Oddball hates them negative waves

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. – Captain Jack Sparrow Pirates Of The Caribbean

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. – Captain Jack Sparrow Pirates Of The Caribbean

Oddball: Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

What is your attitude like, Tim?

Sometimes my attitude stinks

Do people like your attitude?

No, sometimes my attitude stinks

Do you like your attitude?

No, sometimes my attitude stinks

So what, if my attitude stinks? Well here is an interesting new way to look at attitudes and that I would like to share it with you. Your attitude in life is not only important, it will fundamentally determine how far you go, how successful you are and how much fun you have. If you want you can change your world around you can. Start to be amazing right now. No more negative waves man.

Want to be a winner? It starts here.

We could define an attitude is an expression of like (or dislike) toward a person, place, thing, or an event. Prominent psychologist Gordon Allport once described attitudes as:

the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology.

Attitudes tend to be formed from a person's past and present. I remember (in 1977) being told by a adult that, ‘your attitude stinks’. Cheers. It probably did. I was a punk, a teenage rebel, getting teenage kicks through the night and suffering from teenage depression.

Interesting I still remember that. My attitude and those around me needed to change. Your attitude, particular if you are in the service industries, or in sales (we all are) and in hospitality, need to be amazing, every day. Why is that? Well try to think of attitude in aeronautical terms. They talk about the attitude of a plane depending on where the wings are leaning towards. And that is what an attitude is. It is the direction in which you lean in a situation. If you lean towards it you are said to have a good attitude and if you are leaning away from it you are said to have a bad attitude.

I just feel a huge pout coming on. It's the why me syndrome. I can play the Vic(Tim) so easily. But attitude makes all the difference. (according to Zig Ziglar ). Consider this:

An athlete in the final of an Olympic competition pulls his hamstring and can’t finish the race and loses the single most important race of his life. [Derek Redmond Heart of a true Athlete]
Your business partner walks off leaving you in massive debt.
You believe you have lost everything and everyone knows.
A stroke strikes, ill health strikes, death strikes, tragedy strikes, and it makes most of us ask this: Why me?

Somehow it seems so unfair, so deeply unjust, destiny could have spared me this one… why did this have to happen? If only… and on and on. My life was going so well, it seemed – you say to yourself – until this happened. Because of this, everything else is no longer working, or is put on a back burner, until this is solved… if it ever gets solved.

Our world is in chaos in many ways. With war, violence, pollution and the cruel things people do to each other, it would be easy to turn into a grouchy old man . We justify to ourselves how unfair it is that calamity or tragedy stuck us, and that we absolutely do not deserve it. We rail against the event and the unforeseeable changes it has necessarily wrought in our lives.We concentrate on all the negative aspects of it…and certainly, if you have received a diagnosis of cancer, or lost your partner, or fortune, or job, it would be hard to find something positive to say about it.

My attitude stank in so many ways. I needed to work on it. I needed an attitude adjustment, because I believe that when you change your attitude you change your life. Because I know that into each life a little rain will fall. Here is the key point to consider:

Negative attitudes will kill you.

Gratitude, it turns out, will make you happier and healthier. If you invest in a way of seeing the world that is mean and frustrated, you're going to get a world that is, well, more mean and frustrating. But if you can find any authentic reason to give thanks, anything that is going right with the world or your life, and put your attention there, then statistics say you're going to be better off.

Recent studies have concluded that the expression of gratitude can have profound and positive effects on our health, our moods and business success. As Drs. Blaire and Rita Justice reported for the University of Texas Health Science Center,

a growing body of research shows that gratitude is truly amazing in its physical and psychosocial benefits.

In one study on gratitude (conducted by Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., at the University of California) randomly assigned participants were given one of three tasks. Each week, participants kept a short journal. One group briefly described five things they were grateful for that had occurred in the past week, another five recorded daily problems from the previous week that displeased them, and the neutral group was asked to list five events or circumstances that affected them, but they were not told whether to focus on the positive or on the negative. Ten weeks later, participants in the gratitude group felt better about their lives as a whole and were a full 25 % happier than the hassled group. They reported fewer health complaints, and exercised an average of 1.5 hours more.

In a later study by Emmons, people were asked to write every day about things for which they were grateful. Not surprisingly, this daily practice led to greater increases in gratitude than did the weekly journaling in the first study. But the results showed another benefit: Participants in the gratitude group also reported offering others more emotional support or help with a personal problem, indicating that the gratitude exercise increased their goodwill towards others, or more technically, their pro-social motivation.

There's an old saying that if you've forgotten the language of gratitude, you'll never be on speaking terms with happiness.

If you want to change as I did, then here are some simple things you can do to build positive momentum toward a more happy and fulfilling life

Read my Be Amazing Every Daycard everyday as you clean your teeth. Then breathe (slowly, rhythmically and calmly for 3 minutes, eyes closed).
Keep a daily journal of three things you are thankful for. This works well first thing in the morning, or just before you go to bed.
Say out loud: It's my life and I get to choose how it goes. I may not be able to control the external things that are happening around me, but I can choose how I react to them. I see many things I am grateful for everyday and I acknowledge them.
I will remain calm in the face of adversity. This is a hard one for me at times, because I just want to shout at life and say how dare you treat me like that. That's when I will go back to #1.
I choose love. Not only love for others, but love for myself. I will choose to love my present moment, knowing that I have everything I need in this moment.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

-Brian Tracy

Apparently, positive vibes aren't just for hippies.

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