A widely acknowledged unofficial motto of the United States Marine Corps is: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. Legendary actor, producer, and film director Clint Eastwood said these lines in the military film Heartbreak Ridge: “You’re Marines now. You adapt. You overcome. You improvise. Let’s move.” This motto is not limited to the Marines as it has been used in business and industry for years.
How Marines or anyone else respond to this motto is a direct result of their attitude, because attitude drives behavior. Your attitude drives the action you take. Your body language is a result of your mental attitude. And since you have a choice, most of the time, you are better off choosing to react in a positive rather than a negative way. In the movie, the Marines did, indeed, move out.
Our attitude is important because it is the first thing people pick up on in face-to-face communication. When you are operating from inside a really useful attitude — such as enthusiasm, curiosity, and humility — your body language sends out messages of openness.
Our attitude is important because attitude also sells. You can be a brilliant architect, contractor, business owner, secretary or plumber, but remember: People buy all of you. They buy your competencies, your company’s reputation, your personality, your appearance, your command of language, and most importantly, they buy your attitude. Some people embrace a positive attitude and some don’t. Those who embrace a positive attitude have opportunities to create favorable experiences with people who are important to their business and career success.
As the late noted Harvard University professor and philosopher William James so eloquently stated: “Just like a great building stands on a strong foundation, so does success. And the foundation of success is attitude.”
The wrong attitude can do harm to relationships, even long-standing relationships. I was conducting a face-to-face client satisfaction survey on behalf of my client, one of the United Kingdom’s largest law firms. The person I was interviewing was a principal with the Bank of England. Included in the subject matter of this survey was attitude. My mentioning attitude instantly generated an energetic response from the interviewee, who proceeded to tell me that the Bank of England had a long-standing relationship with one of London’s premier law firms.
He also informed me that he was retiring and was ending the relationship with that law firm. When I asked why he was severing the long-standing relationship, he replied, “Because their attitude is ‘we’ll get there when we get there. I’ve had it with their attitude.” How long did that firm represent the Bank of England for that specific type of work? Are you ready for this? – 126 years! Even a century-old relationship can be cancelled because of a bad attitude. Don’t take relationships for granted.
Charles R. Swindoll founded Insight for Living, headquartered in Plano, Texas, which airs a radio program of the same name on more than 2,000 stations around the world in 15 languages. He pinpoints the value of attitude in these remarks: “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my life. Attitude to me is more important than education, than circumstances, than money, than failures, than success, than what other people think, say or do. It’s more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday 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 thing we can control 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.”
Another noteworthy comment comes from the late renowned painter and lithographer, Herm Albright: “A positive attitude may not solve all of your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
The attitude you want is your choice. It’s free; no cost for your attitude. No appointment is needed to get one; no need to stand in line, and you don’t have to pay taxes on it. A positive attitude sounds like a good deal to me. A positive attitude is a powerful resource. Use it to yours and your stakeholder’s advantage.
Byron G. Sabol is a Scottsdale-based speaker and author of the book, Your Secret Weapon: Creating the Ultimate Business and Career Relationship (Fulton Bo
