Have you ever had to get to a place or a destination and you hit a delay? I was on my way to Florida for a business trip, now I get to the airport to fly to Florida 4 PM. I get a notification on my phone, your flight’s been delayed by several hours. I’m now gonna miss my connecting flight.
Here is the thing, in my younger days and before my journey, I would’ve been really angry and upset in that moment and I would’ve ran over to the gate and probably made a fool of myself by yelling at the agent standing behind the Delta counter and I would say say something like “ Are you %*#% serious! my flight has been delayed and I’m going to miss my connecting flight, are you *#%*# serious!This is crazy. Now I’m not gonna make it to my destination on time. “
Do you think I would’ve gotten anywhere if I went up to the counter like this now? Not to mention I am in a two piece suit, so you know I stand out more than most traveling.
What I did was I that I walked over to the counter, trying to maintain a positive attitude. I smiled at the lady behind the counter and I said “ma’am, I heard your professional problem solver is that true?” and she started smiling. Then I said ,”I heard you’re so good at solving problems and pay you to do it!” This got her smiling ,and I said “look I have a problem. I know it’s not actually yours so if you can’t solve it, I understand but if you can, it would mean the world to me, I have a client that is in Florida waiting for me to help them with a very serious matter.”
She smiled and said let me see what I can do,and she starts punching her computer keypad and she looks at me. She says I’m really sorry there’s only one flight tomorrow it’s gonna get you there at 10 AM tomorrow . There’s one more flight tonight but it’s flying standby. Meaning there’s no seats available. You’re gonna wait by the gate if you get a seat they’ll put you on if not, they will put you in a hotel. I said “OK that’s sounds good, thank you so much I the effort.”
Sorry, one second sir, she keeps punching away at her keypad two minutes later she walks in front of the gate and she comes up to me and she hand me a boarding pass and she says I got you to see on the plane tonight. I was like, “the computer did it or did you do it? “ She goes, it was kind of both.
Gentlemen , our attitude towards a situation not only determines our outcome, but it also affects those around us, and how a person will respond to you. Your attitude will depict your altitude of how people look up to you. You will never be lifted up in respect by others if you are beating someone down. The only thing that will be rising is number of people that have no respect for you.