An excerpt from my new book Ingaging Leadership: The Ultimate Edition

by Evan Hackel

I would like to explain one very positive approach to Ingagement that I have used in my own family. I call it “Three Things,” and I would like to recommend it to you. Here is how it works…

A few years ago, I started to ask everyone at my family’s dinner table to describe three positive things that had happened to them during the course of the day. I don’t think they understood exactly why I was doing that—I probably didn’t grasp the full importance of it either at the time.

At first, my children were a little skeptical, maybe even a little resistant. Their attitude conveyed an unspoken thought, “Oh, Dad . . . why should I have to do this?”

But then they seemed to warm up to the idea. Even more importantly, they realized that they needed to be on the lookout for good things throughout the day because they knew we would be discussing them at dinner. That expectation created a big change in the way we were all experiencing our days and in the way we were interacting with each other. We were looking for good things, so instead of seeing the world through negative eyeglasses, we began to see it through positive ones.

After all, so many of us have developed the habit of seeing our day in terms of the negatives, so that is what we talk about. We had a bad day at work, the checkout lines were long at the grocery, the train home was delayed, the other drivers were crazy; we miss the positives. But with a simple shift, we can learn to turn around that way of thinking and seeing the world.

I would encourage you to experiment with “Three Things” over the next two months, and to let me know the effect it has on you and those around you.