Let us do a little test, so is the glass half full or half empty? Some would say it is a matter of perspective, and they would be right. For me I have always been the half full type of person. I have found there is more to be achieved with this approach than to see what some people would call a negative point of view.
Faced with a problem, a positive approach tends to go further than being pessimistic about it. Otherwise, we would tend to spend our time just complaining and not trying to help solve the issue. The Donkey from Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, is a fitting example of this. He was always known as the half full kind of character. One of his famous lines was “Could be worse. Not sure how, but it could be.”
I have never seen a sport team find success walking onto the court saying, “They sure are bigger than us, and they jump much higher than we do.” Or “they are undefended why are we even competing against them.”
In the business world I have rarely ever seen someone that succeeds with anything short of being positive. Those “Eeyores” that I have witnessed by no surprise are gone from their role or their businesses just disappear in a brief time.
As I have been working on my third budget for our HOA, I see areas that we need to continue to work on and other areas that we have fixed. A notable example of this is the copy machine in our office leased in 2020. Prior to getting on board the current machine was leased instead of being purchased. The lease is ending this year, and the board is set to purchase a replacement copier outright. The cost of purchasing the copier will be about a third of what the lease cost us. Yes, there was wasted money with the lease, but now it is being corrected.
In my days in business when something went sideways my goal was first to fix the problem, to make things right for the customer and then to find a way to prevent it from happening again. Sometimes things just happen that are out of everyone’s control, and then we all need to pull together without pointing fingers and do what we can. Working together is what happens in a healthy community.
