The Difference Maker... Attitude

By Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

The difference maker in life is your Attitude.
In The Difference Maker, John Maxwell takes you on a track to make your attitude your greatest asset. He shows you where you get your attitude, what it cannot do, what it can do and how to make your attitude your biggest asset. Maxwell then spends a big part of the book in the Big Five Attitude Obstacles.

Attitude... "inward feeling expressed in outward behavior." People project on the outside what they feel on the inside through attitude. It all is formed from
personality (some from your DNA strands);
what's around you...your decisions based on your environment;
the expression of others as to what took mental lodging
based on what someone said about you;
self-image in how you choose to see yourself;
what you experience and your response to that experience;
adopting behavior of peers;
and lastly your belief framework of your thought life and its influence on you.
All this goes into play in forming attitudes as well as your choices in forming emotional adjustments to them.

"The longer you live, the more your life is shaped by your choices." Early on in life conditions affect us, but as we progress through life conditions affect us less. We rely more on choices we previously made due to conditions. This is where we get "attitude."

Your attitude cannot substitute for competence (skills, competence must be developed), for experience, for facts, for personal growth. You must have experience first before you can benefit from experience.

You can't keep a good attitude automatically. It must continually be nurtured and re-booted to the configuration you "choose." Say everyday... "Today, I am going to have a great attitude."

What can your attitude do for you?
It will make a difference in your approach to life, your relationships with people, how you face challenges, and be the difference maker in everything you do.

Maxwell then leads you on the track for making your attitude your greatest asset.
1. Take responsibility for your attitude. Don't defeat yourself, better yourself with choosing the right attitude.
2. Evaluate your present attitude. Identify problem feelings about yourself, your feelings toward others and problems with how you are thinking.
3. Desire to change. It's your choice and you must make it.
4. How you think. You made choices long ago, you can change some of them.
5. Program good habits to your thinking. Observe your thinking, change what you need to, and consistently "choose" the right track.
6. Manage your attitude daily. Review the day, evaluate, restructure where you need to, and keep putting on quality experiences (reading, friends,events) that promote the attitude that makes positive differences.

The second part of The Difference Maker discusses the
Big Five Attitude Obstacles and how to overcome them. They are
Discouragement (decide to bounce back and not quit);
Change... is hard but learning to make new adjustments leads to personal growth and enlargement of fullness in life;
Problems... look at them as wake up calls for creativity and focused change are birthed from them;
Fear... 95% of fear is baseless, confront it, beat it, and you become stronger because of it.
Failure... learn the lessons, renew the right attitudes, move forward, never give up and keep growing. Failure is the most powerful penetrating force in "making the grade" in life's lessons.

"Success each day should be judged by the seeds,
not the harvest reaped."

Choose to be a difference maker in your life and in others. Maxwell's website:
http://maximumimpact.com/

What was Jesus' attitude?
"For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up." (Romans 14:17-19. NLT)

Our attitude in Jesus Spirit is of goodness, peace, joy. In how you look at things, think with the attitude of what good you can do, stay in peace and do not react hurriedly, allow the Spirit to simmer within you and allow joy to well up in you.

Our place is to build up... do good, use wisdom, seek spiritual insight, Spiritually in-depth perspectives of people. If in our business relationships, we build up, help to gear up, spur on, charge up, we could produce perpetual Spiritual energy, power, substance that builds God's Kingdom. We are to lift people up and spur them on to do great feats for the kingdom of Heaven.

What for?
Because your ultimate attitude is one of promoting harmony, understanding, tolerance among every facet, group, business-style you encounter, and build harmony among diverse people and business groups.

Take on this attitude of Christ, the great Apostle Paul says. Sculpture it into your life. The great apostle defined this attitude of Jesus for us. It is reflected in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and Jesus salutation (John 14-17). He summed it up in Philippians 2:
"Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another,
and working together with one mind and purpose.
Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
Don't look out only for your own interests,
but take an interest in others, too.
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you.
Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights
in a world full of crooked and perverse people." (NLT)

Then the Apostle Peter continues to add:
"Finally, all of you should be of one mind.
Sympathize with each other.
Love each other as brothers and sisters.
Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.
Don't repay evil for evil.
Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you.
Instead, pay them back with a blessing.
That is what God has called you to do,
and he will bless you for it.” (1 Peter 3:8,9, NLT)

Why?
"So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.” (1 Peter 4: 1, 2, NLT)

It’s all about you doing the will of God through your life.

Be anxious to the will of His heart in you, the will, passion for what the Spirit beacons you to do... regardless of the personal cost to you. What we think we have on earth will be diminished some day, and what we will have forever will be in Heaven.

And the promise, the absolute promise is for the Heavenly reward. It is great and incomprehensible now, beyond explanation now. But too great that our minds and imaginations can't even get a faint glimpse of it.

Go after this, in faith go for the greatest reward, including new bodies from the resurrection of the greatest majestic splendor, and keep this attitude, the one of Jesus, in all you do and especially in completing the Divine plan for you in this life.

For how to program Spiritual attitudes, note:
Jesus is Us by Geffry Fields
“The Practical Side of Living Jesus Spirit”
http://jesusisus.blogspot.com/2005/07/practical-side-of-living-jesus-spirit.html
“Our Body… Jesus Lives there.”
http://jesusisus.blogspot.com/2005/06/our-body-jesus-spirit-lives-there.html

Develop His Attitude and fulfill through you God’s Purpose
through His Spirit in and around you.