RULE 62

Head up, not head down

It’s easy to adopt a head-down approach to life. It’s harder to remain cheerful, head up. Is your glass half empty or half full? If it seems to be half empty, perhaps you need a holiday, a retraining schedule, a few new challenges, a new job, a new department, a new team – or simply a new approach. Life does tend to get fired at us at point-blank range and there is barely time to duck. The manager’s lot is not always a happy or easy one and you get tired, despondent, bored, listless and just about ready to quit. We all do from time to time. Being a manager can feel like a thankless task. You get stuff shovelled at you from all directions. I’m never sure whether it’s better to be at the top shovelling stuff downwards or at the bottom shovelling stuff upwards but I sure as hell know it’s not great caught in the middle, fending it off from above and below.

Head up is both an affirmation (repeat it to yourself constantly when encountering problems, but silently, only to yourself, or they will section you) and a physical instruction – you can physically and emotionally (and probably mentally) practise head up.

While looking in a mirror, keep your head up and say, ‘I feel really miserable’. You will laugh. Try the opposite. Head down, and say, ‘I feel really happy’. Again you will find it impossible and silly.

You will laugh. But you have to be looking in a mirror. Perhaps you always look like that. Either way it is funny. You are funny.

When entering a room it is head up. When chairing a meeting it is head up. When doing a presentation it is head up. When greeting people it is head up. When talking to staff it is head up. When talking to customers it is head up. At the end of a long and busy day, when you go to bed, you can do head down – and go to sleep knowing you’ve been big and bright and bold all day. Well done you.