There are a lot of opinions being thrown around out there.  And lots of them aren’t backed by much more than the hot air of the person who issues them.

Last week when I was on vacation somebody I spent a lot of time with found it necessary to share her very strong opinions, all of which were “right.”  That meant, of course, that any contrasting opinion I had was “wrong.”  Or, more often, “totally stupid.”

In the course of a few days I felt devalued just about every time I opened my mouth (which I stopped doing after a couple of days).  An award that I was recently honored with even became “political” as opposed to well-deserved.

Who knew??

Think about it … what have you read lately (besides the newspaper) that espouses one person’s opinion and presents it as fact?

I recommended the Gallup book How Full is Your Bucket to my best friend at the same time her manager recommended a book espousing a different type of approach.  Gallup research supports that being positive and filling other people’s emotional buckets inspires them to work harder.  According to my best friend the other book, which I admittedly have not read, promotes the idea that “sometimes you just gotta get obnoxious.”

Yeah.  That’s who I’d want to work hard for, too.  How well do you think their employees trust them?

So we have to pay attention to the people we pay attention to.  It’s certainly okay to listen to people wax eloquent on any given topic.  As long as we know they’re not necessarily right.

Look at the evidence.  Look at the support.  Look at where the idea came from.  And then decide who you really want to listen to.

Personally I’d pay a little more attention to Gallup than a couple of guys who enjoy being obnoxious and telling people what to do.