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“Too often people allow the actions of others to impact their own attitudes and emotions.”

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2017-03-07) from his book, No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity (p. 101). Center Street. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

It is so easy to do.  But we will be losers if we allow it.  And we are the ones who allow it.

John says, “As humans, we have the capacity to create and control our own attitudes and emotions. We need to make that choice for ourselves every day. Otherwise, people will control us.”

He goes on, “Let me share with you what I do that helps me not to get sucked in by the behavior of difficult people. I associate two numbers with everyone I meet. The first is my belief number for them. I refer to this as putting a ten on people’s heads. I see everyone as a potential 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10). I choose to do that so that I’ll treat every person well. I also know that most people rise to the level of our expectations for them, so by seeing everyone as a 10, I’m making room for every person to rise to that level.

“The second number I associate with people is based on my personal experience and interaction with them. I call this my experience number with them. While I choose in advance to make the belief number a 10, the experience number is derived from their behavior. In my interaction, if the person treats others well, keeps his word, adds value with people, has high competence, and so on, the number will be high. If the person is self-centered, dysfunctional, abusive, and negative, then the number will be low. As I gain more experience with the person, the number continually changes. If in my experience the interactions are negative and the person’s number is low, I choose to have less interaction with that person. That’s how I keep others from controlling me.”

Such good advice.  The key is to understand that we allow others to control us. It is also so important for us to not be that kind of friend that has a negative impact but one who has a positive one.  And we are in control of that too.


So, is it easy for you to allow others to have an impact on your attitudes and emotions?
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