ON ATTITUDE

ATTITUDE

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company . . . a church . . . a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past . . . we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. . . I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90 % how I react to it. And so it is with you . . . we are in charge of our attitudes.

Charles Swindoll



The Top 10 Tips to Change Your Attitude Today by Jim Allen

1. Think like you want to be!

It's tough to be happy, joyful, successful, etc. if you don't think that you are a happy, joyful, and successful person. Think it first, then do it!

2. Smile!

There's no arguing with this one -- research has shown that smiling has both psychological and physiological effects. So, put a smile on your face and you'll be on your way to a change in attitude!

3. Immerse yourself!

Read books, articles, magazines that help you understand and adopt the new attitude. Watch films or listen to music that inspires you and encourages you to change.

4. Change your actions!

It's hard to change your attitude if you keep doing the same old stuff the same old way. Do things differently to start thinking differently.

5. Change your environment!

Make your environment reflect the attitude you wish to have. Create the physical space that makes you eager to change.

6. Follow the leader!

Find someone who already has the attitude you wish to have. Follow their lead, learn from their example.

7. Help others (and help yourself)!

One of the fastest ways to change your attitude is to take the focus off yourself and to help others in need.

8. Get a little help from your friends!

Let everyone know what you're doing and enlist their support to help you change and give you ideas. The more you feel like you're part of a group effort, the more likely you are to be successful.

9. Get a pro!

If the change you desire to make is a big one or is extremely radical, consider getting the help of a mentor, counselor, or coach. These professionals can reduce the time and frustration involved as well as provide you with many new ideas to help you grow.

10. Be patient!

Recognize that most changes occur slowly, over an extended period of time. If you don't get immediate results, don't be surprised and DON'T QUIT!

Keep working, it'll come.

iN aLL THAT YOU DO . . . bE aN 11!

"Optimism is an intellectual choice."

Diana Schneider

Did you ever see a pessimistic infant? Of course not. People choose pessimism over optimism because they derive some peculiar satisfaction from spreading gloom.

You have free will, so exercise it. Choose to be hopeful and confident.

...Go through life expecting good things. And do all you can to fulfill your optimistic outlook.

Play with a Winning Assumption

It's easy to stay motivated when things are going good. But motivation is often a matter of dealing with discouragement. Lots of things can be discouraging (dis-courage). You might be passed over for a promotion. You might be let go. You might be ignored. Might make critical mistakes, costly missteps, and bad calls.

You might get broken. You might end up in debt. Might get rejected. Might get cheated. Might fail to deliver. You might miss the opportunity, or blow the chance of a lifetime. Your competition might leap ahead, leaving you feeling small, insecure and behind.

And devastating discouragement isn't just tied to things going wrong.

Having not yet mastered your chosen skill can depress. So can knowing you have a long way to go, or seeing yourself near the bottom of an org. chart, or looking at a low bank account balance.

Often times after my keynote presentations, someone asks, "Do you ever get down, or depressed?"... "Nope, and I never go to the bathroom either," is my internal reply. Of course I get discouraged and down. I'm taking risks, and a lot of them are crashing. I'm knocking on doors, and a lot of them are not opening.

I've got dreams, and a lot of them aren't happening. And, I want to be the best, and most of the time, I just ain't there yet. (Anyone seriously questioning what I get discouraged over just needs to look over my "Ooops" list.

Every single goof on that list discouraged me for a while, or two).

But there is a philosophy that re-encourages: Play with a winning assumption.

What is a winning assumption? Figure it out for yourself from this

scenario: Your favorite football team plays a big game, and you couldn't watch so you had it taped. On the way home to watch the taped game, your eyes accidentally glance at a newspaper headline that declares your team won.

At home, you sit to watch the game anyway. Your best friend sits down to watch with you - he roots for the same team - but he doesn't know the final outcome. At the end of the first quarter, your team is down by 7 points. Ne ither you, nor your friend, is really concerned.

By the end of the 2nd quarter, your team is behind by 14. Your friend is agitated and nervous. You're calm and confident. The 3rd quarter rushes by and as the game heads into the 4th quarter, your team is behind by a devastating 21 points. Your friend is feeling depressed and angry.

He gives up, gets up and leaves, declaring, "It's over. It's hopeless." How are you feeling? You're feeling excited, confident and anxious to see how your team pulls it off. You want your friend to stay and experience the victory.

What is a winning assumption? ... The deep-seated assumption that no matter how bad it currently looks, you win in the end if you keep playing your best. Once rooted in your very essence, it is an assumption so powerful that it will not only encourage you to keep playing, but also reassure you during hard times.

I don't know where I got this faith in a winning assumption. Maybe in part it came from the phrase my friend and mentor, Leland, would often repeat during discouraging times, "The last one standing wins." Or maybe because so far experience has taught me that all setbacks are followed by triumphs.

(Unless you give up, of course.) But these explanations only go so far to explain my belief in always picking myself back up.

Logically, I know I have not seen the end of my life on video, and have no real assurance that I come out on top.

So, sometimes I am perplexed by why I am almost always re- encouraged during my most vulnerable moments by the mantra, "Don't worry about it. Just keep playing. You win in the end. This discouraging moment just makes for a more thrilling comeback story." (Most of the time the mantra works so well I can smile at the circumstances that are torturing me - laughing on the inside over my future triumph.)

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe we have seen the end of the game, before it's even been played out. After all, when you've visualized your dreams coming true time after time, you just naturally "see" yourself winning once again.

Until next time, be great, Patrick CombsSee More

Concentration

Power Axiom #3: Maintain your Focus.
What might you do this week to sharpen your Focus?

Remember: Keep your eyes single to the glory of the Championship Dream.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!! by Paul J. Meyer

There is power in positive expectancy!

More than any other characteristic, quality, or trait of human personality, an attitude of positive expectancy is the companion of success in every achievement, every worthwhile venture, every upward step in human progress.
William James, the founder of American psychology, said: "The one thing that will guarantee the successful conclusion of a doubtful undertaking is faith in the beginning that you can do it."

Gaining the Slight Edge!

The slight edge is enough to enable one person to exceed the achievements of others to an almost unbelievable degree. Yet the difference in skill, ability, and intelligence between winners and losers is almost always very small and insignificant. When two people are approximately equal in all other qualities, an attitude of positive expectancy makes the winning difference in their performance.

* The difference between a .250 and .350 batting average is only one hit every ten times at bat! Yet that difference brings huge rewards!

* A one-stroke advantage in a golf tournament can bring about enormous dividends!

Believe in yourself!

* When you believe in yourself, others will believe in you.

* They will put their trust in your ideas

* They will cooperate with you.

* And they will receive the same benefits of this positive expectancy from their own experience.

Believing in yourself and in your work enables you to multiply your efforts and magnify your results.

Develop an Attitude of Positive Expectancy!

An attitude of positive expectancy provides the slight edge not only in athletics but also in every area of your life.

Positive expectancy:

Transforms you into a self-starter. Pushes you to develop your potential. Inspires you to use your imagination and creativity. Impels you to take purposeful action. Produces determination. Forces you to improve and to change. Enables you to gain the slight edge!
With positive expectancy, you can surpass your prior levels of success and often achieve a great deal more than others who lack that essential quality. There is magic in positive expectancy!!!
To gain the slight edge and to become even more like your Creator intended you to be, begin now to adopt these beliefs and make them operative in your life:

1. A no-limitations belief in yourself. - You are unique. Your dreams come from the essence of who you really are.

2. A no-limitations belief in the potential of other people. Helping other people recognize their potential and use it meaningfully provides a rich, fulfilling sense of accomplishment. Always encourage others and be willing to give them an opportunity to prove what they can be and what they can do.
Helping others find their slight edge sharpens your own.

3. A no-limitations belief in potentials and possibilities. The greatest dreams are yet to be dreamed. The most constructive concepts are yet to be formulated. The most successful plans are yet to be drawn!

Positive Expectancy Works!

1. It gives you the power of concentration. By focusing all of your thoughts, plans, and actions on the object of your belief, you 1) define your priorities, 2) block out your obstacles, 3) maintain your enthusiasm, and 4) take responsibility for actions necessary to reach your goal.

2. It activates the law of attraction: like attracts like, 1) You attract positive influences and positive situations, and 2) you are drawn to positive results.

3. It works through visualization: You can only be what you visualize yourself being. You can do only what you visualize yourself doing. You can have only what you visualize yourself having.

Develop an attitude of positive expectancy. Mental images act as stimuli to both the conscious and subconscious mind.
When you meet any kind of obstacle or roadblock, try again immediately.
Setbacks are supposed to be temporary they become permanent failure only if you stop trying.
Refuse to let what anyone says, thinks, or does discourage you! Put into action the power of positive expectancy and proceed and persevere!
The slight edge, bolstered by the power of positive expectancy, empowers you to build a storehouse of accomplished goals.
Take time to record your accomplishments in writing. A written record serves as a source of satisfaction, providing a warm glow of achievement that can sustain you through tough times and serve as a wellspring of encouragement to yourself and to others.

It's All About Attitude

“You can do everything wrong and still succeed, If you have The Right Mental Attitude.”

What’s up with that? How can that be? Everything wrong and still succeed?
Not possible you say? Consider this. Bill Gutman’s book, Parcells, chronicles the coach’s remarks concerning the AFC Championship Game against Jacksonville in 1997, “We played so hard, the mental errors we made did not show up. Even when we would do things wrong, we’d tackle the guy for a loss three of four times.”
There you have it, enough said, straight from the Big Tuna’s mouth. You see, when everyone has the same goal, and a burning whitehot desire to accomplish that goal, you may not dot all the Is and cross all your Ts properly, but the end result is still the achievement of the ultimate desired behavior.
Of course, the opposite is also true . . . “You can do everything right and still not succeed if you have the wrong mental attitude.” Years ago I coached a free safety who did everything right. He lined up properly, was always in position, always took the proper pursuit angle, knew who his man was, called the right coverage. He always ‘stayed deep, kept his feet, and kept everyone in front of him,’ too far in front of him. Thing was he rarely ever made a tackle. He was always ‘right there’ standing between the pile and the goal line ready to take that ball carrier down if he would happen to break the tackle of a teammate. He just never would initiate the tackle; everything right and still not succeed.
Being a History teacher I am reminded of Union General George B McClellan, the one Lincoln referred to as having a “case of the slows.” Civil War historian, Bruce Catton, describes it this way: “McClellan had nearly all of the gifts: youth, energy, charm, intelligence, sound professional training. But the fates who gave him these gifts left out the one that a general must have before all others---the hard, instinctive fondness for fighting.” His adversary, Robert E. Lee, had it. Lee was one of the most pugnacious soldiers in American History. Lee is the one who said, “ It is well that we know how terrible war really is, else we would grow too fond of it.” McClellan, an engineer, who had every advantage a general could have at the time, did everything right and by the book. And he was never able to win the decisive victory that Union needed to bring about an early end to the war. Instead he was a ‘Master of Retreat.’ What Lincoln needed was a general who would attack, much like Grant did at the end of the war. U. S. Grant. Unconditional Surrender Grant. Now there’s a piece of work. Talk about doing things wrong, did he ever. But he still succeeded. Why? Well, you get the picture by now, right?
“We played so hard . . .” that’s what it is all about. That’s desire.
And that will take you to victory more often than proper pursuit angles, blanket coverages, safety blitzes. The desire of people to rid the country of slavery brought a victory for the Union Army that ground its way to victory in Virginia.
Of course, what would happen if you, your team, would combine that intense, whitehot, burning desire, that right mental attitude with sound FUNdaMENTAL play? Better tackling, proper coverages, correct angles of pursuit, positioning, etc.?

Can you say CHAMPIONSHIP!
Remember, The Sky’s the Limit!

ON ATTITUDE

Change the Attitude in Order to Change the Performance
By CoachFree

John Maxwell opens his book The Winning Attitude with the following
story:

It was a beautiful day in San Diego, and my friend Paul wanted to take me for a ride in his airplane. Being new to Southern California, I decided to see our home territory from a different perspective. We sat in the cockpit as Paul completed his instrument checks. Everything was A-okay, so Paul revved the engines and we headed down the runway. As the plane lifted off, I noticed the nose was higher than the rest of the airplane. I also noticed that while the countryside was truly magnificent, Paul continually watched the instrument panel.
Since I am not a pilot, I decided to turn the pleasure ride into a learning experience. “All those gadgets,” I began, “what do they tell you?
I notice you keep looking at that one instrument more than the others. What is it?”
“That’s the attitude indicator,” he replied.
“How can a plane have an attitude?”
“In flying, the attitude of the airplane is what we call the position of the aircraft in relation to the horizon.”
By now my curiosity had been aroused, so I asked him to explain more. “When the airplane is climbing,” he said, “it has a nose-high attitude because the nose of the airplane is pointed above the horizon.” So, I jumped in, “when the aircraft is diving, you would call that a nose-down attitude.”
“That’s right,” My instructor continued. “Pilots are concerned about attitude of the airplane because that indicates its performance.”
“Now I understand why the attitude indicator is in such a prominent place on the panel,” I replied.
Paul sensing I was an eager student continued, “Since the performance of the airplane depends on its attitude, it is necessary to change the attitude in order to change the performance.”
He demonstrated this by bringing the aircraft into a nose-high attitude. Sure enough, the plane began to climb and speed decreased. He changed the attitude, and that changed the performance.

This story relates to point number four of our BFS Magic Formula for Winning: 1.) Decide exactly what you want; 2.) Plan, in detail, how you are going to get it; 3.) engage in massive action; 4.) Evaluate the feedback; 5.) Change your approach till you get what you want. Maxwell’s story focuses on the fact that if you change your attitude, you change the performance.

Everyone is involved in a performance everyday. All of us are totally successful all day, every day. Each of us has successfully lived each day all day, every day, every minute, every hour, successfully lived. We have always produced a set of behaviors that have gotten us through the each day, week, month, year till this moment in time.

Now all behavior has consequences. If the consequences of your behaviors are not what you want, planned or desired, why is that? You need to evaluate the feedback, i.e., to study the consequences of your behavior. If you are not getting desired results, then simply change your approach until you get what you want. And it all begins with attitude. When you change the attitude, you change the performance.
Let’s say that you have studied and prepared for a test. You take it and do not score near what you wanted. Let’s say it is the SAT or ACT test. Your score is low. What are you going to do?

To raise your score you would need to change your approach, take SAT prep classes, buy some SAT prep materials, hone your skills to better prepare yourself, take and retake the sample tests. Then, better prepared, you take the test again to post a better score.

Most people are unaware of the fact that the military academies each have a preparatory school that exists to elevate the scores of potential candidates so that they would be better prepared for the academia of the academies. Part of the program is to keep retaking the SAT test during the year to attain the required score for appointment to the regular academy. Change your approach till you get what you want.

Very often it all begins with attitude. When exercising the BFS Magic Formula for Winning perhaps the first feedback check should be on our attitude. If your change your attitude, you change your performance.

Motivationalist Zig Ziglar says the most debilitating illness is “Stink’in think’in” that leads to a hardening of the attitudes requiring a “checkup from the neck-up.” Keep in mind that if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got. Change your attitude and you’ll change your performance. You can do everything wrong and still succeed if you have the right mental attitude.

Very often people are not going where they truly want to go, not doing what they truly want to do, are not being what they want to be or have what they want to have. They get caught up in the current most happen’in thing.

They get caught up in the job trap:
“Coach, can’t go out for the team this year.”
“Why’s that?”
“Got a job.”
“Why did you get a job?”
“To pay for my car.”
“Why do you have a car?”
“So I can get to my job.”

Vicious cycle, snared, entrapped in behaviors they never intended. They have lost sight of their intended result. They take their eyes off the goal and suddenly see the obstacles. They forgot that the major reason for failure in life is giving up what you want most for what you want at the moment.

Is what you are doing taking you closer to or farther away from what you truly desire? Evaluate the results you are getting. If you do not have what you truly desire, change your approach to get what you want and that initial change usually deals with attitude.
Did I mention there is a shortcut to the formula? Simply copy the successful behaviors of those who have already achieved what you wish to achieve.

Do what they do. People do what people see. This is where BFS can really help. BFS has helped hundreds of programs achieve state championship performance levels. Thousands upon thousands of athletes have elevated their performance with the BFS Total Strength and Conditioning Program and the Be An 11 Seminars. The program is in place; the planning has been done. Get yourself to take action then follow through and perform at levels previously thought to be impossible. Astound those around you.

Like in the story of David and Goliath. With Goliath standing over nine feet tall, David’s friends, relatives and countrymen thought Goliath was too big to hit. He might become angrier and take it out on everyone. David’s attitude? Goliath was too big to miss! By the way, ever wonder why David picked up five stones? Goliath had four oversized brothers who might have come to Goliath’s aid. Now that’s going into the fray with the right mental attitude, one stone for each Philistine.

To get more of what you want use Power Axiom #4: Focus on the desired outcome and then change your approach, beginning with your attitude till you get what you want. Do not allow yourself to be anything less than you are truly capable of being.

In all that you do --- Be An 11!