I saw the new movie “The Way Way Back” over the weekend.
It’s a coming of age film and a nice summer diversion. But as I often do, I found some life and career success advice in it.
Duncan is the main character in the movie. He is a young teenager who is having a miserable summer at the shore.
He is there because his divorced mother took him along on her vacation with her new boyfriend. The boyfriend is a dick. At the very beginning of the film he asks Duncan what he thinks he is on a scale of one to ten.
Duncan doesn’t want to answer, but finally says “a six”. The boyfriend says, “No, I think you’re a three”. Not the best way to win the heart of a kid whose mother you say you want to marry.
One day Duncan goes exploring on his bike. He finds a water park where he gets a summer job. The owner is an overgrown adolescent, but he is a nice guy and a positive person.
He senses that Duncan is a bit lost and unhappy. He takes him in and treats him well. Duncan even becomes employee of the month.
We’ve all seen movies like this, but I really like this one because of the importance of surrounding yourself with positive people.
Duncan isn’t getting any strokes from the boyfriend and his mother is too busy having a well-deserved vacation to pay a lot of attention to him. Instead of moping, Duncan found a group of positive people that made his summer better.
Surrounding yourself with positive people isn’t just good advice for a disaffected 14 year old. It’s great career success advice.
Successful people surround themselves with positive people – people who are both positive by nature, and positive about their life and career success.
Positive people are optimistic.
Optimism is the first step in building your self-confidence and life and career success.
Positive people help you feel good about yourself, because they feel good about themselves – and life in general. They help you build your self-esteem because they have a strong sense of self-esteem.
Positive people are there when you begin to doubt yourself. They are not threatened by you or your success. They realize that self-esteem is not a fixed pie. There is an unlimited amount of it to go around, so positive people are always giving it away. Here’s a bit of career advice.
Build your self-confidence and jumpstart your life and career success by spending your time with upbeat, positive people.
Not too long ago, I did a talk for a local real estate company. When I got to the part in my talk about surrounding yourself with positive people, everyone in the audience nodded.
They got it – they knew exactly what I was talking about.
After the talk, a few people came up to me to discuss that very point. They said that being in the company of positive people was one of the most important aspects of their success.
This is a small example, but a telling one. To succeed in sales, you have to be self-confident. By its very nature, selling involves a lot of setbacks and rejection.
It takes a self-confident person to make the sixth call after not getting anywhere on the previous five. Successful salespeople face and deal with their fears of rejection. And they seek out positive people to help them stay motivated to keep doing what it takes to succeed.
This is important in other aspects of life as well. The people around you have an amazing impact on your view of life.
When you surround yourself with negative or cynical people, you become negative and cynical.
On the other hand, when you surround yourself with positive, self-confident people, you become positive and self-confident.
The choice is yours. I choose to surround myself with positive people. Not only do they help my self-confidence, they are more fun to be around.
The common sense point here is simple. Positive people are great. They feel good about themselves and life in general.
They are enthusiastic – and their enthusiasm is contagious. When you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll become more positive and enthusiastic.
And, you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve. Who are the most positive people you know? Get to know them better, spend more time with them.
Read more posts by Bud Bilanich, Ed.D., The Common Sense Guy, a career success coach, leadership consultant, motivational speaker, bestselling author and influential blogger for JenningsWire.
