In part one, I talked about staying positive for your own piece of mind, but in part two, I am going to discuss how this affects the people around you.

So here is the deal: as the captain of the ship, if you won’t come out of your quarters to steer the ship and look for land, your crew is going to mutiny. One of the hardest parts about being an entrepreneur is coming to work and putting a smile on your face every day no matter what is going on in your life. If you don’t have faith, if you don’t stay positive, then how are the people who believe and trust in you going to come in and give their 100%? Staying positive all of the time is what separates leaders from everyone else. Leaders cannot afford to get into a slump because they have too much to lose. Employees can go through slumps, and it might affect their work, but when a leader doesn’t stay positive, it echoes throughout the entire organization.

There are two reasons why a leader gets down: personal issues and business issues. The personal stuff such as divorce, break-ups, trust issues, etc., is the hardest to overcome. Even most of the five suggestions in part one of this post cannot overcome major personal issues. I don’t want to play counselor here, so I am going to stick to talking about staying positive over business issues. A leader has to overcome the business problems that bring him down. If he doesn’t, he can lose his business and even worse, his future leadership roles.

Almost all business worries aren’t really worries at all. As a matter of fact, great leaders should love problems and issues. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me. I believe (if you aren’t doing anything illegal) almost all problems that arise that cause a leader to stray from being positive can easily be overcome and even turned around into something positive. Let me give you an example.

Three years ago I attended an event at a hotel in LA. There was a door girl that was checking the list and letting people in. This girl was tough. When it was my turn, I handed her my card since we worked with people at the hotel. She took a long look and out of nowhere, she started yelling at me in front of about 30 people. The gist of it is someone was using a mobileStorm business card and being extremely rude trying to get into places. This person must have given this door girl a hard time because she was really laying into me. I had two paths I could go down. The first path was to walk away with my tail between my legs. The second path was to very politely explain that we have been in business for five years and that I personally hire everyone and that there is no way this person would have never made it past the first interview. I apologized and told her that if she wants to kick me out she has every right to and that, “I will do my best to try and find this person so they cannot treat anyone else the way they treated you.” Well, I chose the latter and it really paid off. Not only did she let my entire group in, but every single time I have ever seen her again she calls me by my first name, spreads the crowd, and opens the velvet rope.

Okay, I know this isn’t a great story. I admit there are better “turning things around” stories out there, but when you really dig deep into this story something else that you might not have realized emerges. I started by talking about how business troubles can bring you down, and that as a leader you need to always stay positive. Well, how do you stay positive when there are issues? The answer is simple and my story illustrates this. Bad situations, if carefully managed, will almost always turn out right. As my story pointed out, things had to go bad before something good could emerge. What if I walked up, showed her my card, and she was said, “Sorry, I don’t know you. Have a nice day.” Would this have gained me front-of-the-line access for the rest of my life? Absolutely not– there was no emotional involvement. When she got pissed at me, she become emotionally involved with me. It was up to me to turn it around, but all I needed was that one bit of pissedoffedness. Everyone has heard the concept that “what doesn’t hurt me only makes me stronger.” Or that relationships grow stronger after a fight. Well, the same exact thing happens in business situations. I can’t tell you how many times a client has been upset with something, and I took their emotion and turned it into a bigger deal by selling them even more services. Whatever pissed them off at least got them to pick up the phone to call me. Now, if I wanted to attend that event at that hotel on a constant basis and it was a big deal to me, one could argue it was a good thing that someone was out there using mobileStorm’s name and being a dick. Everything happens for a reason, and it is up to you to stay positive and to use these unique opportunities to turn things around. Of course, let me make a strong statement about something: in everything you do, you need to have integrity and you have to be sincere. Then and only then can you always turn an negative situation into a positive one.

Think about the next bad situation that comes up and I can guarantee you that with a little thought, you can turn things around and not only make the situation okay, but enhance it. Issues and problems from now on should be turned into something positive and this positiveness will shine through and keep everyone happy and healthy.