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Attitude!
(exerted from Phil Baker’s book ”Attitude of Amazing Achievers”)
It may help us to grasp the importance of attitude if we break down its intangibility and look at some of the results attitude creates in our lives.

NUMBER 1: ATTITUDE DETERMINES PERSPECTIVE
Attitude affects how we see things. Things are rarely seen as they actually are. We view our world through the prism of our understanding, experience, feelings and attitudes. William Blake makes this point well, ‘This life’s dim windows of the soul distorts the heavens from pole to pole and leads you to believe a lie when you see with, not through, the eye” We understand anatomically that we don’t see with the eye. We see with the brain. Our attitude is that which interprets the image. So we begin to get what we look for. We see what we want to see. ‘Red cars travel together.’ The first time I heard this particular phrase was on a comedy radio programme. My first reaction was of course to laugh at such a patently false suggestion. And yet in the next few days I came to the realisation it was true! Wherever I looked I saw red cars together. My point is, that life is. It is how we view it that differs. The glass is both half full and half empty at the same time.

NUMBER 2: ATTITUDE REFLECTS OUR RELATIONAL HISTORY
Family of origin, peer group pressure, high school gangs, all affect who we are. Those who tend to see the negative before they see the positive are often reflecting the household they grew up in. When gossiping or small-minded people surround you in your formative years, it takes incredible strength of character an openness of vision to break out of the cycle. We tend to inherit our political, religious and social view of life from others. ´Group think’ can become such a powerful thing that it is almost impossible to escape its centripetal force. The current runs strong and only the vigorous will survive in their upstream quest. It is essential, therefore, to try to get out of the stream of negative peer pressure and begin to surround yourself with those who are flying in the same direction.

NUMBER 3: ATTITUDE REVEALS INNER BELIEFS
Attitude may be intangible, nebulous and hard to define. Yet it is easy to spot. The state of being ‘attitude neutral’ is almost impossible. We send out ‘vibes’ such as: ‘I’m bored with you.’ ‘I like you.’ ‘I’m interested in what you have to say’ All these rarely need to be verbalised. Our ttitude will do a powerful enough job by itself in getting these messages across, sometimes in the face of words that are saying the exact opposite. To put it another way, attitude is rather like a smell . . . whether you happen to smell nice or nasty at this particular moment, is something that is already known by those who are in relatively close proximity. Our attitudes, in the same way, will quickly waft throughout our environment

NUMBER 4: ATTITUDE ATTRACTS PEOPLE JUST LIKE US
We don’t get the friends we want in life. We get the friends we are. We attract others or repel them not by our looks but by our attitudes. The negative gossip traders will quickly discover others just like them, and their constant attitude of pessimism will ensure that they never come into contact with people-loving, people-believing optimists. I have noticed after being involved with various staffs and companies over the years that probably the greatest asset a manager can have is the ability to get along with people. Good people skills are by and large a product of attitude. The tragedy is that people with a lousy attitude don’t realise that’s what the problem is. John Maxwell quotes one company’s survey on why customers quit a certain retail franchise. The results were startling:
• 1% because of death
• 5% had developed other friendships
• 3% had moved
• 9% the price was what put them off
• 14% was product dissatisfaction
• But a massive 68% of customers who had quit shopping in this particular retail outlet had done so because of the indifference of an employee.

NUMBER 5: ATTITUDE AFFECTS REALITY
Attitude is not only about interpreting what is happening, a sort of ‘feel-good’ hype up which anaesthetises the pain of reality. No, attitude has the ability to actually change our worlds. Attitude is not only an internal disposition but it interacts with society, with emotional responses and practical doing. In fact the term attitude is often defined by psychologists in a far broader way than many of us would have in mind when we use the word. Attitude covers three areas: Behaviour. Cognition. Affection. Affection could be defined as our evaluation of, liking or emotional response to people, concepts or objects. Cognition has more to do with our beliefs and knowledge about these things. Whereas behaviour is the way we actually act towards the person, the concept or the object. Regardless of who you are or what you do, having your attitude rethought and reengineered will always move you forward in the direction of your dreams, aspirations and hopes.

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