The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Asset
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About this ebook
What can make the difference in your life today? How can two people with the same skills and abilities, in the same situation, end up with two totally different outcomes? John C. Maxwell says the difference maker is attitude.
For those who have ever wondered what may be separating them from achieving the kind of personal and professional success they’ve always dreamt of, leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell knows that it is attitude that colors every aspect of your life.
In The Difference Maker, Dr. Maxwell teaches you how to:
- Shatter common myths about attitude—what it can do for you and what it can’t
- Overcome the five biggest attitude obstacles
- Develop an impactful attitude on your career, family, and daily living
Your attitude affects everything in your life, and it's one of the few things that you can control. A good attitude doesn't necessarily make good things happen to you, but it sure does help. Or you can easily set yourself up for failure by harboring a bad attitude, undermining your own efforts to succeed.
The Difference Maker reveals the skills you need to not only make attitude your biggest asset, but shows you how to maintain that attitude for the rest of your life.
John C. Maxwell
John C. Maxwell is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, coach, and speaker who has sold more than 33 million books in fifty languages. He has been identified as the #1 leader in business and the most influential leadership expert in the world. His organizations - the John Maxwell Company, The John Maxwell Team, EQUIP, and the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation - have translated his teachings into seventy languages and used them to train millions of leaders from every country of the world. A recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, as well as the Mother Teresa Prize for Global Peace and Leadership from the Luminary Leadership Network, Dr. Maxwell influences Fortune 500 CEOs, the presidents of nations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. For more information about him visit JohnMaxwell.com.
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Reviews for The Difference Maker
25 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent quick read on the importance of attitude.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learning how your attitude can be the difference in your life!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very insightful book and helped me realize where I was thinking negative or where my attitude hadn’t been the best.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5this book have importance in making our personality for facing practical life
Book preview
The Difference Maker - John C. Maxwell
Copyright © 2006 by John C. Maxwell
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Nelson Books titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.
Scripture quotations are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Orange, California.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maxwell, John C., 1947-
The difference maker : making your attitude your greatest asset / John C. Maxwell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7852-6098-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-7852-8869-4 (I.E.)
1. Attitude (Psychology) 2. Success. I. Title.
BF327.M39 2006
650.1—dc22
2006006618
06 07 08 09 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1
Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook
Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.
Thank you to
Charlie Wetzel, my writer;
Stephanie Wetzel, who proofs and
edits the manuscript; and
Linda Eggers, my assistant
EBOOK INSTRUCTIONS
In this ebook edition, please use your device’s note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response Here]. Use your device’s highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).
CONTENTS
Ebook Instructions
Acknowledgments
ONE Where Did You Get Your Attitude?
TWO What Your Attitude Cannot Do for You
THREE What Your Attitude Can Do for You
FOUR How to Make Your Attitude Your
Greatest Asset
THE BIG FIVE ATTITUDE OBSTACLES
FIVE Discouragement
SIX Change
SEVEN Problems
EIGHT Fear
NINE Failure
TEN The Difference Maker in Your Life Can
Help You Make a Difference in the Lives
of Others
Notes
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to my assistants:
Barbara Brumagin (1981–1992)
&
Linda Eggers (1995–present)
Thanks for your
servant-hearts, people skills,
competence, loyalty, and friendship.
Both of you have been
Difference Makers in my life!
ONE
Where Did You
Get Your Attitude?
Have you ever heard someone say, Attitude is everything
? It seems to be a favorite line of some motivational speakers. According to them, a great attitude is all you need to be successful. Unfortunately, it’s simply not true.
I do a lot of professional speaking. Each year I communicate at live events to 250,000 people. And I do believe in motivating others. However, I don’t think of myself as a motivational speaker. I call myself a motivational teacher. That may seem like a technicality, but here’s the difference: A motivational speaker makes you feel good, but the next day you’re not sure why. A motivational teacher also makes you feel good, but the next day you possess something that will actually help you.
The promise that attitude is everything is hollow. In fact, if you believe that attitude is everything, it may actually hurt you more than help you. If attitude were everything, then the only thing that would separate me from a successful singing career would be the belief that I can do it. But trust me, there is another factor that stands in my way: talent. If you’ve watched the reality show American Idol, then you know what I mean. I am amazed at the number of terrible auditioners who respond to blunt criticism from the judges by saying things like, I know I can sing. That’s just your opinion.
Truthfully, no attitude is strong enough to compensate for lack of skill.
So does a good attitude make any difference? Absolutely. Attitude is the difference maker! Attitude isn’t everything, but it is one thing that can make a difference in your life. Businessman, philanthropist, and author W. Clement Stone stated, There is little difference in people, but the little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
The goal of this book is not to snow you by saying that attitude is everything, but to show you that your attitude is the difference maker in your life. I desire to do that by helping you understand where your attitude comes from, what it can and can’t do for you, and how you can make it an asset. I also want to give you insight into how to deal with the Big Five Attitude Obstacles everybody faces: discouragement, change, problems, fear, and failure. If you’re like most people, you have to deal with at least one of those issues every single day! Let’s take this journey together by first looking at some basics about attitude.
WHAT IS ATTITUDE?
What is an attitude, anyway? When you hear the word, what do you think about? I think of attitude as an inward feeling expressed by outward behavior. People always project on the outside what they feel on the inside. Some people try to mask their attitude, and they can fool others for a while. But that cover-up doesn’t last long. Attitude always wiggles its way out.
My father loves to tell the story of a four-year-old boy who was finally put into time-out after battling his mother.
Sit in that chair until the timer goes off,
the mother said in frustration. The boy sat down, fearing greater punishment, but said, Okay, Mommy. I’m sitting on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside.
Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It is like the mind’s paintbrush. It can paint everything in bright, vibrant colors—creating a masterpiece. Or it can make everything dark and dreary. Attitude is so pervasive and important that I’ve come to think of it like this:
It is the vanguard of your true self.
Its root is inward but its fruit is outward.
It is your best friend or worst enemy.
It is more honest and consistent about you than your
words.
It is your outward look based on your past experiences.
It is what draws people to you or repels them.
It is never content until it is expressed.
It is the librarian of your past.
It is the speaker of your present.
It is the prophet of your future.
There is not a single part of your current life that is not affected by your attitude. And your future will definitely be influenced by the attitude you carry with you from today forward.
Your attitude colors every aspect of your life.
It is like the mind’s paintbrush.
WHERE DID I GET MY ATTITUDE?
If your attitude is so important, then you may be asking yourself, Where did I get it? Am I stuck with it my whole life—for better or worse? First, let’s look at the question of where your attitude comes from.
1. PERSONALITY—WHO YOU ARE
Two men were out fishing. When the fish stopped biting, they started to talk. One man praised his wife and extolled her many virtues, summing it up by saying, You know, if all men were like me, they would all want to be married to my wife.
And if they were like me,
the other replied, none of them would want to be!
Everybody’s different. Each person is born a unique individual. We’re all as different as our fingerprints. That’s true even of siblings born of the same parents and brought up in the same household. Even twins who are genetically identical have distinct personalities.
Your personality type—your natural wiring
— impacts your attitude. That’s not to say that you’re trapped by your personality, because you’re not. But your attitude is certainly impacted by it.
2. ENVIRONMENT—WHAT’S AROUND YOU
The environment you were exposed to growing up definitely has an impact on your attitude. Did your parents go through a divorce? That may cause you to have a mistrustful attitude toward members of the opposite sex. Did someone close to you die? That may prompt you to have an attitude of emotional distancing from others. Did you grow up in a poor neighborhood? That may prompt you to have a tenacious attitude toward achievement. In contrast, it could make you want to give up more easily.
It may be hard to predict exactly what will happen to a person’s attitude based on his or her early environment, but you can be certain that it made an impact of some kind. My wife and I adopted both of our children, and based on that experience, we believe that genetics is the strongest early predictor of attitude. But we also know for a fact that environment makes a difference.
3. THE EXPRESSION OF OTHERS—WHAT YOU FEEL
Most people can remember the harsh words of a parent or teacher even years or decades after the fact. Some people carry the scars of such experiences their entire lives. In my book Winning with People, the Pain Principle states, Hurting people hurt people and are easily hurt by them.
Many times the hurts that cause people to overreact to others come as the result of negative words from others.
Likewise, positive words can have an impact on a person’s attitude. Can you remember the positive words of a favorite teacher or other significant adult? A few words can change the way a person thinks of himself and can change the course of his life. Charlie Wetzel, my writer, remembers the words of his sister, Barbara Rensink, when he was eighteen. He had little direction in his life back then, and she told him that she thought he had a talent for cooking and how flavors go together. He had never