Self-belief, preparation and hard work go hand in hand to put you in a winning position – in life and at work.
Self-belief, preparation and hard work go hand in hand to put you in a winning position – in life and at work.
Got attitude? ‘Yes’, you all scream. A positive attitude? ‘Yes’, you all scream. Wanna bet?
I’ll bet every one of you thinks you have a positive attitude, and the same amount of you have never taken a course in it or studied it.
Let’s go a bit deeper. How much of your success is dependent on your positive attitude? The answer is somewhere between ‘lots’ and ‘all’.
So 80 to 100 per cent of your success is dependent on your positive attitude, yet you’ve had no formal training. OK, suppose you needed surgery and I recommend a surgeon with no formal training who ‘thinks’ he can do a great job. Get it?
You can start by reading and studying these four books.
1. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
3. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
4. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
I read two pages from these books every day. I’ve been doing attitude reading, watching, listening, studying, and practicing for 15 minutes a day for 35 years. I don’t know if it’s working yet. I’m going to do it another 35 years, and then that’s it, I’m going to quit.
If you want attitude, first study the science of it.
If you want wealth, first build a wealth of knowledge.
I also recommend that you enroll in the nearest Dale Carnegie program. Carnegie courses are timeless and will provide a great attitude foundation.
But I know you. You want it now and you want it free.
So here are 19.5 attitude gems I’ve picked up along the way that I recommend you read, cut out, copy, share with others, post on your wall, and study in a way that you implement into your ‘thought and expression’ process. They are not in course format. They are mental snacks to chew on and digest.
1. Change your input to change your attitude. If you seek a positive mind, you must expose yourself to positive information, and hang around positive people. If you want to achieve ‘positive’ you have to surround yourself with it and live it.
2. You were born to win - but you must plan to win, prepare to win, then you can expect to win. (A famous Zig Ziglar quote.)
3. The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win. (Vince Lombardi, famous coach.)
4. You will get whatever you want if you help enough people get whatever they want.
5. Make every day as productive as the day before you go on vacation. That’s a day that everything gets done.
6. Ignore people who tell you ‘you can’t’ (except your boss). People will try to rain on your parade because they have no parade of their own.
7. If you have nothing nice to say about someone, say nothing.
8. Don’t dwell on (whine about) the problem, concentrate on the solution. Resolve how you can, not lament why you can’t.
9. Forgive and go forward. Grudge blocks positive. Until you clear the past you are destined to repeat it.
10. Self-talk equals self-performance. Look at any athlete – self-talk is a crucial part of their expected positive performance.
11. What is the picture you have of yourself? That is what you will become. Spend 15 minutes a day focusing on a positive picture.
12. What you do off the job determines what you are likely to do on the job.
13. Strengthen your weaknesses and strengthen your strengths at the same time. Combine positive with negative for better personal development results
14. Failure is an event, not a person. Think of failure as ‘it’, not ‘me’.
15. It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you. Attitude manifests itself in your response to events.
16. Every obstacle presents an opportunity. If you’re looking for it.
17. Hard work makes luck. Nothing affects positive circumstance and results more than hard work.
18. How many of your problems are cured with $10,000? A question my dad once asked me as I lamented my problems. If money makes your problem go away, attitude makes them go away as well.
19. It’s what you say and how you say it. The tone of your verbiage determines the atmosphere of your environment.
19.5 Resign your position as general manager of the universe. Don’t try to solve (butt into) other people’s problems, until you are problem free.
OK. I have just given you the awareness – all you have to do is take the actions.
Daily.
Forever.
Jeffrey Gitomer is an American author, professional speaker and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty and personal development.
© 2015 All rights reserved. Don’t reproduce this document without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
