Attitude, Passion, and Enthusiasm—Find a Way, Not an Excuse

LAPD's Cory Palka talks about the difference that “going A.P.E.” made in setting three of his game changers apart from others:

Paul Jordan—Senior Lead Officer—LAPD Hollywood

“Are you one of those guys whose alarm goes off at 4:30 AM and you jump out of bed with excitement?” That is a question Senior Lead Officer Paul Jordan asked me recently.

Paul loves his job and his role as a community lead officer in an area that is some of the most well-known real estate in the country (Hollywood and Vine). Recently we had a paralysis with our homeless encampment cleanup efforts resulting from litigation, policy, and politics. The Department of Sanitation had gone totally absent in removing trash in and around homeless encampments.

We have various police units assigned to work on reducing homeless camps that dot Hollywood. My cops were pointing at other government agencies and new policy as excuses for why they were hands-off with enforcement and unable to clean up the camps. As a result, the homeless camps throughout Hollywood multiplied. Complaints poured in by community members, business owners, and politicians. But it was Paul Jordan who claimed this was more of an adopted police attitude of standing down and being passive, being focused on scapegoats rather than solutions. To spearhead a reversal of this attitude, Paul enthusiastically went to each roll call, met with unit leaders, and took to the streets himself to fix the problem. He reminded cops we can enforce crimes committed in camps; and, as a result, cop engagement intensified and arrests soared. Sanitation arrived after constant pressure, and the problem was fixed (for now). Paul never makes excuses, and works tirelessly. And when that is not enough, he works even more. He is an old-school, blue-collar cop. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. The only fuel he needs from me as his boss is my gratitude, my listening skills, and my physical presence occasionally at his community meetings or in the street. He is optimistic and fun, and sees the good in each day, but he is a passionate warrior of a cop.

Mike Ling—Lieutenant, Officer in Charge—LAPD Hollywood Entertainment District

Mike Ling is the lieutenant in charge of the LAPD Hollywood Entertainment District, and he oversees 80 cops and billions of dollars of Hollywood infrastructure. His team polices the Entertainment District…where over 11 million tourists visit annually, and where nightclubs and nightlife come alive. It's also prone to violent crime such as robbery, rape, murder, and aggravated assaults. Much of our violent crime in Hollywood takes place in the District and is broadcast in local media and, at times, national media.

Mike has uniformed and undercover officers on his team. He effectively delegates my expectations to five supervisors. Mike has significant experience working with specialized units and has worked narcotics, gangs, and vice as a young officer.

Mike is a game changer because of his attitude, emotional intelligence, and win-at-all-costs attitude. He has the rare talent of seeing ahead and planning or front-loading to prevent issues from arising. He can relate to all cops, and obtains buy-in because he has empathy and compassion for them as individuals. He is known for his enthusiasm and passion in putting his guys first.

He studies my leadership style and knows the value of police partnerships in the community. I have spent hundreds of hours with developers, community groups, politicians, cops, and residential and business owners, and Mike knows the value of a handshake, eye contact, and conversation. Those relationships have created wonderful results, which lead to a better economy, more jobs, better schools, better lives, and reduced crime. Mike has seen crime collapse in the District since his arrival. He is personable, funny, and puts things into perspective. His energetic and positive presence ensures he is warmly received and highly respected by other cops and those in the community where he serves (Cory Palka, pers. comm.).

Palka sums up the essence of how game changers find a way—not an excuse—with his description of Hollywood Division Police Detective Doug Oldfield: “He comes to work to mix it up, get involved, engage, and produce. ‘No’ is never acceptable for Doug” (Cory Palka, pers. comm.).

This prompts a few questions: Do you have the attitude, passion, and enthusiasm to be a “Doug”? Do you have enough “Dougs” on your team? What no's have you declared or accepted that could have been converted into results if you, or others, had gone A.P.E.?

Attitude, Passion, and Enthusiasm Are Separators and Accelerators

Brad Bartlett is president of Dole Packaged Foods in North America and Europe. He has been in the consumer products industry for four decades and has seen his share of undertakers, caretakers, playmakers, and game changers. He also makes a compelling case for the difference that attitude and enthusiasm make in helping to lift one to game changer status.

Among equally talented people, what separates the solid performer from the “game changer” are two main things: attitude and enthusiasm. I would even suggest that, if these two traits were more visible in one person of lesser talent than another, the person with lesser talent likely would overachieve in a direct comparison. I first heard Lou Holtz speak at a trade function in the mid-1990s. He had already won the National Championship as the head football coach at Notre Dame in 1988 and was well on his way, compiling a resume to becoming a member of the College Football Hall of Fame—which did occur in 2008. He had great stories and a quick wit, but the three sentences that stuck with me that night were as follows:

1. “Ability is what you are capable of doing.”
2. “Motivation determines what you do.”
3. “Attitude determines how well you do it.”

When you understand this and really think about what plays out in a business environment over a period of time, you see this as true over and over again. The person or group that has the attitude that there will be wins and losses along the way, but that no matter what happens they will not come up short of their goal, are always the ones who seem to do much better than everyone else. Not only do their results tend to be better, but people like being around people who think and act like this. You naturally tend to gravitate to these kinds of people. You almost feel that some of it will rub off on you, so you want to be around that more than someone who has talent and knowledge but accepts what has happened in the past as a mandate for the future.

A major ingredient of having a great attitude is enthusiasm. I look at the two as being inseparable. How can someone have this powerful mental energy directed at goal achievement without having the fuel of enthusiasm to power the energy? I do not think that it is possible. When you view your best people over a long period of time, it is always the ones who display genuine energy, emotion, spirit, and passion for their individual or group results who not only are the best performers, but also tend to move upward more in a business environment. My background is sales. I remember very early in my career being in waiting rooms with 10 people sitting there with appointments ahead of me to see a buyer. I always thought that I only have one presentation to show, but this buyer is sitting through maybe 20 presentations today. What are they going to remember at the end of the day? You never really know, but I always thought what people would remember is the one person who came in with great energy and commitment for helping that buyer's business results. You may not have the right solution every time, but that buyer will remember you—and more likely than not call you back in at some point in time because you came in with a genuine desire to help a business situation and you showed great eagerness and intense interest to resolve the issue. If you have ever done a lot of interviews for job openings, who do you tend to gravitate toward when it is time to call back people for second interviews? Among relatively equal candidates, it is usually the ones who were the most enthusiastic about the opportunity that was in front of them.

One of my favorite stories that I tell about a person I have worked with for many years (whose picture would be next to the words attitude and enthusiasm if we had a company dictionary) is Bill Burokas. Bill has been a manager in our Northeastern area for almost three decades. He has been a consistent top performer every year regardless of the change in business environment and customer base. It does not matter what the challenges are; he is going to overachieve. What has always impressed me is Bill's desire to be the best that he can be and have his business unit achieve the highest results in the company. His attitude is a true example of setting out to achieve a goal; and nothing short of that goal would be satisfactory to him. He is his own judge, not the company or the supervisors. His standard is higher than anybody's, so if he hits his standard then it is the best it can be. You can always have a number of negative variables that impact a business year in and year out, but there are always opportunities—no matter how small they may be—that exist as well. When you discuss business with Bill, it completely revolves around the opportunities. It never dwells on the negative aspects. It is like saying that “there are always negatives. I know that they are there, but there is little or maybe nothing that I can do about those. I want to focus all my attention and energy against the factors that will have the best positive impact on my business. I only want energy spent on those. I do not want to talk about negative factors. It is a waste of my time.” I could send him a note and describe all of the challenges facing his business unit for the upcoming year. He would immediately send me back the same number of factors that are working his way (or could work his way with some hard effort and maybe good fortune) that would attain his goals. This is a real mindset. This is the attitude of an overachiever. It is not contrived. It is real. He believes it's almost like athletes psyching themselves for a big game. You are in control of you, not always your environment.

One year for a sales and marketing meeting, I had the pleasure of bringing in Dr. Jack Llewellyn to speak to our group. Dr. Llewellyn is a world-renowned sports psychologist and corporate coach whose clients read like a who's who list of athletes in a wide range of different sports. He in turn has a similar list of corporate clients that fill up the Fortune 500 list, where he offers business guidance. When he spoke to us, he was working with this diverse group of people, but he was still on staff with the Atlanta Braves, who were about two-thirds of the way through the process of setting the current Major League Baseball record of 14 straight division titles, including winning the 1995 World Series. Jack asked me in advance of the meeting if I wanted him to score our group using his proprietary test that measured, among many things, one's attitude and enthusiasm for winning and losing. What sales manager worth anything is turning down that offer? I agreed to have him send it out to our people about a month prior to the meeting. It was a multiple-choice test, and Jack had said that you could not try to “game it”; and, after taking it myself, I found that was true. You were giving your feelings and opinions toward a series of statements. The choices, while different, were not completely opposite positions from one another as I remember it now. Everybody sent them in and, as you would imagine, there was great anticipation on the day of him presenting them to us during his talk. Each person would get his or her own results back in confidence, but Dr. Llewellyn would put up on the screen our overall company's scores and assessments of strengths and weakness areas versus other groups.

During the presentation, I was extremely happy to see that our group had scored very high versus the database that Dr. Llewellyn had from his years of testing other Fortune 500 companies. It made me feel good about our team, and reinforced some things that I already knew about them. Once everybody received his or her own confidential scores, you can imagine among competitive people that there was immediate bragging between parties about who scored much higher than the group, and some good-natured needling back and forth on who was holding the group back. As Jack went through the high and low scores by person and trait without naming names, he stopped in midsentence after talking about one of the low scores. He asked, “Where is Bill Burokas?” A couple of good-natured shots went out toward Bill from the audience, assuming that Bill was the one who may have done something that invoked this lower score for the group. Bill identified himself, and Jack found him in the audience. Jack then said, “If you were an 18-year-old baseball prospect, you would be the Atlanta Braves' first-round draft pick next year.” It made the room go silent for a few seconds, and then cheers went out for that statement. That test told us what we all really knew, and it validated why this individual in our company consistently overachieves in a competitive setting. We knew it, and now a custom test by one of the most famous sports psychologists and corporate coaches in the country confirmed it (Brad Bartlett, pers. comm.).

Going A.P.E. Is About Selfless, Above-and-Beyond Contribution

Command Chief Master Sergeant Mike Klintworth is a military leader, and a creator of positive change in some of the toughest places on earth. He spent more than 27 years in the United States Air Force, where he served in a myriad of operational, management, and strategic-level positions. His experiences span positions from air traffic control operator to executive-level leadership in large, multinational, and geographically separated military organizations of more than 3,000 personnel. Mike has deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Croatia in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, and Joint Forge. From 2013 to 2014, Mike served as primary mentor and adviser to Afghanistan's most senior enlisted leader. While in that combat environment, he provided strategic guidance for structuring, developing, and leading a military force of 6,700 personnel. In Chief Master Sergeant Klintworth's world, the wrong attitude can create devastating conflicts and cost lives:

After 27 years of military service, working as an air traffic controller, operating in a combat environment, and serving as a senior enlisted leader of large, multinational organizations, two qualities were consistent among military game changers.

The first of those is attitude: a positive one. Game changers bring a positive attitude, which not only contributes to them approaching tasks, team projects, or change from a positive perspective, but it is also infectious—quickly spreading to teammates. I witnessed a great example of this during my one-year tour of combat duty in Afghanistan.

Our 15-nation military team faced the unprecedented and admittedly daunting task of building an independent, self-sustaining air force for Afghanistan. Many of the challenges our team faced (cultural, monetary, and time constraints, and working in a very dangerous environment) were often navigated and overcome by game changers who approached the challenges with a “will do,” positive attitude. Today, largely because of the attitude of these intrinsically motivated can-do warrior leaders, the Afghan Air Force is flourishing when years prior it was struggling for existence.

The second quality a game changer exhibits is passion. Game changers have a passion for the mission, taking initiative, giving more than what's expected, and striving for excellence. They don't wait for their number to be called; they jump right in at the first sight of opportunity and often perform well beyond expectations.

The key to this quality is that game changers understand how what they do contributes to something much larger than their own self—the organization's mission success. I first realized this after asking a young military aircraft maintenance technician why they performed their duty with such diligence and passion. The response was: “If I don't perform my maintenance to the best of my ability, the aircraft could malfunction, causing the combat mission to abort or, worse yet, cost the pilot his life.” Enough said.

As you can now see, it's attitude and passion that distinguish game changers from playmakers. And the beauty of these two qualities is that it doesn't take money to acquire them (Mike Klintworth, pers. comm.).

Passion Brings Thirst for Improvement

Ed Bastian was part of the leadership team that helped Delta Air Lines navigate through and successfully emerge from the perils of bankruptcy, and then guide it to become an enterprise producing billions of dollars in profits annually. Now Delta's CEO, Bastian guides by example over 80,000 team members as they strive to operate at increasingly higher levels year after year. In Bastian's mind, the answer is clear when asked what key traits game changers consistently bring to the table that undertakers, caretakers, and playmakers lack:

I would say the clear delineation is passion. We have many bright, talented leaders at Delta. But those that rise above have a passion to pursue excellence in mastering their responsibilities. Their technical skills are outstanding, but that is not what separates them. They are in constant pursuit of enhanced performance, and their enthusiasm is infectious among their colleagues and customers. This is no longer a job to them; it's a part of who they are. And those who combine passion with a true heart of service are incredibly special. Their passion brings an entire organization to accomplish goals not thought possible (Ed Bastian, pers. comm.).

Sony Music's Troy Tomlinson affirms that elite performers have an ability to change and actually find energy within the change, saying, “They have a passion to share their art with the broadest audience possible, and have a deep, authentic, enthusiastic love and respect for their admirers and a like connection with their fans and teams” (Troy Tomlinson, pers. comm.).

Going A.P.E. Helps You Thrive Under Pressure

Without question, anyone with a better attitude, more passion, and higher levels of enthusiasm is less likely to crumble when the pressure intensifies, and will demonstrate far greater resilience than the negative, lifeless, indifferent person. The passionate game changers' consistent ability to maintain the right outlook and think clearly helps them not only prevail through setbacks, but to learn more, become more, and contribute more as a result.

Coach Allistair McCaw puts it this way: “Game changers are better under pressure, as they see it as a privilege. They are able to step up and lead when needed. They embrace struggle and are solution finders, not problem seekers. They are also consistent in their behaviors, rather than moody or judgmental. They have an instinct and ability to make decisions better under pressure, accept change, and adapt to the unexpected better” (Allistair McCaw, pers. comm.).

Coach Samar Azem of Campbell University adds, “Resilience is another attribute separating the playmakers and game changers. Both individuals will be faced with challenges and likely have previously been faced with challenges. Children will not quit until they've failed at something a number of times. Once they become adults, unless they're resilient, they will settle for mediocrity, rather than push what the threshold past mediocrity will bring. Resilient individuals understand that failure is a part of that process and will therefore consistently put their fullest potential and controllable ability (work rate, energy, etc.) on the line, fearless of the implications of failure” (Samar Azem, pers. comm.).

Check Your Birth Certificate

When you check your birth certificate, I can promise you that you will not find “Has a great attitude, passion, and enthusiasm” listed anywhere on it. Nor will you find the words negative, lifeless, and indifferent. Nope, these are states you create for yourself, from within yourself, and based on how you choose to see life, the philosophy you create and embrace, and what you decide to make of your one opportunity on this planet. This is both great news and bad news. The great news is that living an unstoppable life anchored in the right attitude, passion, and enthusiasm are all within your control; no one can prevent you from becoming these things, or cause you to become unlike these things. The bad news is that if you have been accustomed to traversing through life as a sniveler, blaming other people or things for why you have the wrong attitude, or no passion and enthusiasm, then you are going to have to toss that crutch away and emotionally grow up so you can go up to your fullest potential as a human being. To summarize, the bad news is that it is all on you. The great news is that it is all on you. It all depends on how you choose to look at it. And someone aspiring to become unstoppable and live life dominated by the game changer mindset understands that choosing to see this reality as either great news or bad news is one of the easiest choices he or she will ever delight in making.

In summary, attitude, passion, and enthusiasm are inside jobs. They accelerate as you clearly define a compelling WHY, intentionally spend more time each day in your zone, and refine a more effective personal philosophy that shapes your mindset to think and act like a game changer—despite what's going on around you. Improving your attitude, passion, and enthusiasm starts with being fueled by a compelling purpose, owning it, taking complete responsibility for your current status in life, and doing all you can to engage in the thinking and actions that improve each and to discard or avoid the daily garbage that seeks to diminish them.

Mission Unstoppable

To become an unstoppable game changer, reflect and take steps on the following six points:

1. Knowing how much it will affect your attitude, passion, and enthusiasm, have you clearly defined your compelling WHY from Chapter 6? Is it in writing? Are you reviewing it each morning to help get focused and in the zone? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you should not go any further in this book until you take that action. The WHY fuels attitude, passion, and enthusiasm.
2. Knowing how much that staying in the zone affects your attitude, passion, and enthusiasm, have you clearly defined what you must do daily to spend more time in the zone, as well as which bait you must stop taking that pulls you out of it? What specific progress have you made?
3. As you review the definition of attitude (“A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior” [Google 2017]), what about your “settled way of thinking” must change for your attitude to improve? Might it involve blame, excuses, a focus on external conditions, the ease with which you are offended, your philosophy toward work ethic and doing all you can, or something else?
4. As you review the definition of passion (“A strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something, or about doing something” [Merriam-Webster 2017]), what must you start doing (and stop doing) to increase your excitement and enthusiasm for what you do each day—despite external conditions that may seem to conspire against you?
5. As you review the definition of enthusiasm (“Intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval” [Google 2017]), where can you increase your sense of enjoyment when facing or enduring things like setbacks, rejection, a lost sale, or a bad game, by focusing on how you can become better and more unstoppable as a result of it?
6. Use additional and helpful resources to help yourself and others create game changer performance. Read John Maxwell's book, The Difference Maker: Making Attitude Your Greatest Asset (Maxwell 2006).