Did you answer the ad that said, “Looking for a potential new employee who can find everything wrong with the company, point it out to anybody who can’t do something about it and complain incessantly about how much they don’t like being at that place.”? Yeah, I don’t think so. And yet, when you look at Galve’s research, over 87% of people think they responded to that ad because that’s how they’re playing the game, but here’s the thing-if you’re living that way, you’re living in a small fraction of your potential. There’s so much more in you when you start bringing positiveness to the game. You see, if you have a business, you got problems so you need to understand how can you bring solutions instead.

What if, from now on whenever you saw something that was wrong, you went only to someone who could fix it with a solution and said, “Here’s the situation. Here’s the information. Here’s my recommendation.”? What if you became that person that decided you were really responding to the ad that said, “Looking for someone who can move needles, hit deadlines and find things that are wrong in the organization and fix them.”? You see, that’s why jobs exist. And so don’t be confused by thinking that you responded to the first ad because I promise you a huge career breakthrough when you shift to being the person who looks for ways to help and fixes whatever it is to make everything better immediately.

Have you heard the story about the visiting professor who when he came in to do his guest lecture—half the people who were in the room walked in through one door and received a little flyer that said, “Great guy, brilliant. You’re going to love today.”? The other half of the room walked in a different door, received a different form that said, “He’s brilliant, but he’s a bit of a jerk.” Guess what the research showed when they walked back out the door?
When surveyed, the people who were told that he’s brilliant and wonderful and kind said exactly that. Those who were told that he was evil incarnate said exactly that. That is why you should never listen to someone say something negative about another person. What if they were saying that about you? I want that to settle in. What if they said that about you? How would that feel? How safe do you feel in the work place?

So here’s the commitment that you need to make. If anyone starts to say something negative to one another, you’re already sucked in and you have an ethical responsibility at that moment, not to say, “You need to go talk to so and so” because they won’t—you need to say, “There’s always two opinions about that. Let’s go find out what Jimmy has to say about that and find out exactly what his opinion is.” Let’s come from an ethical place that respects other human beings and let them be free to be safe in the workplace. Can you sign up for that? Because if you don’t, I guarantee you if you’re saying hurtful things about others, they’re going to say hurtful things about you. Let’s keep it clean and build a workplace where you love to be.