Accelerate Forward or Race To The Bottom
I love mornings. Every day is a new chance. It is a clear slate, an open path, and full of new opportunity. Each day people and business ventures will make a choice to accelerate forward or race to the bottom. What is your choice?
Bottom Racers
Some people get it wrong. They believe that louder, angrier, and meaner, is the way to move forward. It creates attention, makes people look, and temporarily causes them listen.
When we approach an opportunity, assertion is acceptable and is often appreciated. Aggression on the other hand, may cause action and short-term influence, but for the long-haul, aggression is usually not so attractive.
Aggressive behaviors, poor decisions made in haste, and strike backs to people, clients, and anything in the path are not flattering. In fact, even when passion or support for something you believe in takes over, it is not forward motion. It is a race to the bottom.
Accelerate Forward
Forward momentum is hard to stop. For most of us we are lucky for that. As people we’ll often engage with the wrong approach. We’ll inappropriately use tactics that feel like threats, and words that drive fear.
The best way to accelerate forward is to focus forward. Saying we are positive while we recite negative emotions is not forward motion. It is a race to the bottom.
The bottom is not desirable for most. It represents a change that leaves people exhausted and with their confidence shattered. Worse, their spirit is emotionally torn.
It’s interesting that it all begins with choice. A choice for what we’ll say, a choice for where and how we’ll engage, and a choice to accelerate forward or race to the bottom.
Accelerating forward is not shallow, it is a deeper path. It makes it much harder to get to the bottom.
-DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
