Positive Intent: Five Principles to Improve Your Life and Leadership

Book excerpt: Positive Intent isn't about upgrading your skills. It isn't about motivation. This is not a life hack; it's a new life. Living with positive intent means cutting through the noise of negativity and apathy and making a commitment to bring rigorous generosity and unwavering curiosity to every interaction. It's your lifeline when you're feeling overwhelmed, when your relationships falter, when you question yourself or your value or your direction. Living with positive intent means adopting the five principles that will help you become more trusted, more fulfilled and more resilient: 1. Remember Your Audiences (all of them, even when they can't hear you) 2. Ask a Question Instead (because your opinions probably aren't that helpful) 3. Purge Emotional Toxins (which sounds painful but is actually pretty easy) 4. Seek Elegant Solutions (rather than solutions that just solve things) 5. Sustain Your Intent (by taking care of yourself and thinking small) This is not an easy time for anyone, but it doesn't have to be so hard. We can't control our circumstances, but we can control how we respond to them. The future is unpredictable, but we can future-proof ourselves by deciding to live with positive intent.