Are you encouraged?

I'm reading a great book about hope called The Hope Quotient by Ray Johnston. The following is a question from it: "What's the single most important thing you do as a leader?" This kind of jumped off the page at me because in our business we are called sales leaders so it makes sense to learn what leaders should be like. The answer given is, "That's easy. The single most important thing I do is to make sure I stay encouraged." It goes on to say, "If I'm not encouraged, eventually nothing else matters."

This brings up a question to me. What do I have to do to make sure I'm encouraged? I would have to say that for the most part being around other people who are inspired and encouraged has really helped me. This means going to meetings, attending webinars, going to every event possible, reading good books, and having a mentor who encourages. Over the years I have lost a lot of sleep after attending a meeting and hearing someone tell their story. Very simply, stories inspire and encourage.

Now if you take the above things that have the potential to encourage and just reverse it, meaning that maybe we don't have a mentor, or don't attend events, maybe we aren't reading a good book or attending webinars. The chances are this person probably doesn't feel encouraged. Staying connected to the people who are encouraged seems to me to be incredibly important.  

Do yourself a favor and make it a point to do something every day that has potential to be encouraging for you. If you do this I can assure you it will make it easier to be doing the things we need to do in order to grow personally as well as grow our business.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke