Today I will be giving a review and a short summary of one of the book that had most affect on me “Attitude Is Everything – by Jeff Keller”. Before I go on with the review I would like to say thanks for stopping by and please do checkout other articles before you go. Ok now back to the review….
Why this book?
I have always had bad attitude problems. When I say bad attitude I don’t mean being rude and pissing off people. What I mean is that I used to cry over everything for no reason at all even at the simplest problems in life. Sometimes I used to worry about the things that existed only in my mind. So one fine day I decided to do something about it and I started to make some changes in life. Once such change was to read books regularly. So ordered top 5 self help books on amazon and among this was “Attitude Is Everything – by Jeff Keller”.
Only 2 pages in and I found this book to be very relatable to me. I took my time to understand every point the author was trying to make. It gave me all kind of motivation and perspective to look at life. Language of the book was very simple which I appreciate a lot and when I am depressed and sad last thing I want is a book with difficult language to understand.
So here is a short summary of this book along with few lessons & tips that stuck with me. I try to practice these on daily basis and think a lot of people can benefit from these. This book is divided into 3 parts they are :-
Think
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
William James
Jeff says our attitude is the window with which we see the world. So it is important that we keep our windows clean i.e. see the world with positive attitude.
We are a human magnet and we attract what we think so if we think about success and our goals. We will start taking steps in that direction and reverse is also true if we think negatively about all the bad things that can happen then we take actions that will have bad results. The thoughts that we have the most during the day and the thought that is the strongest rules the day. It means the if we think about something for most part of the day then we are sure to act in that direction. So if you are thinking about future, goals and success at 3am at night and then the whole day you are imagining about SEX then it wont work. Now thinking alone does not get any results but it gets you to take actions necessary to achieve your goals.
Picture how would your successful life look like. Have a clear vision and this will show you the steps that you need to take to achieve it.
You must first clearly see a thing in your mind before you can do it.
Alex Morrison
When you make a commitment and you are willing to do whatever it takes, then we attract the people and circumstances necessary to accomplish our goal. So, Yeah never forget we are a human magnet.
Think how can you turn your problems into opportunities. You just need the eyes of an optimist to differentiate between a glass half full and a glass half empty. So next time you face a setback once you are done with complaining “why bad things happen to me? My plans are ruined!”. Take a moment and try to understand the positive lessons and opportunity that the problem is offering.
Speak
Once you are comfortable with Thinking and Visualizing your goals, Second step is to watch the words that comes out of your mouth. What I mean is that if thinking negative is bad then speaking negative is the worst. It is the worst thing that you can do to yourself. Every time you say “I am not that talented”, “I can’t remember names” you are training your body and mind to accept all the bad things. So here is what happens when you say “I am bad at study” your mind registers this as a psychological limit of your body and capabilities and then tries to ignore every activities that requires you to study. You are not all bad but since you have said at few occasions that “I am bad at studying” now you don’t even try.
The negative things that you say about yourself becomes your belief’s over a period of time and then you stop questioning your belief. Similar to story of a circus elephant who is convinced he cannot break the chain. Because when he tried in his childhood days He was not able to break free.
So you should see with words you have convinced your mind. Instead of saying such negative you could say “So what I failed sometimes, I will improve and be better next time”, “Every one fails”.
Never discuss your goals with negative people. People who will just criticize and argue why it wont work or why it wont happen. Surround yourself with positive peoples who even when criticizes will put you in right direction and make you feel good about you and your goals.
Act
Now that you have mastered the thinking and speaking part Start with taking actions. Actions that will help you move closer to your goals.
Firstly surround yourself with positive people.
Tell me who you hang out with and I’ll tell you who you are
Confront your fears and grow up. For the longest Time I am afraid of being on stage or talking with seniors like Managers, CEO or Presidents. I have not been 100% successful in fighting my fears but now it is a lot easier than before. I don’t choke on my words now. Similarly I am not afraid of taking risks that I believe in.
If you want to be successful, you must be willing to be uncomfortable.
Gil Eagles
Get out of your comfort zone list down all the things you are afraid of and then conquer all your fears one at a time. I am out of my comfort zone now and trying to make videos as well as writing this blogs not afraid of the whole world judging me out there.
Get out there and take risks. Don’t be afraid of failure because failure will bring lessons. Lessons that will increase the probability of your next success.
