Attitude Is Everything: Change Your
Attitude ... Change Your Life!
About Author:
Jeff Keller, President of Attitude is Everything, Inc.,
works with organizations that want to develop achievers and with people who
want to reach their full potential. Jeff is the author of the best-selling
book, Attitude Is Everything. Keller has spent more than 20 years researching
why it is that some people succeed, while others achieve disappointing results.
Summary of book:
“Nothing can stop the
man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth
can help the man with the wrong attitude."
There are 12 lessons in the book, so without further ado,
let’s get started!
Lesson 1: Your
attitude is your window to the world:
Let’s imagine that you are going to a coffee shop during
your lunch break. Everybody has to wait the same amount of time before the
waitress takes the order, each of you receive meal around the same time, each
of you are served great food, and each of you have to wait for the check. You
walk into the coffee shop with a smile and a positive outlook on the world. You
have a delightful lunch, pleasant conversations and go back to work with
re-charged battery. However, your co-worker also enters the coffee shop, with a
scowl on his face, hunched over and tense. He is annoyed that waitress didn’t come
immediately, and he had to wait for the food and the check. He also complained
about the food. So what is the difference? It’s the fact that you see the world
with a positive attitude, and your co-worker sees it with a negative attitude.
Keller defines attitude as a mental filter through which you experience the
world. Some people see through the filter of optimism, while others see through
a filter of pessimism. You can control your attitude, and it’s your job to keep
your view of the world clean. Instead of “I can't; say I can. Instead of seeing
problems, look for solutions. So how do you see the world? Is the glass half
empty, or half full?
Lesson 2: You’re a
human magnet! so why do some people become successful?
Earl Nightingale sums
it with six words: we become what we
think about it. If you constantly think about some goal, you will then take
steps to move toward that goal. The book mentions the law of dominant thought.
You can’t expect positive results, if you spend 10 seconds a day thinking
positively, and the remaining 16 hours negatively. It’s like with exercising,
you won’t be physically fit if you work out for five minutes once a week. You
have to think positively all the time until it becomes a habit. Positive belief
system is the starting point for the achievement of any goal - with negative
attitude, you are never going to take that first step. You can change your
thinking by becoming aware of what you say to yourself, reading positive
literature every day, and by listening to motivational programs. Repetition is
the key!
Lesson 3: Picture
your way to success:
Visualization is something that we use to create
circumstances of our lives. It can be defined as movies of the mind. We begin
to develop these movies early in life, and because of that, we create life
situations that correspond to the original image. Take responsibility for your
own movies, you’re constantly generating new movies. For example, how does your
career look like in 10 years? If you are in sales for example, Keller mentions
that it is important to see yourself succeeding on a consistent basis. If
you’re not getting the results you want, there’s no question that you are
holding onto pictures of sales mediocrity. This same concept can be found in
the book Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort! You’re the director, script writer and producer of your movies. Let’s try it
out! Close your eyes and think about an elephant. Now change the color of the
elephant to pink. Now change it back to normal color.
Lesson 4: Make a
commitment… And you’ll move mountains:
Are you willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish your
objective? That is the key to getting what you want in life. Make a commitment
that regardless of the steps it takes, you will do whatever needed. Once you’ve
committed to achieve your goal, you’ll follow through with determination and
action, until you have reached your goal. You will notice that you begin to attract
necessary people to achieve your goal. No, everything won’t be rosy, but if you
don’t give up, you can move mountains. So ask yourself - are you willing to do whatever
it takes to achieve your goal?
Lesson 5: Turn your
problems into opportunities:
How do you react when you are faced with problems and
setbacks? Most people start to complain, but after that initial disappointment,
you have a choice to make. You can either dwell on the negative, or find the
lesson in that problem. Often problems aren’t even problems, they are
opportunities, for example without a problem, you might never notice to take
positive action. Adversity serves us in many different ways, it gives us
perspective, teaches us to be grateful, brings out our hidden potential,
encourages us to make changes, teaches us lessons and so on.
Lesson 6: Your words
blaze a TRIAL:
In the book secrets of the millionaire mind there was a
formula T - F - A = R, meaning that thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to
actions and actions lead to results. In this book, it goes a little further:
Thoughts lead to word, words lead to beliefs, beliefs lead to actions and
actions lead to results. Let’s imagine that you work at sales, and you think
yourself that “I’m not very good when it comes to sales”. Then you make fun of
it with your friends “I’m never going to do very well in sales” Now this
strengthens your beliefs, which is where things become serious. Everything you
will achieve in your life flows from your beliefs. Because you don’t believe in
your sales ability, you will take very little action, and you will get poor results.
So use positive self-talk as often as possible, and discuss your goals only
with supportive people.
Lesson 7: How are
you?
So, how are you? Seems like a small question, but we answer
this question so often that it is not a small thing at all. There are three
categories for your answers, negative, mediocre and positive. Some examples for
negative are: lousy, I’m tired, don’t ask. Mediocre answers are “I’m okay, not too
bad, could be worse”, and so on. Positive answers are terrific! Fantastic!
Great! Your words affect your physiology. If your answer is horrible, you tend
to take on a depressed posture and your emotions? They definitely won’t make
you feel better, if you say you feel horrible. How we feel is often a
subjective matter, if we say we feel tired, we will feel tired.
Lesson 8: Stop complaining!
How often do you complain? It is okay to discuss about your problems
in an attempt to search for solutions, and to share your bad life experiences
with friends and relatives, but complaining about back pain, headache and flu
doesn’t really provide anything. Next time you feel like complaining, pick up a
pen and a piece of paper, and start listing all the reasons you have to be
grateful. In short No-one wants to hear negative news about your illness and problems
Complaining reinforces your own pain and discomfort Complaining accomplishes
nothing and distracts you from the actions that you could take to improve the
situation.
Lesson 9 Associate
with positive people:
“Tell me who you hang out with and I’ll tell you who you are”.
There are two kinds of people, toxic people
and nourishing people. Toxic people dwell on the negative. They try to drag you
down to their level, they tell you about all of the things that you can’t do,
and they suck all the positive energy
out of you. Nourishing people are positive and supportive. They are a joy
to be around, and make you feel better. You should stop spending time with
toxic people, and start spending more time with nourishing people. We become
what we surround ourselves with.
Lesson 10 Confront
your fears and grow:
If you want to be successful, you must be willing to be uncomfortable
if you want to achieve your goals; you have to step out of your comfort zone.
Sounds very simple, but most people still back away from the fear, and take no
action. If you know that something is necessary to get what you want in life,
you have to face your fears. Let’s imagine that a circle is your comfort zone,
and X outside circle represents your fears. Inside the comfort zone you will
feel safe, but the further you go from it, the more anxious you will feel. Now
backing away from your fears relieves the fear and anxiety, but what else does
it do? Nothing! But there is a high cost that comes from backing away from your
fears. It lowers your self-esteem, makes you feel powerless and frustrated,
sabotages your success, and you’ll never be highly successful. So always have a
can-do attitude, because it gives you the courage to take that extra push!
Lesson 11 Get out
there and fail:
One thing in common with all these self-development books is
that they recommend you to fail. If you avoid failing, you can’t learn new
skills. Remember when you were a kid and learned to ride a bicycle? You failed
many times, but never gave up, and because of that you now can ride a bike
forever. Successful people have learned to fail their way to success; it is a
necessary part of the road to victory. Remember that there is no such thing as failure
until you completely give up. Before that there are only results, some more
successful than others.
Lesson 12 networking
that gets results:
Networking means that you are leveraging your own efforts
and accelerating the pace at which you get results. The more relationships you
build, the greater opportunities for success you have. You can’t succeed on a
grand scale all by yourself! The benefits of networking are for example that it
generates new clients and business leads, assists in solving problems and
provides valuable information and resources. To build your network, you should
have a positive attitude and participate actively in groups! Serve others in
your network, when you give, you will receive. Also be a good listener, and
treat every person as important. Meet different people, and be willing to go out
of your comfort zone. Also remember to thank and congratulate people that are
part of your network! To shortly put the main points of networking: have a
positive attitude, communicate and follow-up to build your network. So those
are the 12 lessons in the book, attitude is everything by Jeff Keller remember
- attitude is everything!
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