1. Attitude
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than
education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other
people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will
make or break a company ... a church ... a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace
for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a
certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ... I am
convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with
you ... we are in charge of our Attitudes.
“Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money. Than circumstances, than
what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearances, giftedness, or skill. It
will make or break a company, a church or a home.”
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike
for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or
event-- this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or
ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and
negative attitudes toward the item in question.
Attitudes are judgments. They develop on the ABC model (affect, behavior, and cognition).
The affective response is an emotional response that expresses an individual's degree of
preference for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication or typical behavioral
tendency of an individual. The cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that
constitutes an individual's beliefs about the object. Most attitudes are the result of either
direct experience or observational learning from the environment.