Stop Talking About Problems

If you hang around losers long enough, you’ll hear a familiar pattern. They talk about what’s broken and complain about what’s wrong. They point fingers and blame others for mistakes.

But winners do the opposite. They talk about solutions. They take responsibility by looking in the mirror and asking themselves, “What can I do to make this better?”

A few weeks ago, on-site with a client, one sales representative was complaining about a potential client and said he would have won the deal already if it weren’t for one particular mistake.

Then one of the other reps spoke up and said, “Maybe. Or, if we’d executed better and reached the right person on their team from the beginning, it would have had a different outcome.”

The second rep was right.

It was a great reminder of how easy it is to slip into blaming instead of taking ownership. What I have learned is that losers focus on the external, winners focus on the internal. Said differently, losers talk about problems. Winners talk about solutions.

In life and leadership, you get more of what you think and talk about. If you spend your energy discussing what’s wrong, you’ll find more of it. If you spend your energy finding solutions, you’ll create progress.

So just for today, if you catch yourself complaining or blaming, pause. Then ask, “What’s one action I can take to make this better moving forward?”

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