multi-hyphenated-me

Eleven years ago, I joined a company by pitching the idea to hire me in order to meet their growth goals.  They, to my shock and surprise, agreed.  When hired, because the position was new to everyone, we couldn’t decide on a title, so we opted for a three part title divided by backslashes until the dust settled.  One of the backslash titles was “Special Projects,” a catch-all role that tasked me with some diverse, some wacky, some fun and some effective projects.  The backslash titles and most of the projects have gone to the wayside as my primary function and responsibility have grown with the company.  The lone Special Project task that has carried on all these years is sending out a weekly companywide email, known as the “Thought of the Week.”

The weekly “Thought of the Week” emails are motivational or inspirational quotes said  by anyone, from Dr. Seuss to Mahatma Ghandi.  I choose the quotes at random yet they typically reflect a current event, holiday or whatever strikes my mood.  This week to honor my kids first full week back to school, this thought email was sent:

Though I say this photo circulated through Facebook, I was inspired to send this thought email out after it was forwarded to me from a co-worker and friend.  I’m fairly certain he sent this to me as a “hey, check this out” email, and was not telling me to check my attitude.  No, not me.

My kids thought this was awesome.  From the responses received from co-workers thanking me for this message for getting their brains thinking on this Monday, I can tell they liked it too.  They tallied up other words too, inspiration, inspirational, persevere, but none reach one hundred percent. I find this fascinating (fascinating = 103, in case you’re wondering).

I love receiving feedback from co-workers on the weekly quotes I send out.  Sometimes I just hear that they love to receive the quotes, others comment on how the quote resonates with where they are in life.  Sometimes the quotes fall flat and I hear from no one, and that’s ok.  I’m not sending them for a response, I send them to our creative bunch to inspire, motivate and as a reminder that we are all in this boat, in stormy seas or still water, together.

The message in this week’s quote is a good, simple reminder that attitude is everything. My kid’s attitude toward school is good and positive as of this morning, but I know this could change at any minute, any day and continue to flip flop through the year.  Employee attitude, my attitude, equally waffles.  Workload stress, work/life balance stress, control, appreciation, encouragement, and attitudes of others play part in the health of our attitudes.

I am a glass half full, optimistic, positive person (with an affinity for f-bombs) yet a piss poor attitude plagues me more often than I care to share.  A good attitude one hundred percent of the time is difficult! With these 500+ words, I promise to TRY 100% of the time to have a good attitude, or maybe just LOOK like I’m trying.

In the words of Tupac Shakur, “You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit.”