Attitude Is Everything!

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed Him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied,

"Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life." I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins.

Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.

"I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

To Read When You're Alone

I was 13 years old. My family had moved to Southern California from North Florida a year before. I hit adolescence with a vengeance. I was angry and rebellious, with little regard for anything my parents had to say, particularly if it had to do with me. Like so many teenagers, I struggled to escape from anything that didn't agree with my picture of the world. A "brilliant without need of guidance" kid, I rejected any overt offering of love. In fact, I got angry at the mention of the word love.

One night, after a particularly difficult day, I stormed into my room, shut the door and got into bed. As I lay down in the privacy of my bed, my hands slipped under my pillow. There was an envelope. I pulled it out and on the envelope it said, "To read when you're alone."

Since I was alone, no one would know whether I read it or not, so I opened it. It
said, "Mike, I know life is hard right now, I know you are frustrated and I know we don't do everything right. I also know that I love you completely and nothing you do or say will ever change that. I am here for you if you ever need to talk, and if you don't, that's okay. Just know that no matter where you go or what you do in your life, I will always love you and be proud that you are my son. I'm here for you and I love you--that will never change. Love, Mom."

That was the first of several "To read when you're alone" letters. They were never mentioned until I was an adult.

Today, I travel the world helping people. I was in Sarasota, Florida, teaching a seminar when, at the end of the day, a lady came up to me and shared the difficulty she was having with her son. We walked out to the beach, and I told her of my mom's undying love and about the "To read when you're alone" letters. Several weeks later, I got a card that said she had written her first letter and left it for her son.

That night as I went to bed, I put my hands under my pillow and remembered the relief I felt every time I got a letter. In the midst of my turbulent teen years, the letters were the calm assurance that I could be loved in spite of me, not because of me. Just before I fell asleep I thanked God that my mom knew what I, an angry teenager, needed.

Today when the seas of life get stormy, I know that just under my pillow there is that calm assurance that love--consistent, abiding, unconditional love--changes lives.

Positive Attitude

She is 92 years old, petite, well poised, and proud. She is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed, and her makeup perfectly applied, in spite of the fact she is legally blind. Today she has moved to a nursing home. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making this move necessary.
After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, where I am employed, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year old having just been presented with a new puppy. "Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room....just wait," I said. Then she spoke these words that I will never forget: "That does not have anything to do with it," she gently replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like the room or not, does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind. I have already decided to love it. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all of the happy memories I have stored away....just for this time in my life.


** You possess a God-given power to generate happiness. Create happiness for yourself by rejoicing with what you have! There are no "things" that will make you happy. You have to choose to be happy. Do it for yourself -- the time is now! **

11 Ways To Raise Your Perseverance

1. Be grown up, which means, be independent, and take responsibility for yourself.
When you step out, take risks, and succeed some people may be envious or fearful that they're "losing" the former you. This can cause them to be critical of your new aspirations and plans. They become "dream stealers." When you are overly concerned about what your family, friends and acquaintances might say, you might lose your drive to persevere and let your dreams fade away. This may be a great time to develop new friends who support your goals and gladly celebrate your achievements. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to abandon the old ones. But let them know how you feel. Just give them a little room to catch up with the new you!

2. Intentionally select positive re-enforcement. When you purchase books and tapes, movies and other media for your entertainment, seek those with strong, uplifting themes. Select those which nurture your spirit. Avoid as much negative messaging as
possible, including other outside influences that bring you down. For instance, why would you choose to read a magazine article or watch a news program that leaves you depressed or angry? For those times when negativity unavoidably invades your space, find something to learn from it or something humorous about it. When someone hands you the thorns, find the roses!

3. Live healthy. Energy and stamina are musts for perseverance. You need them for focus, resilience, optimism, self-confidence, clarity and intensity. You have seen from the above quiz how much each of these affects your Perseverance Quotient!

4. Ask, "What is true?" not "What do others think is true?" To make effective decisions, you must take the responsibility of perceiving reality as accurately as possible. Decision-making is not a popularity contest and there's definitely no guarantee that what the majority thinks or believes is compatible with the truth. This includes the people the majority regard as experts. When you seek the truth, you're being true to yourself. When you're true to yourself, you nourish your will to persevere.

5. When getting advice, consider the source. If you want to shorten the distance from perseverance to achievement, you want to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than repeating them yourself. And you want to use the methods that have brought others the success you seek. If you're planning to climb Mt Everest, who will you look to for advice? The best source is someone else who has done it!! If you want to pilot an airplane, would you listen to advice from Aunt Matilda who has never done anything in her life more demanding than entering a Bridge contest? Would you ask your accountant? Your best friend? Or would you seek advice from someone who is a successful pilot? If you wanted to start a small business, would you seek advice from someone at work, your minister, a university professor, a corporate person, or from someone who is already successful in the business? And here's a fascinating corollary: if you are looking for a way out, an excuse to quit, you need go no farther than Aunt Matilda, your accountant, the folks at work, etc. You'll get all the negative encouragement necessary to put your dream back on the shelf.

6. Avoid the "no action" alibi. We've all been guilty from time to time of using convenient alibis for not persevering. Eric Hoffer, who had spent much of his life as a "simple" longshoreman, is a great example of someone who didn't let other people's stereotypes, which he could have used as no-action alibis, prevent him from becoming a best-selling philosopher-author. And Eric Hoffer says it well: "There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. "But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything, we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book and not painting a picture and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement." The important thing is to be totally honest with ourselves; recognize the alibi for what it is and not make alibis a way of life.

7. Identify counterproductive habits or thoughts you would like to discontinue. Then dump them! Being mentally or emotionally rigid means that you hang on to habits that no longer serve you, habits that can make you unproductive, frustrated and unfulfilled. Examples of counterproductive habits that may reduce your will to persevere:
---Grousing about politics, work or the neighbors with friends
---Blowing small aggravations out of proportion
---Dwelling in the past
---Worrying about stuff that may not even happen, or that you cannot control
---Viewing yourself as a victim
---Worrying about what others are doing or what others have.
"Be true to yourself."
Focus on what you can do, not what you cannot do. When you focus on what you cannot do, you get more of it!
Keep YOUR pace. It's different from the pace of others. Forget the Jones's, and don't feel guilty about moving ahead of some of your contemporaries. Remember the story of "The Hare and the Tortoise." Live the life YOU want to live; earn what YOU want to earn; do what YOU want to do. Don't be too concerned about how others are living their lives.

8. Willingly forgive yourself and others. Do this for your own sake, your own peace of mind. Carrying around the emotions of grudges, disapproval, hatred, or disappointment is toxic to your spirit of perseverance. Whether the subject person is someone else or yourself, you are the one feeling the wound. You don't hurt others when you hold hatred toward them; you hurt yourself. And you can hurt yourself seriously by allowing hatred to fester in your consciousness. You can't experience anger and joy at the same time---so leave plenty of room for the joy!

9. Take reasonable risks. Without risk, there's no reward. Risk avoidance dampens the spirit, undermining the will to persist in the face of obstacles and reversals. The choice not to choose is probably one of the riskiest choices you can ever make, with zero upside potential!

10. Get support. You deserve to be around folks supportive of your aspirations. All good psychologists, counselors, coaches and teachers will tell you that you must have exposure to a positive environment. Napoleon Hill called it a Mastermind Group.

11. Don't quit.
When you feel yourself slipping, remember Sparky. School was all but impossible for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics, Latin, algebra and English in high school. He didn't do much better in sports. Although he did manage to make the school golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the year. There was a consolation match and he lost that, too. Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. He was not actually disliked by the other students; he wasn't considered consequential enough for that! He was astonished if a classmate ever said "hello" to him outside school hours. He never found out how he would have fared as a "date." In high school, Sparky never once asked a girl out. He was too afraid of being rejected. Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates, and everyone else knew it, so Sparky simply accepted it. But one thing was important to Sparky: drawing. He was proud of his own artwork. Of course, no one else appreciated it. In his senior year in high school, he submitted some cartoons to the editors of his yearbook. They were turned down. Despite this particularly painful rejection, Sparky had found his passion. Upon graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some samples of his artwork, and the subject matter for a cartoon was suggested. Sparky drew the proposed cartoon. He spent a great deal of time on it and on the other drawings. Finally the reply from the Disney Studios came. He had been rejected once again another loss for the loser. Sparky wrote his own autobiography in cartoons. He described his childhood self, a little-boy loser and chronic under achiever. He was the little cartoon boy whose kite would never fly, who never succeeded in kicking the football, and who became the most famous cartoon character of all, Charlie Brown! Sparky, the boy who failed every subject in the eighth grade and whose work was rejected again and again, was Charles Schulz. Charles Schulz persevered. He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. He earned and deserved that success. He had failed at everything else he had tried. He endured rejection. It took a lot of trial and error to finally find out what it was that he was supposed to do. But he never quit. Because Charles Schulz persevered, the world is richer. Perseverance is the insurance policy and common denominator for success. So powerful is perseverance that failure cannot exist in its presence. As Edison observed when after thousands of efforts to make the electric light bulb produced no illumination, "I haven't failed. I've identified 10,000 ways this doesn't work" By accurately viewing it as a learning experience, eventually Edison succeeded, leaving the critics and nay-sayers one of mankind's most important inventions.
Charles Schulz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colonel Sanders, Thomas Edison, Ayn Rand and the endless list of other persistent great achievers found that success inevitably arrives for every person who perseveres. Learn from the people who did it: Let perseverance keep your goals alive and your dreams real. Do what you love to do. Stand up for what you believe in. Make it a part of your life. Work toward it every day. Remember with every "No" you are that much closer to a "Yes" And by learning from each defeat and staying the course, success are inevitable.