Positive Speaking

Welcome to the Club…The Power of Positive Speaking

This is a true story about the power of positive speaking and the destruction complaining can cause.

Welcome to the Club

I worked with a new graduate nurse who had given up her full time position to take a part time job at the hospital where I worked as an agency nurse. When most new nurses would be excited at learning and taking on more, she was decreasing her hours. Why would someone be cutting back so soon after starting their career?

It turned out that the negative attitude and conversation of the work place was like a cancer eating her up within her soul. Yet this cancer was not as overt as a disease. It was covertly disguised as a club. She was unwittingly becoming an honorary member of the exclusive club that had members throughout the hospital.

She was being inducted into the club even though she didn’t want to. It was not her nature.

What was her nature was to use positive speaking about any one or thing.

This club is known in nursing circles as the BMW club (blame, moan, and whine club). Subtle attempts to induct her into the club were affecting her so much that the only way she could save her self from the effects of the negative influences was quitting.

She needed a change. She wanted a culture that encouraged positive speaking. A culture that encouraged up building speech. That change was in reality an escape.

Are You A Blame Caster?

One of the skill sets of the staff she was escaping from and refusing to learn is known as blame casting. A blame caster gets empowerment from blaming everyone else for the problems in life they experience.

It is quite exciting when you think about it. You can go through your entire life and not take responsibility for anything. All you do is blame someone or something. Blame casters do not like positive speaking and up building speech.

An Experience

It can be illustrated by an experience one day on the job.

This true, on the job experience is embarrassing to share. It is about the profession I love dearly and is not typical of the majority of those I have worked with in numerous hospitals. There are many nurses who are positive speaking every day of their lives.

The BMW Of The Year Award Goes To….

One day, a nurse came up to me and complained about someone or something that was left undone by a nurse on a different floor.

“The nerve of that person… Can you believe it.” she said.

I couldn’t help but to retort, “That was wrong! She should be fired!”

Needless to say, that was not what she wanted to hear. She looked at me as though I had two heads. My dear colleague wasn’t looking for a solution, she was just having a bad hair day and, well, there was nothing wrong with her hair.

Perhaps she needed to vent frustration. Perhaps she was looking for validation to build her self up. To accomplish this though, she was tearing someone else down.

She moved on to others repeating similar negative comments about her colleague, to five more nurses and then a doctor. Fortuitously the supervisor happened on the floor and after telling her story one last time, we didn’t have to hear about it any more.

Oh the blaming continued. The names of the blamee’s were changed but the blaming continued the same. Blaming was after all the focus of this exclusive club.

Not being allowed membership within the club, I do not know for sure but it is possible this nurse with having a bad hair day was the president of the club. I am almost certain she won the Blame Caster of the Year award for her performance that day.

As to the Supervisor that day, she must have been a misplaced angel to patiently listen to such complaints day in and out.

The word complaint is used in the context of stating a problem while not desiring a solution. Problems demand solutions, complaints don’t. They are counter productive and debilitating. It must also be said, the supervisors are among the most positive speaking in the entire staff of this hospital.

Life is Full of What Ever We Focus On

If you think about it, life is full of injustices and wrongs. Life is full of things we could complain about. If we need to be reminded of those wrongs every moment of every day, our priorities are in the wrong place.

There are numerous ways to use positive speaking in our daily lives. That is, if we want to. It comes down to what is our focus.

Yet charter members of the BMW club will come back with, “I am just telling it like it is,” or “I am just telling the truth.”

The problem with that statement is that there are so many good truths to focus on, why focus on the ones that cannot be changed. At the least give equal time to the good. Use positive speaking along with the negative.

How Can I Improve

Mental exercise to improve your ability to see the good in others and apply positive speaking.

Any time you hear a colleague complain (no solution) about someone or thing, come back tactfully with something positive about that person or situation.

For instance, someone says, “Have you ever noticed that _________always…(supply some appropriate complaint here). Your reply, “That may be true but have you also noticed that…(supply your own appropriate positive commendation here).

You may run out of things to say about some. Give it your best try. Some years ago my colleagues put me to the test. They challenged me to find something good to say about the Devil.

It was rather easy, “He is a hard worker.” I responded. Positive speaking will always prevail if you choose to use it.

There are some instances where positive speaking, although well meaning, would be inappropriate.

If someone just lost a child, for example, to say, ‘perhaps God needed another angel’ might be considered positive by some but not very comforting.

That baby was greatly wanted and needed by his mother and father. (Wouldn’t it also be accusing God of being unloving and uncaring at a time when those parents need to feel close to the comforting strength of their God?).

Rather just express how unimaginable their pain must be. Then offer… if there is anything you can do please let me know. Your care will speak volumes.

As to our chronic complainer mentioned at the outset, being an outsider, I didn’t try to help her. Positive speaking has limitations. However I did work with a new graduate nurse and a new inductee into the club. This is also a true story except for the name.

A Positive Speaking Success Story

One New Years Eve, Nurse Randy, about 6 months on the job, complained to me about a nurse on the 8th floor. A patient had just been transferred to her from there.

There was something or some detail that was not completed prior to the transfer. The traditional complaint was soon to follow for all the staff to hear. Since it was New Years Eve, Randy and I were all the staff. The others were on break.

Unfortunately, or maybe for her sake, fortunately, Randy had never worked on the 8th floor. She did not realize this was a very challenging floor to work on. It was a unit where all of the patients that didn’t fall into any specific specialty ended up.

In other words, all the bone related patients were sent to Orthopedics, another floor dealt just with Heart patients, and a third floor dealt only with Respiratory patients. The Eighth floor though, received almost everything else.

Because of the variety severity of health problems treated on this floor, on the continuum of best to worse places to work, this would rank near Dante’s Hell. Most nurses only have a day or two a year that are really bad. This was an entire floor where every day seemed that way.

I have visited that place Dante wrote about five times in various hospitals. I often speak of only truly having to ‘work’ five days in my whole career as a nurse. That is because only five days in my career were so stressful that it even felt like work. Nursing is otherwise that great of a profession.

My first time working on the 8th floor was one of those five bad days in my career. I do not believe the nurses there even take a break or stop for lunch. Perhaps they do not think they even know they were entitled.

To me, they are nursing gods (god defined as powerful person). What they had to accomplish and did accomplish was a testament to best of the profession can produce. They were the best of the best.

A bad day put in perspective.

To put it in perspective consider one evening at a different hospital when I experienced my first of my five bad days.

Two post-operative patients started having chest pain. That is bad. Unfortunately they both had it at the same time. Even with the chaos, as the other nurses had their own crisis at the same time, it was an environment where we all used positive speaking and up building speech.

Even though we could not help one another at this moment, words of encouragement and concern kept flying as we passed one another. That was one of the ways we supported each other.

Worse than two patients with chest pain, a third patient was not at the same level of consciousness from earlier in the shift. Several doctors had looked at her and based on the tests were not finding any significant reason.

Yet I knew something was wrong. I was doing a double (16 hour shift) and personally saw the changes. I, for one believe 12 and 16 hour shifts are great because of the continuity of care they offer the patient. Even more so, I have had several instances like this that gave me greater influence and power in the patient care. It allowed me to personally witness the change in status.

Imagine being a nurse (less educated than a doctor) and asking a 6th doctor to look at a patient five others looked at already, because you feel something was missed although not knowing what.

Thankfully the 6th doctor found the problem. I believe this day was one of those that Dante wrote about. Positive speaking doesn’t require avoidance of the nagging of your heart when you think something is wrong.

Needless to say, also having experienced one of those five days on the Eighth floor, you better not complain about the nurses from there unless you worked side by side with them. (If you want to become a truly great nurse, this is the floor to train on.)

So the day Randy complained about the 8th floor, I looked her in the eye and to make sure I had her attention saying her name began, “Randy, that’s not like you to complain about your colleagues.”

She replied, “You know, its not.” This was followed by an apology and never to hear her do it again, at least to me.

The BMW Club lost a member that day.

The BMW Club will probably live on. If not, what will the members do? How can they survive? If there weren’t staffing shortages, if people didn’t make mistakes, if they had a perfect world, they would be helpless, not having anyone or anything to blame. They like the reality they live in, otherwise they would tell it ‘like it is.’ Their ‘like it is’ refers to the antithesis of positive speaking.

Like It Is

The “like it is” they live in is a life full of problems and wrongs. To feel better, they need to blame someone. It seems easier to blame someone than acting to make the world or even work place a better palace to be. To blame and complain is a God given right. To forgive unthinkable. You will find them positively speaking of all the negative things in their life and world.

“Like it is” of our work place includes every day, some of the best nurses on the planet who save peoples lives, be it patients, colleagues, or even their own.

It includes those nurses who go above and beyond the call of duty. It includes some great doctors who sacrifice time with family and friends to fulfill their dedication. Doctors who respect and yes, even ask nurses their professional opinion, recognizing we are professionals.

Among all of these are ones who use positive speaking as something that is coming from inside them.

You will not see this, if you’re looking for the negative things in life to tell about, like it is. Like it is people cannot see the good. They cannot understand positive speaking until they make a total change in the way they think and see things. They need an altered reality.

The reality of “Like it is” includes the wonderful supervisors, truly great humans all who have to make hard decisions, try to be fair, and yet still look at the best interest of the patients and meet the needs of their staff. They are directly involved in saving peoples lives by choices they make yet never get to see the lives saved, rarely if ever get to hear a ‘thank you’ or ‘good job.’

It also includes those supervisors who worry about those of us on the floor. They are concerned about staffing ratios but nobody would even know.

These are the ones who always offer a shoulder to cry on. They worry about a nurse going home and falling asleep at the wheel after a night shift. With all this they have to maintain positive speaking, they after all have to set the example.

These are the ones who have to hear every day, “I can’t today because…and then call someone who would otherwise be taking a day off.” Does anyone ever say thank you?After all, that is ‘like it is.”

As to the president of the BMW club, the recipient of the Blame Caster of the year award, it turns out she was not having a bad hair day. She was having a bad hair life. That is so sad. What a host of wonderful things were probably happening every day that she couldn’t see because of all the bad things that clouded her vision.

The new grad that changed to a part time schedule, I don’t know what happened to her. I stopped working there too.

Sometimes you will not have the power to change things. Sometimes the only thing you can do is move on.

My heart goes out to the great nurses who work there who have no choice but to stay there. Maybe some day, someone will be able to kick the BMW club out of the hospital never to return. May some day a culture of positive speaking infect the entire hospital.

Some of us are like flowers, re-pot us in different soil and we could flourish. If you can not bring a culture of positive speaking then moving on might be the only option. In job hunting, only select those places of employment that positive speaking is part of the culture.

May all of your speaking be positive speaking.

May All Your Speech Be Positive Speech

Using positive speech either personally or in public speaking is a choice. We live in a world filled with negative experiences. It is easy to get caught up and even emulate the negative world around us.

It is an even greater challenge when exposed to people who chose to use negative speech. Will it suck you in so that it consumes you and with out recognizing it, you frame all you say in the negative context?

Or will you take advantage of one of the biggest opportunities you will have to build your own credibility and the respect of the audience for you. Will you tap into a power that can move small and large groups of people?

That power can be realized by using positive speech and up building speech.

Positive Paradoxical Challenge

For some there is a paradoxical challenge with positive speech. They become so positive that they almost refuse to see bad in anything. Yet as with so many things in life, improvement only comes from honest and frank critiquing.

It is one thing to frame a negative circumstance like failure into a learning experience and another to refuse to recognize the failure all together and do nothing to improve.

Positive Points to Ponder.

How can we maintain positive speech in our every day conversation?

What if we’re negative in what we say and want to change?

How can we deal with others who are negative speakers?

What balance between the negative and positive speech is needed when giving a lecture?

How can balance be attained?

Limit the Negative.

We live in a world that thrives on negative news and reports. We cannot close our eyes or ears to the reality. However, in our speech and public speaking, we can usually limit the negative information.

Informative, persuasive or motivational speeches should be refreshing. How refreshing would a lukewarm glass of water be compared to ice cold water. Both will satisfy hydration needs of the body. The cool one offers refreshment, the warm only hydration.

Positive and up building information tends to be more refreshing. It is more palatable. It is the mind we want to refresh. We should avoid anything that might repress.

More importantly, limit that which would depress. How do you feel when you go to a funeral home for a viewing? What kind of mood do you notice? What do you feel? What kind of conversations would you hear?

Might you hear the sounds of mourning? Perhaps even greater effect if a young person or baby has died. Just as the mood permeates the feelings of everyone there, so to, unless you limit the negative, the same negative emotions could well up in the minds of the audience. That negative experience will close their minds.

Try this as an experiment to open your mind. Can you see anything positive in a funeral viewing? There are some obvious benefits.

One of the biggest, it allows us to view and appreciate relationships we now have with those who are still alive. Are we doing all we can to maintain and keep them strong? Do we use positive speech in our daily conversations? Do we try to build on those relationships?

The Necessary Negative

Sometimes negative information may be necessary. In saying that, what positive benefit does including it have?

Can it be framed into a positive experience?

Do we learn a lesson or moral?

Will it help with avoiding future mistakes or loss?

Make sure it is on point, on purpose, and brief. It is not necessary to provide a gory detailed mental picture for your audience. If this is your challenge, attempt to mix the negative with the positive speech so that the resulting presentation is up building and encouraging.

It can be illustrated as my CPA told me almost 30 years ago.

Regarding treasury agents, he said they don’t study counterfeit money. There would be millions of them to have to learn. There would a constant flow of new ones to study. They only study the real thing. That way when they see a counterfeit, they can recognize it right away.

People don’t need to be reminded that we live in a world full of negative experiences. Those experiences like the counterfeit money, are too numerous and do not require review to recognize they exist.

However the one positive message, like the real money, will be readily recognized by the audience. They will know the encouraging and up building when they hear it.

How to…

Start by using positive speech and up building speaking in your every day speech. Positive Greetings

Catch people doing something right and compliment. Avoid flattery.

Every day, set a quota of people to find and compliment for some excellence they demonstrate.

Even correction of negative conduct could be framed as positive commendation.

Commend the person into the conduct you want them to have.

Read “Welcome To The Club” A true story of dealing with a culture of complaining.

Try responding to the greeting of how are you doing with…(choose one)Excellent, fantastic, or wonderful but getting better.

To train you mind if you have a challenge overcoming negative speech about your self or others.Every time you find your self saying something negative about someone else try to find two positive things about them to say. This is an excellent tool to for couples to use with each other in their personal conversation.

More than once people have come up to my wife and I telling us they were impressed that we never had anything bad to say about anyone.

Making conservation positive and upbuilding starts with you, in your personal and every day speech.

If you make a mistake, if you’re negative in some way, if you tear someone down, be the first to admit the mistake and apologize for it. Again, this will go a long way to build the respect for you in the eyes of your colleagues. This will also start a culture of positive speech with those you work with.

At the end of the day, make a mental review of your actions and speech. If you see areas where you could have better used positive speech and up building speaking, briefly in your mind relive the conversation only in the positive context.

Public Positive Speech and Speaking.

Make it your credo, never to say anything that is not positive and up building about anyone. You will learn, if you haven’t so far, this world is a very small place and something you say will come back and bite you if you’re not careful.

Never say anything negative about the competition. If you do, you may look like the only way you can elevate yourself if by bashing them. There are always some redeeming qualities, traits or abilities the competition has if only to give you a run for the money. Find something to praise them for or don’t say anything at all.

Positive speech is not just something to practice in daily life, it is a requirement from the platform.

If you always use positive speech and up building speech you will yield rich rewards. Those rewards will come from both the audience who will grow in respect for you and possibly from the competition. You just never know, you may be working for them some day. It could be that positive speech could pay off for you.

Payoffs

There are other payoffs too. They are in the form of credibility. Never refer to anyone or thing any derogatory term. It is the biggest credibility killer you can use. When you hear someone calling another person a moron, you may have found your self thinking it takes one to know one.

Be careful, for even in that thought, you have just judged someone. Rather you might look at their inappropriate comments as indicating they are not your cup of tea.

When appropriate, commend the audience during the presentation. If you can add the views of management relating to that commendation add that too. However, care needs to be exercised that it not be flattery.

If you’re exercising your positive speech skills, you will find this to be the most dynamic area in the positive feed back you will receive. It is here, you will have power to shape the lives of those you work and live with every day.

May all of your utterances be positive speech and up building speaking

From http://www.speechmastery.com/positive-speaking.html