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The Choices We Make

by Paul Kearley

March 24, 2014
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Working in a company boardroom recently I was struck by the incredible distance there was between the two groups I was working with. One was a group of guys who had been around for years, and the other one was made up of younger employees.

We were working on building teams through offering positive recognition, and what has proven to be a very effective exercise in hundreds of other applications all throughout my region, was stalling miserably here.

The older group just sat there, arms folded, legs crossed and mind closed, refusing to participate while the younger guys dove into the exercise with energy.

“That kind of crap will never work here” one of the older guys said, “it’s always been this way and it will always will, so why even bother?”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Sure, why not.” He spat back.

That’s when one of the younger guys got involved. “It’s not what I want” he stated. “I’m sick and tired of the attitudes here, what’s stopping us from making this a better place to work?”

To which the older guy had absolutely nothing to say.

It was such a good question: what was stopping them from choosing to make it a better place to work?

My simple answer is choice.

Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. (I’m not sure where this quote comes from) Everything you feel or think comes directly from what you choose to feel or think about it. You have complete power to choose to let things go, to forgive someone who has wronged you, to work better or harder, to see yourself differently, to be stressed or relaxed or even to love or not.

That’s probably why the Dale Carnegie Course has endured so long: it is an empowering process that allows people to choose a better way of living, communicating, leading and of thinking. And to quote that young man again: what’s stopping you from making your workplace a better place to work?

The choices you will make.

~ Paul Kearley
Managing Partner, Dale Carnegie Business Group – Maritimes Division
(506) 432-6500 / pkearley@dalecarnegie.ca

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