Change Your Perspective and Change Your Life

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. – Marcus Aurelius

Perspective is a point of view. Perspective is defined as an attitude towards something, or a way of regarding something. You can’t change the things that happen to you, but you can change a few things – how you look at things and how you react to things.

You can focus on what isn’t working, or you can focus on what is working. You can look at people and see what they’re not good at, or you can recognize what they are good at, and then you can bring that out of them and make them shine.

We all know the popular sayings on perspective: the glass is half empty, the glass is half full; beauty is in the eye of the beholder; etc. But your perspective affects everything that happens to you. For example, is it unbearably hot and humid outside and it sucks. Or is it such a beautifully sunny day, and the sky is blue and the grass is green and we’re taking the kids to the park and isn’t it wonderful?!

We have exactly the same activity, the same situation, but one of them makes you feel great and the other makes you feel like crap. The only difference is a shift in your mindset.

Good things and bad things are going to happen in your life regardless. You can’t change them, but how you react to them and view them is up to you.

Recently the grandmother of one of my friends turned 101 year’s old. One hundred and one! Can you even imagine all the things she has seen in her lifetime? We had a conversation about it and of course I asked my friend what her grandmother’s secret is, and this is what she told me:

“Tony, it’s her positive attitude. I’ve never met a human being with a better perspective on life. One minute talking to her and you can’t help but see the world differently. She’s had her struggles, just like anyone else, but she is somehow able to see the positive in them. I believe that her good health, her longevity, and her prosperity are directly related to her perspective.”

Here she is on her birthday.

Isn’t that amazing?

In business, perspective is very important because shit is going to happen to you often. It just is. Being CEO of a company, you go through a lot of stuff. You have people coming and going, accounts that flourish and accounts that don’t. Many things happen that you have no control over. But you always have control over your perspective. How you view the world, and how you react to it, and how you bounce back from a setback, it is all up to you.

There are two important things to remember: Things can always be worse, and there’s a reason for it happening. For example, if someone leaves your company, your first thought may be negative. It’s easy for your mind to immediately go there. But you need to spin it. Ask yourself, what is the positive in this? Is it an opportunity for you or your business to grow? Is it an opportunity for them to grow? The outcome is the same – someone is leaving the company. But putting a positive spin on the outcome has you in control and powerful rather than powerless. It is so important to get yourself into the habit of framing events positively versus negatively (no pun intended).

One of the things we do uniquely here at Roma Moulding is we gage people’s perspective on life and see if they align to our core values. This is a way of life. It isn’t something you can fake. It allows us to see who would be a good fit for our team.

So what is your perspective? If you had to choose between the following two statements to describe life, which would you choose?

1. Life is a jungle, an uphill battle, and everything takes effort. The world is a tough place and you have to watch your back.
2. Life is an incredible journey of ups and downs, of bliss, joy, and sadness. The world is a beautiful place with beautiful people who are up to beautiful things.

I can tell you which of those statements I would choose. And I can tell you which of those statements my friend’s 101-year-old Nana would choose.

So I challenge you to pay attention to your perspective, in both your relationships and in business. You can singlehandedly alter your way of life by altering your perspective. All it might take is standing in a room and looking at it from a different angle. Try this out – your view changes from where you’re looking.

If you want a happy, blissful life, first take a look at your perspective. Since I have changed mine, life shows up differently for me. Even rainy days are sunny days. The power of reframing things and events cannot be overstated. By doing this, you are creating the life you want to live.

‍