Is Attitude Always Everything?

And the chorus sings “Attitude is Everything!”

It is said so often that it has become a cliché…Attitude is everything!

But is it really? Yes and no. It’s not everything if you aren’t working.

Don’t kid yourself about your attitude. Just being a happy, positive person isn’t enough. Anyone can be pleasant when they don’t have anything to do or aren’t under any pressure.

A great attitude goes beyond that. 
It means you’re committed to a goal. It means you are willing to face challenges without hesitation. It means you can be counted on. People who have great attitudes are energized and focused. They work hard and they work long. They have a toughness and consistency about them that gives encouragement to those they work with. It shows up when things are going well and when they are going bad. It goes well beyond just being an easy-going, happy guy.

You can have a wonderful attitude but without wonderful activity it's not going to do you much good.

Winning Is A Way of Life

Winning is not a sometime thing.  

It’s not a one-time thing, it’s something you can build your life around. It's who you are. It's your approach to life.

It's your attitude. 

If you won something, that is one achievement in time, but winning or a winning approach means you decide to take charge of your life.  

“Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” –Vince Lombardi

If you want the best in one area of your life, you want it in the others too. If you are successful in one area but miserable in others its going to drag you down.

If you are successful in business, making lots of money yet your health, family and personal life is terrible, what good does it do you? You aren’t going to be able to get much enjoyment out of your hard earned success.

There’s no settle for second best in anything
In every phase of your life you realize things can be better. There’s nothing that can’t be improved. In fact the same approaches that allow you to be successful in one area of your life can work in others.

It doesn’t matter if things aren’t going well right now because no matter how bad things are going, you can turn things around and move back up. No matter how bad, bleak, dark the situation is, it can be improved.  

The same is true of success
No matter how high you go, how big a success you have, you can make it bigger. The lessons you learned on your way up can be used to take you higher.

The higher you climb, the higher you can climb.

Winning is a way of life, not just a sometime thing, it’s an all-the-time thing.

Nowitzki Gives Romo Bad Advice

Well meaning advice isn’t always true

When the Dallas Cowboys were getting beat week after week early in the 2011 season they got a lot of criticism. They were hugely talented and expectations were for them to be legitimate Super Bowl contenders.  Super Bowl contenders are supposed to win. When they kept getting beat the criticism came in loud and clear from all corners. To the rescue came local basketball hero Dirk Nowitzki fresh off the Dallas Mavericks recent NBA championship.

Dirk gave encouragement—and really bad advice
Dirk told quarterback Tony Romo and the others that they shouldn’t worry. He reminded them the Mavericks, formed in 1980, had gone without ever winning an NBA Championship until this year and Dirk himself had been with the team since 1998. But, Dirk continued, “if you just keep on working to improve eventually your day will come and you’ll win a Super Bowl.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong! The Cowboys bought this lie—hook, line and sinker. The pressure was off—they could relax. The sting of defeat was not nearly as bad because they now happily believed that eventually they would win. It was inevitable...Dirk said so! 

No one is ever guaranteed a championship
Unfortunately, championships are never inevitable. You have to go win them. You have to beat someone who wants it just as bad as you. You have to fight. You have to give it everything you have. If the Cowboys were aware of the perhaps they wouldn’t have finished this season with such a spineless underachieving performance and let themselves get knocked out of the playoffs by the mediocre New York Giants.

This team needs a reality check - bad. They need to be jolted with the truth that no one is ever guaranteed success. Just because you’re talented and think you work hard doesn’t entitle you to anything. The world owes you nothing. Don’t ever think they are going to mail you a trophy just because you worked up a sweat. Sweat and hard work is what everyone does. 

All hard work does is give you is a CHANCE to win
In the real world you can work hard for years and years, pay an incredible price, make incredible sacrifices and still never win the “big one.” When you work hard, you take things seriously. You sacrifice and pay the extra prices. But that’s just practice and preparation. All you’re doing is putting yourself in a position to win your championship. Sooner or later the time will come where you actually have to go play the game, compete and win it. The Dallas Cowboys don’t act like they understand this part of winning and as a result, for almost 20 years, they have underachieved at the end of the season, piling up one disappointment after another for their fans to endure.

There is a fine line between mediocrity and greatness and when you think you are entitled to win you always get beat. Wake up, Cowboys.

Failure Taught McIlroy Winning

He now sees the beauty of failure

22 year old Rory McIlory was one of the biggest news makers in professional golf in 2011. This young and phenomenally talented golfer captured the imagination of the golf world as he surged to the lead in last April at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Unfortunately, the pressure was too intense and he blew a 4 shot lead with a final round 80. 

The key is how you react
Many observers worried that this crushing failure would scar his psyche and as it had so many other golfers in the past. This was a devastating loss and a huge disappointment. The way Rory responded proved again that it’s not what happens to you it’s how you respond to what happens to you. McIlory told Brian Keogh of IrishGolfDesk.com “the Masters was huge for me, it was a huge disappointment at the time but reflecting upon it… it was probably the most important day of my career so far.” In fact, if I look back on my career in 20 years that day in Augusta was probably the defining moment in my career. It was definitely the point where I reached the crossroads in my career where I could keep going the wrong way or really take responsibility for myself and say ‘right, this is what I’ve got to do to get better and win, and improve as a player.’”

He re-evaluated everything about his game. He worked hard to improve weak areas. He made a lot of adjustments in his entourage, his support team and even changed his agent. He took responsibility for all areas himself and positioned himself to win.

Take responsibility and good things can happen
A few short months later, the young golfer had a completely different result in a major championship.  He electrified the golf world with a decisive victory at the US Open – which many say is the most challenging golf tournament of all.  Because he had taken responsibility for his previous collapse he was able to stay strong and handle the pressure when it came time to win again.  By winning he sent a loud message to us all that if you respond the right way to devastating failures in your life it can open the door to even more staggering successes.  

Failure can open the door to winning, it all depends on how you respond.  

Thanksgiving—A Holiday For Winners

Winners are thankful 

Winners are focused on the long term, doing the right thing, building something for the future, giving back, and winners are appreciative. They appreciate good health, family, friends, the opportunity to be free and the opportunities that freedom provides. They are grateful for those who went before them and created their opportunities.

Losers take things for granted

They believe they are entitled. They don’t appreciate the things they have or the things others do for them. They are selfish and looking for their next handout. They think the world owes them. It never enters their minds to give back or do something for others. 

Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate values.     

Winners don’t take things for granted, but anybody can forget. It’s normal to forget—which is why this is the holiday for winners! It gives us a particular chance to make sure we don’t forget.  It forces us to pause, reflect and give thinks to God, our country, our friends, the ones who came before us, give us all of our opportunities and to be grateful and to celebrate all that we’ve been blessed with.

Winners realize these blessings don’t come automatically and they don't come cheap.

Reflecting and giving thanks on that fact is healthy and helps keep one on track to maintain a winning attitude necessary to succeed in life. Unfortunately, losers have a sour attitude and will go through the week complaining about all the problems they have and how everyone else has things better. Winners know better.

They know life isn’t perfect. They know that though they have as many problems or more than others, they also have many blessings.

So while losers will be wallowing in self-pity, only the winners will celebrating, and that's why it's their holiday!

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What are you most thankful for right now?

"I Had Confidence in One Thing"

Dive in with confidence and focus. Now isn't the time to flounder.Young Brett Burks had a problem.

After graduating from college he dove head first into starting his own financial services company. He spent a good amount of time apprenticing the business, getting all the licenses and mastering the basics. He was excited and successful. Eventually he branched out on his own.

In spite of overwhelming odds, he not only got his new business off the ground, he built it into a national leader! His life was set. He had paid the price of starting up a new business and now he was looking forward to a lifetime of rewards. Sure, he would continue to work hard but the nasty, scary and round-the-clock start up phase was behind him.

Until he went to a January convention.

That’s when he met the bubbly and beautiful Andrea. She was perfect! AND she also was already involved in the same business. Young love! PERFECT love!  Except as we all know, life doesn’t work that way. Andrea is from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida—a long way from Virginia where Brett had gone to school and lived. She wasn’t moving. Brett realized if they were going to have a life together it would have to be in Ft. Lauderdale.

He now faced the problem - he would have to put himself through another start up. This time it would be even more difficult since he knew no one there and had never lived there - no familiar stomping grounds. He swallowed hard and decided to move. In 90 days, he and Andrea had made a breakthrough and things started to compound.

Three years after the move their team had grown larger than the one he left behind. Their income exploded as well and they earned well over $1 million in that third year.

I asked Brett what was going through his mind when he made his move.

I knew it had to be nerve wracking for him because when you start something new, you can never be sure how successful it will be. And this time he knew how much work he was getting into since he had just done it.

I wanted to know what gave him the confidence to go. He told me he had total confidence in one thing.

“I was sure of one thing and that gave me confidence. I was confident that I would do WHATEVER it took for as long as it took to win. That took all the insecurity away. I had done it before and I knew I could do it again if I paid the price.”

Talk about a winning attitude!

You win when you do 2 things: 

1. Stop worrying about all the things that can go wrong 

2. Focus on what you can do and to commit to do it until you win. 

Brett did exactly that and it paid off for him big-time.

A Delicious Personal Indulgence

Winners learn that they can't afford negatives.  

Negatives are a delicious personal indulgence that winners learn they can't afford.  They've learned that indulging in excuse making, blaming others, whining and complaining about what they don't have doesn't improve their situation at all.  

It may make them feel better.
It may give them some comfort, like a warm blanket, but it doesn't get them where they want to go.   

Winners know they have to do things that others won't do.
They have to do things that will separate them from the pack.  On the other hand, they have the same amount of time as everyone else.  They've learned that success comes from making things happen in the time available to them and any negativity they indulge in is counterproductive.

It’s a mark of maturity.
Winners are just as prone to excuse making and whining as anyone else. However, over time they learn that doesn't get them where they want to go. As a result, they learn how to avoid it. It's part of the maturing process that leaders go through.   

Avoiding negativity is not a trait you're born with, it's a decision you make.