#12: Negativity oozes and infects everything and everyone around you

Zion National Park -

Started off as a beautiful (but very early), innocent sunrise hike with a few friends.. Yet after the sun melted the snow, the beautiful walking over hard snow to our destination, turned into a 11 hour slog through melting snow. About every other step you plunged through the snow, sometimes up to your hip.

Now, while it was a little rough, one of my friends started getting seriously bad charlie horses with every step she made and decided to spew all her annoyances on the rest of you - loudly and constantly. Now the rest of us really weren’t having a bad time until we had to hear constant negativity for hours on end.

Now I finally got sick of it and decided to go ahead of everyone, listening to worship music, talking to the few others on the trail and finally got to help someone get their vehicle unstuck from the snow. I had a phenomenal time after I left and really it was all because I decided to create the circumstances that I could have a positive attitude.

Now here’s the real kicker - I did not bring sunscreen… which is only pertinent because I burn VERY easily. I mean, verrrrrry easily. So after the many, many hours in the snow with the sun burning down and reflecting off the beautiful snow, I did not realize it at the time, but it was burning the absolute daylights out of my face. So after we got home and I felt my face getting warm, I came out of the shower and realized my face was leaking… which had never happened before. Upon further inspection, it transpired that my ENTIRE face was covered in blisters…

My.

Entire.

Face.

But did that keep me from hiking the next day? No my friend, it did not. I did add a giant floppy hat, but not even a blistered face could kill my fun :D

Now think about work and life - Have you ever encountered someone who was constantly negative? How wearing that was and how much you wanted to get away?

The beautiful thing is that if you choose positivity and don’t let them bring you down, often times your positive attitude bring the whole group up!

So how are you going to affect your team today?