How is your attitude?

How is your attitude?

How is your attitude?

When I look back on the events of this last week, I found many of my friends depressed or “down in the dumps” over the events of the week. They seemed to be overwhelmed by things they saw as “draining the glass”. I was even asked by one close friend how I was doing, to which I replied, “I am doing well. Things around me seem to be cratering but I am doing well.”
But isn’t that the way life always is? Isn’t the glass always half full?
Sure, there will always be “drainers” in life that want to or will empty the glass, but there are also “fillers” of the glass as well. If you concentrate only on the “drainers”, then you will always see the glass as half empty. But if you look for the “fillers”, the glass is half full.
I was fortunate enough this week to experience a big “glass filler”. That was the CSIA’s DEMOgala event held in downtown Denver on Thursday at the Grand Hyatt hotel. The day started early and was filled with sessions from companies that are using disruptive technologies to take advantage of changing markets. As I sat through sessions on information, media, mobile apps, financial turmoil, advertising, social networking and numerous others, I kept thinking what is the common thread that each of these panelists has in common? Then it struck me, the facts don’t count. It is your attitude that does. None of us has control over the facts, we each individually have control over our attitude. Isn’t that the difference between two people who have the same thought or dream? One has an attitude “it can’t be done” and one has an attitude “I will make it happen”. Guess which ones were in attendance at this event?
Here is one of my favorite quotes that sums this up:
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The longer I live, the more I realize that 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 that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude that we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past..we cannot change the fact that people will act 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 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it. And, so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitude.
–Charles Swindoll