You can’t control what happens at your workplace today but you can control how you act and respond to what happens, namely you can act, respond and be professional.
I like reading how different people in different walks of life prepare themselves mentally to be able to turn up and perform at their place of work.
My favourite basketball team is the Sydney Kings and this season our star signing is NBA star Andrew Bogut. In this excellent “On The Couch” interview with AFL coaching legend Paul Roos, Andrew covers a few key topics but two I have cited here resonate for everyone in their personal and professional life.
The first relates to strong personal leadership.
Bogut believes that “being professional every day” is the mindset required to be successful over the long term.
“Everyone’s going to have bad days. Everyone’s going to have a day when they’re moody or didn’t get their sleep, their baby woke them up or whatever. You can have a bad day or two; just don’t let it lead into three or four bad days, or a week or a month or a year. And that’s the hardest thing when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, or had a bad game, is not letting it spiral into more and more days like that. That’s the mindset you’ve got to change.”
This is why I have included the above image and slogan with the post:
Get Up, Dress Up, Show Up and Never Give Up
In the interview, Bogut also tackled another foundation for personal success – failure – and that “ failure shouldn’t be a negative”.
He continues with:
“I think it’s harped that it’s a negative but it’s the best form of critique. There is no harsher reality than failure. Everyone that has been successful has failed in whatever they’re doing.
But we look at failure as taboo and embarrassing. We don’t want to tell our mates that we failed, but I think it’s great. Break it down to ‘why did I fail?’
It’s not your mate or your Dad telling you in a nice way or a politically correct way ‘hey, maybe you should have practiced more’ or ‘maybe you shouldn’t have gone out last night.’
It’s like, no you failed. It’s the bottom of the bottom. And even when I do speaking gigs, people always look at you funny like ‘what do you mean failure? That’s not a positive.’
And I’m like ‘nah, it is.’ Because you can go straight to the drawing board tomorrow morning at practice or your computer – whatever business you’re in – and you can correct those faults slowly to not get to that point again.”
View NBL.com.au article by Tom Hersz
Listen to full version of ‘The Coach’ Podcast featuring Paul Roos and Andrew Bogut
For more on how to be professional and developing your personal leadership style contact us.