What Do Your Surroundings Say About You?

By Bill Hodges

Have you ever noticed that what people surround themselves with can speak volumes about who they are and what they believe? Tim, a manager of a company thinking about using my services as a team building and employee relations consultant, invited me into his office. He then told me to make myself comfortable while he rounded up the rest of his staff. While he was gone I began to look at the gallery of quotes and cartoons he had pinned all over the walls. There were several sayings set in about half-inch type that read as follows:

"IF EVERYTHING IS COMING YOUR WAY, YOU'RE PROBABLY IN THE WRONG LANE."

"HAPPINESS IS WAKING UP AND SEEING MY BOSS PICTURED ON A MILK CARTON."

"EXPECT NOTHING AND YOU WILL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED."

"LIFE IS LIKE AN ONIONTHE DEEPER YOU CUT INTO IT, THE MORE YOU WILL HAVE REASON TO CRY."

"THE MAN WHO CAN SMILE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG HAS THOUGHT OF SOMEONE TO BLAME IT ON."

"NO ONE KNOWS HOW BAD HE CAN FAIL UNTIL HE MAKES THE EFFORT TO TRY."

Those were just the ones without artwork. One with a picture of a large toad read, "Eat a live toad first thing in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you the rest of the day." A sign showing two elephants in a compromising position read, "Decision making around here is like the mating of elephants! 1. It's done at a high level. 2. It's accomplished with a great deal of roaring and screaming. 3. It takes two years to get anything done." There were several others, but this final one I will share with you summed up the attitude conveyed by the environment in the office. It was of a little cartoon character with a screw going right through him. The caption read, "No matter what I do around here, the results will be the same."

By the time he returned to the office, I had read all of his negative aphorisms and was feeling pretty depressed. I had been exposed to the mental poison for only a few minutes; he lived with it every day. When I mentioned he certainly had a lot of interesting sayings on his walls, he proudly told me people who said that he was the kind of person who would appreciate them had given them to him. I eventually learned that he was indeed a lightning rod for negative thinking. He was a dark cloud that hung over the company.

They tell me if you put a frog in a vat of cold water you can raise the heat slowly and the frog will boil to death, never trying to jump out of the pot. Tim's art and aphorisms were gathered one piece at a time and his work environment deteriorated, becoming more negative saying by saying. He probably didn't even recognize that it was happening to him until it was too late, and eventually he lost his job.

Look around your home or office and see if the heat of negative influences is increasing around you. If you are, now is the time to jump; clean house without delay.

Bill Hodges is a nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and syndicated columnist. Hodges may be reached at Hodges Seminars International, P.O. Box 89033, Tampa, FL 33689-0400. Phone 813/641-0816.

Web site: http://www.BillHodges.com