I remember when I first caught myself taking my cues from others.

I‘d be about to pass by someone walking the other way, and I would keep an sly eye peeled for whether or not they would greet me.

If they did greet me, I’d instantaneously gauge their mood and respond appropriately. If I received a warm greeting, I’d respond warmly. If they were grumpy or stressed I would either keep my distance with a curt reply or engage with a sympathetic “How ya doing?” Or if no acknowledgment at all was extended, I would keep my focus elsewhere and carry on.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was taking my cue from others. I was playing the passive, responsive role in the relationship.

“What’s the big deal?” you might ask.

Well, it’s a big deal if I’m in a great mood, ready for a good day of engaging work, and I let someone else’s mood determine mine.

It’s a big deal if I want to greet and be greeted in the morning, and I miss out because I waited for the other person to initiate.

It’s a big deal because others might be operating out of a perspective of caution or fear or anger or bitterness in any given situation, for example. If I take my cue from those people, then I’ll be interpreting and responding to them instead of to the situation. Not taking my cue from others, I may very well have chosen to respond to that situation in a very different way.

By taking my cue from others I turn my brain, intuition and social skills off too early. I grant more credibility to other people’s discernment than my own.

And so I have stopped taking my cue from others, so to speak. If I want to greet someone, then I do. And I let them greet me in return. I have more say in my own day, because people are responding to the mood, tone and subjects that I am putting forth instead of the other way around.

Who are you taking your cue from?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

There are a lot of voices around us.

The boss voice telling us to get busy. The employee voice asking us to make a decision. The co-worker voice requesting assistance.

We hear critical voices second-guessing our choices. We hear fearful voices resisting our initiatives. We hear angry voices attacking our motives.

Each voice articulates something worth listening to and much more that needs to be ignored. We spend a lifetime learning to discern between what has substance and what is the speaker’s personal issues spilling out all over us.

Getting our week off to a good start involves beginning with a friendly voice or two.

Someone who believes in you. Someone who is already on your side. Someone who has demonstrated that they want good things for you.

These people are a rich source of encouragement, affirmation, compliments, and confidence.

Not that we are going to these people in search of the unsolicited pat-on-the-back. (Though that is certainly an idea worth exploring.) We are choosing, however, to begin our weeks with the truth about ourselves. A positive truth about ourselves that we can do something with.

We are setting our perspective for the week in terms of our capabilities, our strengths and our potential. Beginning with a friendly voice in our ear, we are better situated to face the obstacles, the conflict, and the mistakes we encounter along the way.

We cannot inoculate ourselves from the dark voices or the difficult events that arise in the course of a week. But we can be well-grounded in all that is solid and constructive in who we are.

Why start the week with someone yelling at you or complaining to you, if you can take a small detour and find a friendly voice to enthusiastically greet you, affirm you, or appreciate you?!

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

It would probably catch everyone off guard.

Out of the blue, or so it would seem, you blurt out, “You really know your stuff. Thank you for all you contribute.”

Or when she’s not looking, you sneak up and announce, “I couldn’t do this without you.”

Even more inexplicably, you confess, “This team is one of the things I love most about this job.”

It can be a cold world. Tight deadlines. Tighter margins. Nasty vendors. Nastier clients. And a tough economy to boot.

We are busy. We are stressed. We are juggling multiple responsibilities, and it’s taking our full focus not to drop anything.

It’s into this cold world that a warm word can make the difference between surviving and thriving.

To hear that one’s ideas are appreciated, that one’s contribution is recognized, or that one’s presence is valued can transform a stressed, weary, minimal effort into an energetic and passionate engagement.

We get caught up in the busyness and stress of the job’s intensity ourselves. It is easy to forget that people run on more than a paycheck to keep their motivation and energy levels up.

Yes, it would be nice if someone directed a warm word your way. In the mean time, though, take the initiative yourself and insert a warm word into someone else’s otherwise cold world.

Looking for a simple structure to guide your words? Download a copy of our “Say Thank You and Mean It” tool. (click here)

Let me know what happens!

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

 Yes, work is difficult more often than it is fun. Yes, difficult work can be meaningful and rewarding in many ways even if it is not fun.

This week, though, I want to focus on making work fun.

Or at least inserting a bit of fun into an otherwise serious and focused environment every once in a while.

While I couldn’t resist the image of a full-on practical joke, I’m not suggesting that practical jokes are the best way to bring a bit of lightness into the workplace. (Though I do love the occasional clever stunt.)

I‘m thinking more of maintaining a good sense of humor. Of being able to poke fun at the ridiculous side of some of your policies and procedures. Of sharing funny stories from home about the antics of your kids or relatives.

I’m thinking about making ice-cream runs in the afternoon. Of refilling coffee cups just to be nice. Of all standing up and stretching legs at the same time.

Transform envelope-stuffing into a party. Turn a dreaded deadline into a race.

Work too easily morphs into pressure and stress instead of meaning and reward. We need to intervene and help everyone keep a sense of perspective.

Humor is one such tool for maintaining perspective. Keeping things light. Injecting some fun. Enjoying the others on the team.

How do you lighten things up in the serious world of work?

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

“Wait a minute! The week hasn’t even begun, and I feel like I’m under seige.”

There are demands coming from several fronts. There are complaints echoing off the walls. There are attacks spewing from your small and mean-spirited co-workers.

Before you even have a chance to implement any game plan of your own, you’re knocked off balance and reeling from what feels like an assault on all sides.

Demands, complaints and attacks are not unusual workplace dynamics. But when they all come at once it can be overwhelming.

Instead of your usual calm and measured poise, you find yourself angry, defensive, and ready to strike back.

This is the moment when you need to set down the phone, step outside, and walk around the block three times.

The first trip around the block is for venting. Wave your arms in the air. Kick a tree or two. Shout out all those colorful adjectives that describe everyone else so (more…)

Some tasks feel like we’re being tortured and mocked at the same time. Some of the things we have to do are truly hateful, and we wonder whether we’d rather walk barefoot across hot coals or lie unprotected on a bed of nails.

Postponing these life-sucking responsibilities does little more than prolong the anticipated pain without eliminating the impending eventuality.

What is one to do?

I wish I could make a case for procrastination. I am certainly an expert.

I wish I could make a case for blaming management. They certainly excel at mandating waste.

I wish I could make a case for a positive attitude. It would be so simple if we could change reality by mere force of will.

The fact is that our jobs, all jobs, have nasty components to them.

How to face those nasty components with grit and grace becomes the issue.

One tact might be to turn them into a personal challenge or contest. Create a (more…)

Who’s setting the tone at work today?

Anyone?

If someone isn’t setting the tone intentionally, then it is probably being set by the first three things that happen this morning.

Should the first three things that happen be an unexpected deadline change, an angry client, and an assistant gone AWOL, you’re in for a rough day!

What if, though, you set the tone for your day? What if you were to choose—before even arriving at work—what sort of attitude, perspective and demeanor with which you were going to approach your day?

Instead of waiting to react to whatever might be going on at the office, you would be taking the initiative to be one of the actors that everyone else reacts to.

You would be taking the initiative on your own behalf and also on the behalf of the entire office culture.

In this scenario, when the unexpected deadline change gets announced, the angry client yells at you, or the assistant goes AWOL right when you needed their help, you will deal with these unfortunate and difficult experiences from the healthy, positive, and constructive frame of reference you chose earlier.

It’s your choice either way you look at it.

You can choose to let circumstances set the tone for you, or you can choose the tone from which you will set into the day’s circumstances.

Which brings us back to the original question: Who’s setting the tone at work today if you aren’t?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

Nothing like a brief vacation with the family to raise deeper questions.

Life on the blog has been quiet this past week because I am enjoying my family on a California road trip.

Away from schedules and deadlines and expectations and demands, my heart and mind free up in refreshing ways.

Present with the people who are most important to me, I am reminded that one of the reasons I work has to do with their well-being. One of the reasons I take a job that is a crazy mix of positives and negatives is their provision.

Vacations are good for perspective resets.

Do you need a perspective reset? Are you caught up in a whirlwind of activity and feel like you’re losing sight of what it’s all for?

Try taking a break.

Get away for a weekend. Go away for a week! Whether brief or extended, step away. Spend some focused time with the people who are most important to you.

It will recharge and refocus your work. I’m certainly benefiting from mine!

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

June gloom is what we here in Southern California call the coastal phenomenon of having our mornings blanketed in clouds and fog. They eventually burn off about midday to unleash the sun’s warm glory that we love so much.

But until then it is chilly and grey.

If it were winter, then we’d probably not give the cloud cover another thought.

But at the beginning of summer?! Right on the heels of a beautiful spring?! It depressing. It shouldn’t be.

Ever come to work ready to dive in and find an unexpected mess waiting for you? It’s depressing. It shouldn’t be.

It’s also partially a matter of perspective.

We expect it to be summer and the cloud cover becomes an unwelcome intruder.

We expect things to run smoothly or pick up where (more…)

Nothing beats a vote of confidence in yourself.

Sure the confidence of others is impactful and inspiring, but it pales in comparison to the lift and strength and sheer power of believing in oneself.

My reflections today are not the frothy overflow of a series of easy successes. (If I hear one more consultant talk about where they are vacationing, I’m going to scream.)

On the contrary, these thoughts arise from having to reach deep into the well of courage, character and inner strength when instead of riding on the crest of the wave I feel like I’m being crushed underneath it.

The problem with relying on others to undergird one’s confidence is that it risks assuming that their estimation of you matters more than your own.

The thinking goes something like this: While believing in oneself is “nice”, it’s others’ positive opinions that truly validate your value, competence, or performance.

Do you see the irony? While receiving a feel-good of sorts from the positive feedback, you have inadvertently ceded authority of your own worth to others. A small emotional lift at an exorbitant personal cost.

In tough times, when reality seems to conspire against you and confidence flags, it’s important to find ways to assert, nurture, and/or muster a word of confidence to yourself before turning to others.

When turning to others (of course we need a supportive network of friends and colleagues), you want their support to build and corroborate your confidence, not replace or overrule yours.

The distinction may seem subtle, but it is significant.

Give yourself the gift of a vote of confidence today!

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.