Attitude: Staying Positive In A Negative World

Five steps you can take today

Harvard and Stanford Universities have reported that 85% of the reason a person gets a job and gets ahead in that job is due to attitude; and only 15% is because of technical or specific skills. Interesting, isn’t it? People spend how much money on their education versus much money they spent on building their positive attitudes. Ouch – that hurts to think about.

Now here is an interesting thought. With the ‘right’ attitude, you can and will develop the necessary skills.

So where’s your emphasis? Skill building? Attitude building? Unfortunately, ‘neither’ is the real answer for many people.

Perhaps if more people knew how simple it is to develop and maintain a positive attitude they would invest more time doing so. So, here we go.

Five steps to staying positive in a negative world:

1. Understand that failure is an event, and not a person. Yesterday ended last night; today is a brand new day, and it is yours. You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and then you can expect to win.
2. Become a lifetime, or better yet a perpetual, student. Learn just one new word every day and in five years you will be able to talk with just about anybody about anything. When your vocabulary improves, your I.Q. goes up 100% of the time, according to Georgetown Medical School.
3. Read something informational or inspirational every day. Reading for 20 minutes at just 240 words per minute will enable you to read 20 200-page books each year. That is 18 more than the average person reads! What an enormous competitive advantage…if you will just read for 20 minutes a day.
4. Enroll in the ‘Transit University.’ The University of Southern California reveals that you can acquire the equivalent of two years of college education in three years. Just listening to motivational and educational tapes and CDs on the way to your job and again on the way home does this. What could be easier? Sitting in a lecture hall for hours? I think not!
5. Start the day and end the day with positive input into your mind. Inspirational messages cause the brain to flood with dopamine and norepinephrine, the energizing neurotransmitters; with endorphins, the endurance neurotransmitters; and with serotonin, the feel-good-about-yourself neurotransmitter. Begin and end the day by reading/listening to something positive.

Remember – Success is a process – not an event!

Invest the time in your attitude and it will pay off in your skills as well as your career.

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