The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Asset

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THE Difference MAKER

Nelson Business

Chapter One

Have you ever heard someone say, "Attitude is everything"? It seems to be a favorite line of some motivational speakers. According to them, a great attitude is all you need to be successful. Unfortunately, it's simply not true.

I do a lot of professional speaking. Each year I communicate at live events to 250,000 people. And I do believe in motivating others. However, I don't think of myself as a motivational speaker. I call myself a motivational teacher. That may seem like a technicality, but here's the difference: A motivational speaker makes you feel good, but the next day you're not sure why. A motivational teacher also makes you feel good, but the next day you possess something that will actually help you.

The promise that attitude is everything is hollow. In fact, if you believe that attitude is everything, it may actually hurt you more than help you. If attitude were everything, then the only thing that would separate me from a successful singing career would be the belief that I can do it. But trust me, there is another factor that stands in my way: talent. If you've watched the reality show American Idol, then you know what I mean. I am amazed at the number of terrible auditioners who respond to blunt criticism from the judges by saying things like, "I know I can sing. That's just your opinion." Truthfully, no attitude is strong enough to compensate for lack of skill.

So does a good attitude make any difference? Absolutely. Attitude is the difference maker! Attitude isn't everything, but it is one thing that can make a difference in your life. Businessman, philanthropist, and author W. Clement Stone stated, "There is little difference in people, but the little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."

The goal of this book is not to snow you by saying that attitude is everything, but to show you that your attitude is the difference maker in your life. I desire to do that by helping you understand where your attitude comes from, what it can and can't do for you, and how you can make it an asset. I also want to give you insight into how to deal with the Big Five Attitude Obstacles everybody faces: discouragement, change, problems, fear, and failure. If you're like most people, you have to deal with at least one of those issues every single day! Let's take this journey together by first looking at some basics about attitude.

WHAT IS ATTITUDE?

What is an attitude, anyway? When you hear the word, what do you think about? I think of attitude as an inward feeling expressed by outward behavior. People always project on the outside what they feel on the inside. Some people try to mask their attitude, and they can fool others for a while. But that cover-up doesn't last long. Attitude always wiggles its way out.

My father loves to tell the story of a four-year-old boy who was finally put into time-out after battling his mother.

"Sit in that chair until the timer goes off," the mother said in frustration. The boy sat down, fearing greater punishment, but said, "Okay, Mommy. I'm sitting on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside."

Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It is like the mind's paintbrush. It can paint everything in bright, vibrant colors-creating a masterpiece. Or it can make everything dark and dreary. Attitude is so pervasive and important that I've come to think of it like this:

It is the vanguard of your true self.

Its root is inward but its fruit is outward.

It is your best friend or worst enemy.

It is more honest and consistent about you than your words.

It is your outward look based on your past experiences.

It is what draws people to you or repels them.

It is never content until it is expressed.

It is the librarian of your past.

It is the speaker of your present.

It is the prophet of your future.

There is not a single part of your current life that is not affected by your attitude. And your future will definitely be influenced by the attitude you carry with you from today forward.

Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It is like the mind's paintbrush.

WHERE DID I GET MY ATTITUDE?

If your attitude is so important, then you may be asking yourself, Where did I get it? Am I stuck with it my whole life-for better or worse? First, let's look at the question of where your attitude comes from.

1. Personality-Who You Are

Two men were out fishing. When the fish stopped biting, they started to talk. One man praised his wife and extolled her many virtues, summing it up by saying, "You know, if all men were like me, they would all want to be married to my wife."

"And if they were like me," the other replied, "none of them would want to be!"

Everybody's different. Each person is born a unique individual. We're all as different as our fingerprints. That's true even of siblings born of the same parents and brought up in the same household. Even twins who are genetically identical have distinct personalities.

Your personality type-your natural "wiring"-impacts your attitude. That's not to say that you're trapped by your personality, because you're not. But your attitude is certainly impacted by it.

2. Environment-What's Around You

The environment you were exposed to growing up definitely has an impact on your attitude. Did your parents go through a divorce? That may cause you to have a mistrustful attitude toward members of the opposite sex. Did someone close to you die? That may prompt you to have an attitude of emotional distancing from others. Did you grow up in a poor neighborhood? That may prompt you to have a tenacious attitude toward achievement. In contrast, it could make you want to give up more easily.

It may be hard to predict exactly what will happen to a person's attitude based on his or her early environment, but you can be certain that it made an impact of some kind. My wife and I adopted both of our children, and based on that experience, we believe that genetics is the strongest early predictor of attitude. But we also know for a fact that environment makes a difference.

3. The Expression Of Others-What You Feel

Most people can remember the harsh words of a parent or teacher even years or decades after the fact. Some people carry the scars of such experiences their entire lives. In my book Winning with People, the Pain Principle states, "Hurting people hurt people and are easily hurt by them." Many times the hurts that cause people to overreact to others come as the result of negative words from others.

Likewise, positive words can have an impact on a person's attitude. Can you remember the positive words of a favorite teacher or other significant adult? A few words can change the way a person thinks of himself and can change the course of his life. Charlie Wetzel, my writer, remembers the words of his sister, Barbara Rensink, when he was eighteen. He had little direction in his life back then, and she told him that she thought he had a talent for cooking and how flavors go together. He had never considered that before. It sent him on a ten-year quest learning everything he could about food, cooking, and the restaurant business. And it led to his first career as a professional restaurant chef.

4. Self-Image-How You See Yourself

How you see yourself has a tremendous impact on your attitude. Poor self-image and poor attitudes often walk hand in hand. It's hard to see anything in the world as positive if you see yourself as negative.

Dwayne Dyer advises, "Examine the labels you apply to yourself. Every label is a boundary or limit you will not let yourself cross." If you are having trouble getting where you want to go, the problem may be inside you. If you don't change your inward feelings about yourself, you will be unable to change your outward actions toward others.

5. Exposure to Growth Opportunities-What You Experience

Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire likened life to a game of cards. Players must accept the cards dealt to them. However, once they have those cards in hand, they alone choose how they will play them. They decide what risks and actions to take.

The growth opportunities people experience are not all equal. When I was growing up, my parents constantly exposed me to new experiences that would shape me. They sent me to Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and other courses while I was in junior high and high school. My father occasionally took me out of school for a week so that I could travel with him as he performed his duties as a leader of our religious denomination. He took me to hear great evangelists and missionaries speak. My parents even paid me to read books that would shape my thinking. They did everything they could to cultivate an attitude open to personal growth. As an adult I have continued to embrace that attitude and to try to pass it along to my children and grandchildren.

Not everyone is as fortunate as I was. If you had an upbringing similar to mine, thank your parents. However, if you were rarely exposed to growth experiences or taken outside of your comfort zone, then you may have to work harder to cultivate a positive attitude toward positive personal growth.

6. Association with Peers-Who You Are With

All the time you hear about young people in trouble who are said to have been nice kids who ended up hanging with the wrong crowd. It's a fact that you start becoming like the people you spend a lot of time with. If a nice kid spends all of his time with people of low moral character, it's only a matter of time before he begins to display low moral character. Likewise, if someone with a good attitude spends all her time with individuals who display negative attitudes, guess what will happen to her? She'll begin to develop a negative attitude. She may think she can change them, but if she's outnumbered and gets no relief from their negativity, they are the ones who will be doing the influencing, not her.

7. Beliefs-What You Think

Many of the factors I've mentioned that have come together to shape your attitude were set in motion in your past. But do you know what forms and sustains your attitude most today? Your thoughts. As author and successful businessman Bob Conklin indicated in the following piece, thoughts make a huge impact on you:

I can make you rise or fall. I can work for you or against you. I can make you a success or a failure.

I control the way that you feel and the way that you act.

I can make you laugh ... work ... love. I can make your heart sing with joy ... excitement ... elation.

Or I can make you wretched ... dejected ... morbid.

I can make you sick ... listless.

I can be as a shackle ... heavy ... attached ... burdensome.

Or I can be as the prism's hue ... dancing ... bright ... fleeting ... lost forever unless captured by pen or purpose.

I can be nurtured and grown to be great and beautiful ... seen by the eyes of others through action in you.

I can never be removed ... only replaced.

I am a THOUGHT.

Why not know me better?

Every thought you have shapes your life. What you think about your neighbor is your attitude toward him. The way you think about your job is your attitude toward work. Your thoughts concerning your spouse, the people on the highway during rush hour, and the government create your attitude toward each of those subjects.

The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude.

8. Choices-What You Do

Poet, critic, and dictionary writer Samuel Johnson observed, "He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he purposes to remove." Most people want to change the world to improve their lives, but the world they need to change first is the one inside themselves. That is a choice-one that some are not willing to make.

In a Peanuts cartoon strip by Charles Schulz, Lucy says to her little brother Linus, "Boy, do I feel crabby."

"Maybe I can help you," Linus responds, always willing to be of assistance. "Why don't you just take my place here in front of the TV while I go and fix you a nice snack? Sometimes we all need a little pampering to help us feel better."

Linus returns with a sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, and a glass of milk.

"Now," he asks, "is there anything else I can get you? Is there anything I haven't thought of?"

Lucy takes the tray, saying, "Yes, there's one thing you haven't thought of." And then she screams, "I don't wanna feel better!"

Early in life, you don't have many choices. You don't choose where and when you are born. You don't choose your parents. You don't choose your race, your personality type, or your genetic makeup. You don't choose your health. Everything you are and nearly everything you do is not up to you. You must live with the conditions you find yourself in. As Voltaire would say, you start with the cards you're dealt.

But the longer you live, the more your life is shaped by your choices. You decide what you will eat. (This is one of the most common ways small children begin to assert their independence.) You decide what toys to play with. You decide whether you will do your homework or watch TV. You choose which friends to spend time with. You choose whether to finish high school, whether you will go to college, who you will marry, what you will do for a living. The longer you live, the more choices you make-and the more responsible you are for how your life is turning out.

Represented visually, it looks like this:

Obviously this graphic does not accurately represent every person's life. But in general, the longer we live, the less conditions dictate how we think and act, and the more our choices determine how we live. And one of those choices is our attitude.

I don't know what kind of circumstances you've had to face in your life. You may have had a really tough time. You may have faced extreme hardship or suffered terrible tragedies. However, your attitude is still your choice.

Perhaps the most remarkable story I've read in the face of horrible circumstances and personal tragedy is that of Viktor Frankl. Born in 1905, Frankl grew up in Vienna and showed an early interest in psychiatry. As a teenager, he corresponded with Sigmund Freud, and one paper he sent Freud so impressed him that the older man sent it to a professional journal, where it was later published.

Frankl became a successful medical doctor in Vienna at age twenty-five, but in 1942, four years after the Nazi invasion of Austria, he was rounded up along with other Austrian Jews and put in a concentration camp. While there, he experienced unspeakable horrors, and he lost his entire family: his pregnant wife, his parents, and his brother.

During the rest of World War II, Frankl was trapped in concentration camps, including the notoriously brutal Auschwitz. Most of his fellow prisoners either were killed or gave up. Not Frankl. He not only maintained hope, but he helped others to find it. The key, he believed, was to find and hold on to meaning. Years later Frankl told Holcomb B. Noble in the New York Times that "the last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Miraculously, Frankl survived his time in the concentration camps. And after the war, he was determined to use his experience to help others. He returned to school and earned a PhD. He developed Logotherapy, often called the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy." It is based on a person's will to find meaning and it is expressed, in part, by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

Until he was eighty-five years old, Frankl taught in Vienna as a professor of neurology and psychiatry. He lectured at 209 universities on five continents. He received twenty-nine honorary doctorates and had more than 150 books published about him and his work in fifteen different languages. During the good years and the bad, his attitude was positive.

"Each man is questioned by life," Frankl once said, "and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

To change your life, you must make a choice to take responsibility for your attitude, and to do everything you can to make it work for you. Your attitude truly can become a difference maker. It's up to you.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from THE Difference MAKER by John C. Maxwell Copyright © 2007 by John C. Maxwell. Excerpted by permission.
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