Are You Prepared For Success? (Section II - Installment #30 "Foundation” – Male & Female versions)

(If this is your first time on this site, you may want to begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction]) (Please keep in mind that, although this poem can stand alone, it is meant to be part of a progression of poems that are part of an entire process.)

Foundation

Your foundation is near completion now.
Your attitude's in place.
Your confidence is growing strong,
As you increase your power-base.

Your past is just a memory;
A name without a face.
Never again will you ever run
In a rigged and futile race.

As you leave an era of your life,
You do so without disgrace.
Your future is awaiting you.
Your obstacles you will erase.

As you move towards your destiny,
With opportunities as vast as space,
You'll soar and swoop and live your dreams;
Your life, you'll now embrace.

(An Original Poem by Mel Kaye)

I strongly suggest that you write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading this poem.

• What is your destiny? (Keep it positive!)
• What was your destiny?

Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

If you are a male reader, please go to Section II, #31m

If you are a female reader, please go to Section II, #31f

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Positive Attitudes about Aging

I am very please to have begun an association with a wonderful site called SeniorResource.com. As we all get older attitude plays an even more important role in our lives. I will be leaning on this site for some insight into "Attitude for the Aging." In fact, this will become one of my many focuses and a category of it's own. The following is from their site.

New stimuli and a positive attitude are attributed to "successful" aging. (It's not enough to just tick off the birthdays.) Specific attitude issues to think about to achieve this are:

• Atittude 1 -- Take risks in life.
• Atittude 2 --Respect your own opinion.
• Atittude 3 --Be flexible and adaptable.
• Atittude 4 --Take on new challenges and learn new things.
• Atittude 5 --Deal with pain and losses, but don't hold on to the suffering they bring.
• Atittude 6 --See the half full glass.
• Atittude 7 --Take care of yourself with healthy eating and regular exercise.
• Atittude 8 --Don't accept societies myths as true about you.

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A Question of Attitude

A Question of Attitude
By MondayMorningPower

On Friday I was flying from Charlotte, NC, back to Los Angeles when I encountered a situation that, in retrospect, I handled poorly. I was in Charlotte for a 2 day sales conference.

First, my state of mind: I was tired. For anyone who has taken a trip from the west coast to the east for just a couple of days knows, your body clock gets out of whack. I was in all day meetings and got very little sleep. Because of the time difference I couldn't get to sleep until 2:00 AM and had to get up at 6:00 AM (3:00 AM, my time.). In addition, I have a hard time sleeping in beds that aren't mine. I was bloated, because I ate like a pig. And, I was looking forward to getting back to my family. In addition I have a mild case of claustrophobia. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind.

Second, the situation: The plane was full and I was sitting next to this girl of about 25. She seemed pleasant enough. After the plane took off she started to cough. It then became quite obvious that she was sick and progressively getting worse. She couldn't hide it and it became quite apparent to everyone around her. As people tend to do, no one said anything but all seemed just a little uncomfortable. She was quite sanitary and did her best to cover up every time she coughed. However, her coughing was incessant.

Third, my reaction: This is why I am writing this; I was obnoxious. I was so concerned about not getting sick myself that I spent almost the whole flight leaning into the isle (I had an isle seat and she was in the middle.) I feel horrible about this. I know that circumstance put me in that position and there was nothing that I could do to avoid being next to her. I was either going to get sick or I wasn't. That part was out of my control. However, the way I acted was totally in my control.

Fourth, in Retrospect: My state of mind was a reason not an excuse. I should have been more sympathetic to her condition than to mine. I may have been able to help her get through a miserable flight a little bit easier. I was selfish and un-empathetic. This reminds me just a little of my "Cookies" post. I deserve to get sick because of the way I behaved.

Fifth, lessons learned: We all have a tendency to be selfish and uncaring. I am not proud of how I reacted. Where I was seated was out of my control. What I was able to control was my attitude, and it was horrible. What do I now do with that knowledge? First, I must remember it so as to not act like that again. Sometimes it's a lot easier to "talk the talk" than to "walk the walk." Second, I must forgive myself so that this does not turn into a negative attitude that could affect future behavior. Third, I must show some type of penance. I believe writing about it; putting it out for the world to see that I can be a jerk also sort of covers the penance piece. In addition, the next time I have an opportunity to be extra nice, I will jump on it. In fact yesterday at my favorite place to spend money, Costco, there was a lady behind me who had 2 items and I had many, many, many, items; so I let her go ahead of me. It felt good.

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Are You Prepared For Success? (Section II - Installment #17 "Attitude” – Male & Female versions)

What happens to the person is less important
than what happens within the person

(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction])

Attitude

As you go through life, remember this fact;
Your attitude will have the greatest impact.
Whatever you do, whoever you are,
It's what you bring to the party that will make you a star.

It's more important than education, skill or money,
Circumstance or looks, whether your sad or your funny;
Whether you fail or succeed, it will see you through.
The way you look at life is the way life looks at you.

What's remarkable is that each and every day
Regarding your attitude, only you have the say.
Say it loud, say it clear, with a meaningful voice,
Concerning your attitude, only you have the choice.

You can't change the inevitable, you can't change the past.
No matter how hard you try, most feelings don't last.
You start young and grow old, that you can't re-arrange;
It's your attitude, you have the power to change.

You can't control what others will do.
You can't control them and they can't control you.
The control that you have, the control that you wield
Is the control of your attitude, that's your only true shield.

Life, you will see, and hold it as true
Is only 10%, what happens to you.
You must believe and take it as fact,
A full 90% is how you choose to react.

(An Original Poem by Mel Kaye)

I strongly suggest that you write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading this poem.

• What has happened to you recently, where if you had looked at it differently you would have had a more favorable outcome? (Be specific!)

Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

Go to Section II (Installment #18m - Male version)
Go to Section II (Installment #18f - Female version)

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Achieve Your Ambition & Belief in Yourself

Another article of interest that discusses the subconscious mind and how controlling the input can unlock it's power fuel achievement.

Achieve Your Ambition & Belief in Yourself
By: Stephen Campbell

Fundamental to success in any vocation whatever is self-confidence. Unless a man believes firmly in his ability to succeed he can not achieve much. And, unfortunately, the tendency of many people is to personal underestimation. Looking about them, in fact, the generality of men fix their gaze wonderingly on some outstanding figure in their line of work, some acknowledged leader.

"I wish I could do what he has done," they say to themselves. "But it is of course impossible. He had advantages I have never had. He was better endowed by inheritance than I, enjoyed a better education. Mine is a pygmy mind compared with his. He is a born genius. That is why he has prospered."

This is the attitude consciously or unconsciously taken by most people. Nor is it surprising, in view of the belittling influences to which many are subjected from their earliest days. In childhood, their natural aptitudes unstudied, they are pitch forked into a rigid educational system making next to no allowance for individual trends. Parents and teachers, finding them "misfits" in such a system, but not appreciating the desirability of modifying the system, combines not so much to help them as to fill their minds with ideas of inferiority. They are reproached for their "dullness." Other children who happen to fit better into the school curriculum are extolled as superior beings certain to travel fast and far, while they, the inferiors, lag behind.

Later the terrible teachings of the heredity fanatics impinge upon them with crushing force. They now know what the matter with them is. If they did not get along in school and they unmistakably did not it was because they were born in some degree mentally defective. The best they can hope for is to earn a difficult living in a subordinate role. Thus influenced to disbelieve in themselves they are fated to mediocrity and obscurity unless a happy chance intervene as it often does to awaken them to a belated realization that they can accomplish more than they have thought possible. Otherwise they continue to flounder, continue futilely to marvel at their more successful fellows more successful largely for the reason that they have refused to acknowledge inferiority, and have, through good fortune and ill, clung to the belief that they have it in them to succeed.

"I can and I will," has been the creed of the victorious, whatever their origin, whatever the blessing or the blight of their heredity. With "I can and I will" they have climbed to the heights, even despite the handicap of a family history that would fill a eugenicist with dismay.

"Of course there are limits," as the wise William James once pointed out. "The trees don't grow into the sky. But the plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use." This doctrine of unused resources, of hidden powers, accessible to all if all would but learn to make use of them, is indeed one of the most important of modern psychological findings. And it is not based on theory merely.

It is borne out by an abundance of facts of every-day observation and by the results of scientific researches which go to show, more specifically, that there is in the depths of every person's mind what may figuratively be described as both a storehouse wherein are lastingly preserved all of life's experiences, and also a factory for the creation of ideas. Psychologists call this wonderful region of the mind the subconscious, and for the past quarter of a century many of them have been industriously exploring it.

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Being Positive

By Jacqueline Pigdon

Studies show that positive people are winners in good times and survivors in hard times. People who begin to consciously modify their inner conversations and attitudes report an almost immediate improvement in their performance. Their energy increases and things seem to just go better. How would you like things to be better for you? A simple choice you can make every morning is either a positive one such as ‘I am going to have a fantastic day today and be the best possible person that I can be in all aspects of my life’ and choose to be in this state or ‘allow negativity to set in and be doom and gloom’. It’s your choice.However easier said than done? Yes it is. So where does this positive attitude come from?It comes from your inner belief and knowing based on realistic and achievable goals. Your belief and knowing comes from planning and planning comes from your vision and goal setting. Having realistic, achievable and measurable goals teamed with an inner belief that you ‘know’ you can achieve it - a positive attitude just comes and – you can do anything.

So how do you get this attitude?

• Listen to your self-talk and choose your attitude
• Work out what your realistic and achievable goals are and make plan
• Believe in yourself and your abilities
• Act with confidence!
• Contain your reactions
• Appreciate what you have, if you’re not happy with what you see, do something about it, change and take action!
• Surround yourself with positive people!

If you do this after a while you will start to gain much more value in your life by being positive that you won’t want to have anything to do with negativity again!

achievable attitude confidence doom+and+gloom positive realistic studies survivors winners

American Idol: Jordin Sparks

American Idol: Jordin Sparks, Blake Lewis, Melinda Doolittle, Phil Stacey and many other past Idol successes are examples of people who were not afraid to take a risk. For these the payoff was huge, especially Jordin Sparks. Yes, they had to have talent, but what was it that really drove them to succeed, to audition in the first place? They had to have the right ATTITUDE. There’s that word again…..attitude. No matter how much talent you have, no matter how smart you are, no matter how much ________________ you have, without a positive mental attitude, the “never give up” attitude, the “never, never, never quit” attitude, would any of us even know their names today. I’m not saying that fame is your, or should be your definition of success. Everyone has, or will have, something that they want to accomplish, something that they want so bad that they can taste it, their own definition of success.

The American Idol scenario can be played out on the sports field, in the movie studios, in the operating room, in the courthouse…..anywhere where people live free. What about people who aren’t free; what would they give to be free…..well that’s a whole other essay, isn’t it and just a little off track…..just a little.

Attitude is the bases for every meaningful endeavor we begin. Attitude will also determine if we succeed at it or fail. Attitude is the ultimate power. Isn't that the name of this site?

There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Elbert Hubbard

The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.
Albert Gray

The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.
Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas Edison

Do it trembling if you must, but do it!

Emmet Fox