Learning About Pride From A Painter

Do you take pride in what you do?

There is an old man painting a house at the bottom of my road. He moves slowly, climbs the ladder one rung at a time, then climbs back down to check his work from where it will be seen. I’m sure he’s doing a fine job, and I’m sure it’s taking him a lot longer than a man half his age.

But this is not what makes this man remarkable, or why I stopped ever so briefly to observe him. What made him stand out to me was the fact that he was wearing a uniform. A painter’s uniform like you might see in an old movie; coarse white dungarees, a thick white cotton shirt and a little white hat.

And I thought; this guy turned up this morning!

He knows exactly who he is, what he’s doing and how he wants to do it. And not only that, he’s proud of it. Of who he is, what he does and how he does it.

He got dressed this morning in his painter clothes and went off to his painter job and now he’s enjoying being paid to do his painter thing.

Is there any better way to live?

80% of Success is Turning Up

But when you turn up, then what?

A little further up the road there is a young guy painting a front room wall wearing a paint splattered t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, I want to say bum crack showing, but it wasn’t, that was just the impression I got.

He might also be a great painter and take great pride in his work, but does he take pride in himself? Does he wake up in the morning and say ‘I’m a painter, and I’m going to paint, how great is that?’?.

How many of us are like that in life? Doing half a job. Saying we want to be someone/do something/go somewhere, but only half turning up?

How You Turn Up Makes a Difference

First impressions count. Because we’re never really selling our business, we’re selling ourselves. People will either buy into us or they won’t. If we have great knowledge but no confidence, if we mumble, avoid eye contact and turn up to meetings looking dishevelled, people will say ‘she might know what she’s talking about, but she was a mess!’.

And the same goes for gym goers, if you drag yourself out of bed, throw on an old t-shirt and get to the gym with no plan, chances are you’re not going to have a great experience. You’re not going to make much progress or feel good about going.

Try instead to go with enthusiasm, get dressed in clothes that make you feel good, tell yourself you’re going to the gym to get one step closer to your goals and do it with pride.

When you reach the end of your journey, you don’t want to say ‘I gave it a go’, you want to stand tall and proud and say ‘I gave it my best!’

As a regular gym goer, you are already one of the 20% of the people that didn’t give up, so stand tall and proud comrades and know; you’re the bomb for even trying. Wake up every morning and say “I am it!”. Put your shiny bright gym clothes on and go out into the world confident in who you are and what you’re doing.

Because, News Flash; there is only one you and you’re awesome.