Bad Attitude, Good Signal

At some point in your life, somebody has probably told you that you have an attitude problem.

For me, it was a woman with a clipboard.

Back when I managed a Domino’s, people from corporate would regularly come out to inspect the franchise stores. The way it worked back then, the inspectors got bonuses based on how their stores performed. It felt a little like letting the prisoners run the jail. They gave great advice, don’t get me wrong. But somehow the failing stores kept passing.

Eventually, corporate wised up and started sending their own people (with no dog in the hunt) to grade the stores.

The person I got was awful. Or maybe I was awful. Depends on who’s telling the story.

She walked through my store and told me everything I was doing wrong. I lost points for some of the most annoying, nitpicky things you can imagine. And here’s what made it worse: my store was doing well. I was successful, and I knew it.

Then she wrote down the part I still remember. My attitude. Abrasive. Uncoachable.

I’ll tell you what happened six months later. But first, a theory.

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The smoke detector

A lot of what we call a bad attitude isn’t bad at all. It’s a signal. And most of us are treating the signal like it’s the problem.

When the smoke detector goes off, you have two choices. You can find the fire, or you can pull the battery out.

Pulling the battery is easier. It’s quiet immediately. Everybody in the house is happier for about ten minutes.

Restlessness works the same way. When you’re snapping at people, dreading Monday by Saturday afternoon, and rolling your eyes in meetings you used to care about, that’s the alarm. Most advice tells you to pull the battery. Be grateful. Fake it till you make it. Adjust your attitude.

Sometimes that’s right. Sometimes you really are just being a brat.

But sometimes there’s a fire. And the fire is usually this: you’ve got more in you than you’re using, and some part of you knows it.

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Find the fire

Before you pull the battery, try this. Next time you catch yourself with an attitude, ask three questions:

1. Is this about them, or about me? If you’d be irritated no matter who was in the room, it’s probably you.
2. When was the last time I felt the opposite? Locked in. Time flying. What were you doing?
3. How much of that is in my week right now? If the answer is “none,” you found the fire.

If I had asked myself those questions in that store, the answers would have been obvious. It wasn’t about her. I was good at my job, and I was bored out of my mind. I had nothing left to figure out. It was burnout, and I was wearing it on my face.

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Six months later

When the inspector came back for my reinspection, she was a different person. Or I was.

She told me my attitude had completely changed. I was doing a great job. My store was running very effectively. She was genuinely impressed with my growth.

Want to know what changed?

I was about to quit.

I had already booked a trip to Mexico, and I was just waiting for the right moment to walk out the door. I had no idea what I was going to do next or how I was going to pay for it. And I didn’t care. The thought of doing something completely different was exhilarating.

I was so happy that a corporate inspector with a clipboard could see it from across the store. I didn’t fix my attitude. I found the fire, and the attitude fixed itself.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the part I left out. Answering the alarm is one thing. How you answer it is another. That happy, carefree, quitting-with-no-plan moment kicked off some of the worst financial decisions of my life, and it eventually ended in bankruptcy.

So no, you don’t always have to quit your job to answer the alarm. Sometimes it’s a side project. Sometimes it’s a hard conversation with your boss. Sometimes it’s a book you write at night.

But don’t pull the battery. The alarm is the most honest thing in the house.

As for the bankruptcy? That’s a story for another day.