Most people who know me know that I am a guitarist/singer and perform ‘the circuit’ as a soloist and in a duo – this is something I have done for a long time now and playing in bars and clubs is something that I am completely familiar with. Last Friday night however it went up a few notches and I played a corporate function to about 300 people in a grand ball room of one of Brisbane’s most prestige hotels. We started at 9:30, finished at 12 and the aim was to keep everyone dancing. This was by far the biggest performance that I had ever done.

Because I burn the candle at both ends, this was an experience that seemingly approached quite quickly. It was different to what I was used to and took me far outside my comfort (or familiarity) zone.

The lead up to Friday night’s performance was pretty chaotic and I didn’t get the time that I needed to invest to be as I confident as I wanted to be. These weren’t regular pub folk out to see a band; they were at a staff Christmas party. Experiencing nerves of which I hadn’t felt for a long time (if ever) I got up and sung my heart out – before I went on I was visualizing it being over – as I was playing I wanted it to keep going.

The higher the risk, the greater the reward; and often before it all begins, you sit there thinking, ‘why am I doing this?!?’.

I’ve never had a ’run-away’ attitude; I’ve never called in sick because of a big night; I’ve never bailed on an uncomfortable situation due to fear. My motto in life has and always will be Persevere. As I expected on Saturday I woke up completely relaxed, like I had achieved something big the previous night and now I could get on with my life. So the moral of the story…

Achieving big things makes smaller things easier. As we attempt bigger challenges what was once big becomes smaller.

To relate this life philosophy to my corporate side, making a $10,000.00 sale can be stressful when you are used to selling $1,000.00. However when you make a $100,000.00 sale it makes the $10,000.00 (once scary) seem less difficult. Then you achieve a $500,000.00 and so on so forth down the line. Constantly striving for something more, makes your smaller challenges become easier. It also keeps life very interesting.

I am a self confessed challenge junkie and if I am not being challenged I am getting bored. This seems to a trait in Generation Y’s and it would appear that the best way to hold on to us in the workplace is to keep those challenges coming.

It’s a fact of life – You can’t reach new highs doing the same thing everyday – What have you done recently to challenge yourself? How did it make you feel and would doing it a second time seem easier?

Are you a glass half full person, or maybe half empty… Do you realize that all of your actions are constantly impacting other people? Do you yearn for happiness in life or just enough money to buy things that will make you happy?

I believe that positivity is the single most productive trait in the world. Positive people get promotions, Positive people top the sales figures, positive people get the girl, positive people start their own businesses. Positive people impact other people positively and create a better environment… So what are the negatives? Well that’s easy… there are none.

Positivity breeds positivity, just like negativity breeds negativity. To bring this into a work related context, people always talk about ‘culture’ at work. Culture is a broad topic and can cover many elements that I won’t go into now, but one of the most common references re: culture is ‘staff happiness’ and ‘morale’. These characteristics can be very heavily impacted by positive people. Company’s often speak about having the perfect culture – ‘we could have the Google culture…’ The truth is that culture starts with you. If you are a positive, energetic person, you will positively impact people who then may positively impact other people and so on so forth down the line – this is culture in action – people impacting other people. It’s not necessarily top down, its everyone impacting everyone.

If you are not content with the culture in your organization, here is your challenge for the week:
Start changing it!

• Say ‘hello’ to a few more people of a morning.
• Intentionally try to brighten someone’s day…
• Smile at people.
• Randomly high-five people you pass in the workplace (I call this the ‘high-five’ culture).
• Tell someone they are ridiculously good looking (I call this the ‘good looking’ culture).

As the culture begins to spread, you can then watch this boomerang return home and someone you work with might brighten your day. Positivity breeds positivity.

Please share your stories in the comments section below. I’d love to hear how you went. If I work with you, I expect some comments regarding my handsome looks on Wednesday. Why don’t you begin by forwarding this to anyone you think could do with a dose of positivity?

I’ll leave you with these two quotes.

‘Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.’ – Earl Nightingale

Or in the words of my generation:

‘Cheer up Emo Kid’