idea to reframe all the prep work to get the registration packets ready, and we call it picnic day. Today, as I write this, we have nearly 30 staff members who have been working for the last two days at the Palm Beach Gardens Marriott, preparing all the registration packets for all the John Maxwell Team members who are coming in for certification next week.  

We decided and we set what our attitude would be about the work that has to get done. We called it picnic day. We would make it fun. We would make it enjoyable. We would lighten the energy of the day. And so, for the last number of events now, my team has hosted picnic day.

Maybe it sounds to you like it’s just a euphemism or a play on words, but it really is a shift in attitude and a shift in perception. And I believe that shift in attitude and that shift in perception drives the energy of the team. And if you follow what we teach in Empowerment Mentoring, you will know that I really do believe that everything is energy. And this energy and this spirit of fun and expectation and excitement is critical, compared to the alternative, the energy of “we have too much to do, we’re overwhelmed, how are we ever going to be able to do this.”

I believe that the attitude and the energy we choose goes into every single one of those packets that every single person coming to the event will receive. The energy goes into every lanyard and every name tag. It goes into every workbook and every agenda. And I think that’s the difference maker. Our members, when they pick up their registration packet in Orlando, will feel the energy of picnic day, the energy that Cheryl and I started several years ago.

And so, I want to celebrate Cheryl today. I want to celebrate her attitude, and my whole team’s attitude, both in the John Maxwell Team and in Empowerment Mentoring.

This year alone, Empowerment Mentoring has hosted 9 live events and probably dozens of online events. And perhaps the most rewarding thing for our teaching team in Empowerment Mentoring (Roddy, Gerson, Daniela, Ezequiel and myself), and our teaching team in the John Maxwell Team (John Maxwell, Mark Cole, Chris Robinson, Christian Simpson, Roddy Galbraith,  Kay Salerno, Shila Morris, Gina Watts, and again myself)… perhaps the most rewarding part of all of this for us, outside of the teaching itself, is knowing that our clients are experiencing excellence in every interaction they have with our teams, whether that’s the admin team, the accounting team, the logistics team, the event team. The experience is one of excellence, it’s one of positive energy and fun.

It’s these energies that are conducive to a person being able to learn and grow and be open to transformation in their own lives. 

One of the things that I’ve adopted as one of my core teaching mottos is this: The answer to the question of who matters is ‘always everyone,’ and the answer to the question of what matters is ‘always everything.’

And in order for this to be truly lived out, you have to have the right attitude, which is summed up so eloquently in one of my favorite quotes of all time by Dr. Viktor Frankl, who wrote: “Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Choose it wisely!

I believe in you and I believe in your dream!!

Hold Your Image!!