Attitude Is Everything 10 Life-Changing Steps to Turning Attitude into Action KEITH HARRELL This book is dedicated with the greatest love and affection to my family and friends for their love, support, and encouragement. And most important, to God for giving me everything—life, knowledge, wisdom, and the ability to do His work. CONTENTS Acknowledgments ■ v Foreword ■ vii Preface to the Paperback Edition ■ xi Introduction ■ xv CHAPTER ONE Attitude Is Everything ■ 1 CHAPTER TWO Attitude Is a Choice ■ 27 CHAPTER THREE Bag Your Bad Attitude ■ 53 CHAPTER FOUR Change Your Bad Attitude for Good ■ 75 CHAPTER FIVE Turn Attitude into Action! ■ 93 CHAPTER SIX Warning: Attitude Hazards Ahead ■ 119 CHAPTER SEVEN Your Attitude Tool Kit ■ 137 CHAPTER EIGHT Build Your A-Team ■ 169 CHAPTER NINE Develop a Whatever-It-Takes Attitude ■ 195 CHAPTER TEN Make a Mark That Cannot Be Erased ■ 219 Index ■ 245 iii About the Author Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was blessed to have the help and support of many talented people to whom I want to express my sincere thanks: To my wonderful staff, Joyce Head, Sandi Miller, Heidi Stepanovitch, Donna Cash, and Deborah Johnson, for all their help and support. To Diane Reverand, my editor, for her insight, feedback and expertise, and Janet Dery, Richard Rhorer, and the other wonderful staff at HarperCollins. To my literary agent, Jan Miller, and her wonderful assis- tant, Shannon Mizer-Marven, who both shared my vision and enthusiasm for this book and pushed to help make it a reality. To Wes Smith for your tireless and committed effort, for taking my thoughts and ideas and building a foundation on which this manuscript was built. This project couldn’t have been done without you. To my sister Toni Malliet for your guidance and support. When I need you you always come through. Special thanks to my friend Arabella Grayson for your countless hours, insight, enduring support, and positive atti- tude throughout this entire project. I thank God for you. To Marsha Cansler for her professional insight, writing, and organization of the entire project of updating this book. And finally, to the many individuals who have in their own special ways contributed to the creation of this book: Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D.; Joy Carver, Dan Clark, Ron Cox, v Beverly Forte, Ph.D.; Reggie Green, Daelyn Gruenberg, Hat- tie Hill, Janet Hill, Sam Horn, Clove Hoover, Kathy Jeremiah, Steve and Kelly Lynn Pipkin, Ellen Joan Pollack, Mark Seal, Doug Smart, Colandra Wright, Carolyn Zatto, Chris Carey, and Kay duPont. FOREWORD I have had the great privilege of traveling this great world of ours for over four decades and teaching people how to live and work successfully. It has been a fantastic opportunity to see firsthand the countless men and women who have decided to become their best and then disciplined them- selves until they achieved it. There is nothing like living your dreams! One of the things I have long taught is that if you want to succeed, you need to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. That is, if you want to move up the ladder, don’t just work harder—though you should do that—but work on yourself so that you as a person become better and of more value to the company. As you get better, those who can pro- mote you will see that you have outgrown your current posi- tion and need to move higher! This is where Keith Harrell’s terrific book comes in: One of the fundamental things that every person who wants to improve his or her life should work on is his or her attitude. Your attitude determines so much about how you will live your life and how far you will go in life. Your attitude is like the engine that runs the car. The more finely tuned that engine is, the better the car will run. The same is true with your life. If you keep your attitude up—if you make it “super-fantastic,” as Keith says—then you will see so much about your life open right up and flourish. vii viii FOREWORD You will see your relationships expand and deepen. Think about it: Who wants to hang around someone with a bad attitude? But people with great attitudes are magnetic. People are drawn to them. They feel better being around them. And they enjoy them. Your career will grow. All things being the same, the per- son with the better attitude will always go further. And of course, things won’t be all the same because you are going to have great skills too! When your boss or client is looking at you and sees a tremendously positive attitude, he is going to want to promote you or give you more business. Why? Because people like to do business with people who demon- strate great attitudes. Your life will be more enjoyable. Of course, having better relationships and a better career will go a long way toward this, but when you have a positive attitude, your outlook on life will be so much better that the person you live with all the time—you—will find that there is much more inner peace and satisfaction with life than you have ever experi- enced before. So, as you hold this book in your hands, you are begin- ning a journey that has the potential to greatly improve your relationships, your work, and your self-satisfaction. Isn’t that amazing? But you will need to apply the truth in Attitude Is Every- thing. Just reading it will not change your life. But as you apply it, as you begin to renew your mind and begin to dis- play that attitude to the world around you, then your life will change for the better. Attitude is a choice. Each and every day that we arise we have a choice on how we will view and interact with the world around us. Keith Harrell has done you a wonderful