Attitude underlies everything

It’s true – 90% of our life happens between our ears. MARCIA GRIFFIN

By Marcia Griffin

One of the great wake-up calls of my life occurred when I attended my first motivational talk – not long after I started the Pola business.

I found myself listening to an idea that I had never heard before – and at this stage of my life I had had fours years full time at university and eight years part-time.

The idea was very simply; that attitude underlies everything in our lives and ultimately determines our success and happiness.

Now just think about this – I had never heard the word attitude used in any of the university business studies, and here for the first time I had someone explaining that what and how we think is the key determinant of success and happiness.

The Oxford dictionary defines attitude as a settled way of thinking.

Henry Ford put it another way: “If you think you can, you can; if you think you can’t, you cant – either way you are right!”

Once I heard someone say that 90% of our life happens between our ears. The power of our attitude, or our settled way of thinking is extraordinary and there are many incredible examples of how attitude can take people through huge challenges.

I think of the Para-Olympians, I think of any disabled person who wakes every morning and has to deal with the most basic of challenges and commits to being happy.

When I look back to my Pola business, it was interesting to see people, mainly women, join the company with the same set of tools – a training manual, products and the same assistance in getting their distributorships started.

But the differences in outcomes was enormous. The greatest difference lay in the attitude of the people – those who decided to make a success regardless of the obstacles and those who blamed the cost of the product, the lack of customer interest etc.

I was always fascinated by the number of excuses dreamed up for a poor attitude.

No-one over 16 years ever came to me and said I am not succeeding because of my own attitude!!

Now no-one is born with a great attitude, so how do you get it? My experience is it’s something we have to work on continuously. I really believe we get a great start in attitude from our parents. If we are taught to deal with challenges and take responsibility from an early age, we are more likely to have a positive way of thinking.

To succeed in business, a positive way of thinking is critical – every business has huge challenges – but if you take the view that you will make it work and remain pro-actively positive in your thinking there is a great chance of success.

We need inspiration and role models for attitude, and while the world is full of blame, negativity and poor attitude, there are some amazing role models for a positive way of thinking.

The bookstores are filled with books about attitude and I have to plug my own here – High Heeled Success (see below).

The way we think – our attitude – will make or break each day of our lives. How is your thinking? How is your attitude?

To read more Marcia Griffin blogs, click here.

High Heeled Success is Marcia Griffin’s latest book, and is a frank account of building a business from a solitary sales person to a multi-million dollar business with 4700 sales consultants around Australia and New Zealand. It recounts successes and failures along the way and was written to inspire entrepreneurs-particularly women to triumph in business.

High Heeled Success (Kerr Publishing) is available directly from Marcia (marcia_Griffin@msn.com.au) or Domain Books www.domainbooks.biz.