In becoming forward pushing people

Most of the time, we are either forward or backward pushing people. To make my case, I bring to your attention my two equally important friends. Let's call them Mr. Boo and Ms. Foo. They provide me two opposing and contrasting perspectives and views. Today, I am going to introduce them to you and hope that they will do the same to you too.

First, let me introduce to you Mr. Boo. He describes himself like this: “I am a very practical, grounded, and realistic guy.” He celebrates his past and measures his progress based on his previous accomplishments. Likewise, he values people according to their past performances and judges them based on the mistakes they have committed. He is skeptic about people who are optimistic, positive, and visionary. For example, he complains about my other friend Ms. Foo by saying: “She is unrealistic, out of touch, and a dreamer.”

On the other hand, Ms. Foo explains herself proudly as follows: “I am a reasonable, optimistic, and visionary person.” She takes lessons from her past in order to help her better perform now and most importantly in the future. She strongly believes that her worst days are behind, and her best days are ahead. When she relates with others, she focuses more on their strength, where they are going, and in their future. If she ever goes back into someone’s past, this is to point out those weaknesses, failures, and mistakes to help that person draws lessons and uses them to push himself or herself forward. Ms. Foo doesn’t normally complain about others. However, I pushed her a little bit and asked her to express her views about Mr. Boo. Finally, she gave up and said, “You know him. He is a status quo maintainer, pessimistic, and picky.”

If we want to be successful, we should be people who have positive outlook about others. We should also become forward pushing individuals. Rather than focusing where people have been, and what they have done wrong, we should focus on their passion and help them achieve their dream. We should also hang out with people like Ms. Foo who stretches, encourages, and supports us as we pursue our vision.

I truly believe that Toastmasters are like Ms. Foo and hang out with people like themselves such as positive, encouraging, and visionary people. We should be grateful since Toastmasters has given us this wonderful chance to be with people who are like Ms. Foo. Twice a month, positive, visionary, and reasonable people gather to support one another focusing on their future and vision. We have people who provide us positive and constructive feedbacks that would improve our speaking skills.

Of course, there are people in our life who are like Mr. Boo whom we cannot do anything about except loving and serving them. They could be our relatives, neighbors, and colleagues at work. We were born into a family and we cannot change that. We are working in an organization and we should have wisdom on how to cooperate and get along with such personalities, at least, until we change the job.

As I prepare for this message, I asked Ms. Foo to give me three tips that may help develop a personality like her:

·  “First, to become positive,” she said, “Audit your personality continually and turn negative and pessimistic characters into positive and optimistic.”

·  “Second,” she pointed out, “It is possible to turn around back-pushing people into forward-pushing. To achieve that, someone should be a positive influencer!” By the way, she doesn’t mind for my being a friend of Mr. Boo. For that matter, she encourages me to take him to Toastmasters so that he may turn from backward to forward pushing person. I heeded to her advice, and therefore, I am planning to bring him here one of these days.

·  “Third,” she stressed, “Association matters. It isn’t enough to be in a positive atmosphere once in awhile. Attract and maintain friends, colleagues, and partners who are positive, constructive, and visionaries.”

Don’t you like Ms. Foo? Hope, you do. If that is the case, let’s apply Ms. Foo’s advices and become positive and forward pushing people here at Toastmasters, in our place of residence, work, and wherever we find ourselves. Let's also use all the available opportunities here at Toastmasters and become extraordinary forward pushing people.