Copyright © 2003 by Maxwell Motivation, Inc., a Georgia Corporation All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Scripture quotations noted NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Portions of this book were previously published in The Winning Attitude, Failing Forward, Your Roadmap for Success, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maxwell, John C., 1947– Attitude 101 / John C. Maxwell. p. cm. ISBN 0-7852-6350-0 (hardcover) 1. Success—Psychological aspects. 2. Attitude (Psychology). I. Title. BF637.S8 M3415 2002 153.8'5—dc21 2002011491 Printed in the United States of America 03 04 05 06 07 QW 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Publisher’s Preface PART I: THE IMPACT OF ATTITUDE 1. How Does Attitude Impact Leadership? 2. How Does Attitude Impact an Individual? PART II: THE FORMATION OF ATTITUDE 3. What Shapes a Person’s Attitude? 4. Can an Attitude Be Changed? 5. Can Obstacles Actually Enhance an Attitude? PART III: THE FUTURE WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE 6. What Is Failure? 7. What Is Success? 8. How Can a Leader Keep Climbing? Notes About the Author PUBLISHER’S PREFACE Who cares about a person’s attitude? As long as someone can do the job, you shouldn’t worry too much about it, right? If John Maxwell believed that, you wouldn’t have Attitude 101 in your hands right now. As America’s leadership expert, Dr. Maxwell has devoted his life to helping people become more successful. His books and seminars teach that anyone can be a REAL success if they master skills in four areas: Relationships, Equipping, Attitude, and Leadership. This book is designed to give you the essentials of attitude—in a quick, easy-to-read format. People’s lives are so hectic. Their time is valuable, and yet, they are also on information overload. More new information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand. A weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than average people in seventeenth-century England were likely to come across in their lifetime. The amount of information available in the world has doubled in the last five years, and it will keep doubling. So this book, a companion to Leadership 101, Relationships 101 (available January 2004), and Equipping 101 (available January 2004), is the short course on attitude. Dr. Maxwell recognizes that as an individual, your attitude has a profound impact on your life. As a leader, you cannot ignore the attitudes of the people you lead and expect to achieve success —whether you’re leading a business, a family, a sports team, or a group of volunteers. A person’s attitude impacts their relationships, colors their view of failure, and defines their approach to success. Attitude can make or break you. We are delighted to publish Attitude 101 because we realize that few things in life are a greater asset than an attitude of positive determination. Attitude 101 is designed to empower you and your team to succeed by helping you become equipped with the right kind of attitude. Here’s to your success—and to your reaching the next level! PART 1 THE IMPACT OF ATTITUDE I HOW DOES ATTITUDE IMPACT LEADERSHIP? Attitude is always a “player” on your team. Growing up, I loved basketball. It all started for me in the fourth grade when I saw a high school basketball game for the first time. I was captivated. After that, I could usually be found practicing my shooting and playing pickup games on my small court at home. By the time I got to high school, I had become a pretty good player. I started on the junior varsity team as a freshman, and when I was a sophomore, our JV team had a 15-3 record, which was better than that of the varsity. We were proud of our performance—maybe a little too proud. The next year, critics who followed high school basketball in Ohio thought our team had a chance to win the state championship in our division. I guess they looked at the players who would return as seniors from the previous year’s varsity team, saw the talent that would be moving up from the JV, and figured we would be a powerhouse. And we did have a lot of talent. How many high school teams in the late 1960s could say that all but a couple of players on the team could dunk the ball? But the season turned out far different from everyone’s expectations. FROM BAD TO WORSE From the beginning of the season, the team suffered problems. There were two of us juniors on the varsity who had the talent to start for the team: John Thomas, who was the team’s best rebounder, and me, the best shooting guard. We thought playing time should be based strictly on ability, and we figured we deserved our place on the team. The seniors, who had taken a backseat to the previous year’s seniors, thought we should be made to pay our dues and wait on the bench. What began as a rivalry between the JV and varsity the year before turned into a war between the juniors and the seniors. When we scrimmaged at practice, it was the juniors against the seniors. In games the seniors wouldn’t pass to the juniors and vice versa. The battles became so fierce that before long, the juniors and the seniors wouldn’t even work together on the court during games. Our coach, Don Neff, had to platoon us. The seniors would start, and when a substitution became necessary, he’d put not one but five juniors in the game. We became two teams on one roster. I don’t remember exactly who started the rivalry that split our team, but I do remember that John Thomas and I embraced it early on. I’ve always been a leader, and I did my share of influencing other team members. Unfortunately, I have to confess that I led the juniors in the wrong direction. What started as a bad attitude in one or two players made a mess of the situation for everyone. By the time we were in the thick of our schedule, even the players who didn’t want to take part in the rivalry were affected. The season was a disaster. In the end, we finished with a mediocre record and never came close to reaching our potential. It just goes to show you, rotten attitudes ruin a team. TALENT IS NOT ENOUGH From my high school basketball experience I learned that talent is not enough to bring success to a team. Of course, you need talent. My friend Lou Holtz, the outstanding college football coach, observed, “You’ve got to have great athletes to win . . . You can’t win without good athletes, but you can lose with them.” But it also takes much more than talented people to win. My high school teammates were loaded with talent, and if that were enough, we could have been state champions. But we were also loaded with rotten attitudes. You know which won the battle between talent and attitude in the end. Perhaps that is why to this day I understand the importance of a positive attitude and have placed such a strong emphasis on it for myself, for my children as they were growing up, and for the teams I lead. Years ago I wrote something about attitude for my book The Winning Attitude. I’d like to share it with you: Attitude . . . It is the “advance man” of our true selves. Its roots are inward but its fruit is outward. It is our best friend or our worst enemy. It is more honest and more consistent than our words. It is an outward look based on past experiences. It is a thing which draws people to us or repels them. It is never content until it is expressed. It is the librarian of our past. It is the speaker of our present. 1 It is the prophet of our future. Good attitudes among players do not guarantee a team’s success, but bad attitudes guarantee its failure. The following five truths about attitudes clarify how they affect teamwork and a leader’s team: 1. ATTITUDES HAVE THE POWER TO LIFT UP OR TEAR DOWN A TEAM In The Winner’s Edge Denis Waitley stated, “The real leaders in business, in the professional community, in education, in government, and in the home also seem to draw upon a special cutting edge that separates them from the rest of society. The winner’s edge is not in a