Tag Archives: Attitude

If you wanna be somebody else, change your mind

Hiking

A great lyric from the band Sister Hazel but also some words to live by. That is what the essence of Combination #2: Attitude. In Ed Gerety’s book Combinations he talks about Attitude as the second combination, specifically a positive attitude. Attitude, however, is half of the battle because you can be the most positive person in the world but if you take no action then you’re pretty much going around as a smiling idiot (my words).

How can you change your mind?

Sometimes life knocks you right on your ass. You can sit there and wallow in the woe is me of it all or you can get back up. How many stories have we heard about people who have had limbs amputated only to work harder then they have in their entire lives to make a comeback in the sport that they love? Don’t you love stories like that? Those people have a positive attitude but they also work harder than everyone else to accomplish their goals. Without the positive attitude they would get nowhere and vice versa.

Surround yourself with Positive People

Ed tells a tale about three frogs in a milk bucket. This is one of my favorite stories that he tells because you don’t see the moral coming. I get chills when I read it and that tell me I just read something special. I won’t ruin it for you because you should read Combinations for yourself. The point however is that if you do not surround yourself with positive people who not only encourage you but challenge you, you will end up failing.

Does Attitude mean anything in blogging?

I read many blogs every day and I sometimes read some really negative things. It is frustrating reading those things not only because they are negative but because the people writing them tend to attract more readers. People love controversy and wallowing and commiserating. Misery really does love company. How many videos on YouTube are filled with hateful messages? Why, what point does that serve?

We would certainly serve our readers better if we inspired them with our positive attitude rather than commiserate and complain and whine. This keeps them in the funks they may be in and is really unappealing as well. If you want to get in a better mood start reading Ed Gerety’s blog. Watch his videos, read his posts, he has a great attitude and it shows.

“Be deaf to those people who say you cannot achieve the positive things you want. Keep your ears open to those who beleive in you. – Ed Gerety”

There are a few bloggers that I know who are constantly raising the bar on what having a positive attitude is all about. They also go out there and give it all they can and they Crush It! One of those bloggers is Ted Murphy.

Ted Murphy is the CEO of IZEA and he also blogs at Ted.me. Whenever you see Ted he is filled with such positive energy that he many times wins over his detractors. Ted also takes action and comes up with a plan, carries it out and gathers people to help him. Did you know that he is going to run his 1st marathon soon? He’s not just running with his positive attitude, he’s done much hard work to get to that point. He tweets his progress, videos his runs and challenges others to be better as well.

I’ve met Ted and I’ve spent time talking with him and exchanging ideas. We’ve even shoved our faces in cake together. A bond forms there thicker than icing. He’s one of those positive people who also challenges me.

Blog your Passion

I think that bloggers must be passionate and write about what they love. If you are passionate about something your attitude towards that will come out naturally and there will be people who will want to hear what you have to say. Look at Gary Vaynerchuk and his attitude. He is passionate about wine and yet he not only talks about wine he talks about success and what it takes to succeed. His positive attitude and passion is so prevalent in what he does.

“Real Success it defined by the person you become and what you experience along the way. – Ed Gerety”

Think about that for a moment. What do you experience along the way? Sometimes it is pain and heartbreak, setbacks and wrong turns. However, if you keep your attitude positive and you continue to take steps to achieve those positive things in your life, you surround yourself with people who not only motivate and encourage but can be challenging then you will get there and become more successful. You should also remember to have an attitude of gratitude and be there present in each moment. Success is not easy, it takes hard work perseverance and a positive attitude. True success is all of that and more because True Success, well, it can only be defined by you and you attitude.

Take a look also at the photo at the top of this post. I found it when looking up the word “success” on picapp. Yes, climbing a mountain and getting to the top is a success, I think it would be much more indicative of a success however if there were more people on top showing that they strove to push each other and motivate each other with a positive attitude to reach that pinnacle of success.

Reading Combinations by Ed Gerety

Ed Gerety

I have a book called Combinations, it is by Ed Gerety. Ed is a pretty spectacular guy and he made an impression upon me many years ago that is so deep that I am always drawn to find out what is going on with him. That draw to get back in touch with Ed came up months ago when I was cleaning my desk at work and I came across my copy of Combinations.

I had been in student leadership all through high school and college and then after college. It was during college that a friend of mine asked me to help out with a HOBY Community Leadership Workshops (CLeW) Event. I had been a part of HOBY in high school and said sure. I was to be a group leader for the day and that was a pretty amazing day. That was the day I first heard of Ed Gerety and his message of Gratitude, Attitude, Goal, Respect, Kindness and Believe first resonated with me.

Reconnecting with Ed

Through the years I was able to be in a position where I could suggest a speaker for a student leadership program. I immediately thought of Ed and his message. We were able to get Ed to come to Sacred Heart University for our STAR II Program. STAR stood for Students Taking Active Roles. STAR II was for student leaders who had already gone through STAR. I loved working on that program. This was back in 1997. After that I hadn’t heard much about Ed and I think it was in 2002 or 2003 I did a web search for him and found he had written the book Combinations. I saw that Ed was doing well and becoming more well known and successful. I ordered a copy from Ed and put a message in the notes section and asked him to please sign the book. He signed it “Andrew, Wishing you continued success! Never give up (and he drew a star) Your friend Ed Gerety.

Rediscovering Combinations

So that is the history and once again I went along with my life and it wasn’t until a few months ago that Ed came back into my mind. I looked him up again and found that Ed was now blogging (and on twitter) in addition to his many speaking engagements. Ed also was offering Combinations for $4 a copy. He has a great post about how our lives are lived in 4s sometimes. This prompted me to buy 4 copies of the book to give to my High School. The reason is that I beleive my High School was what helped to prepare me to become a Student Leader to take on more leadership roles in my life. So this coming Monday I will be giving these four (signed) copies of Combinations to the High School President and my former English teacher, Chris Servant, another person who motivated me in my life.

Sharing my thoughts on Combinations

So, I am reading Combinations a little each day and will talk about what I’ve read. I read about Combination 1, Gratitude. There are a few key factors to gratitude. Being present in the moment is one of those factors in gratitude because if you are not dwelling on the past or pining for the future you can enjoy the moment that you are in right now.

I find this as one of the toughest things for me because I’m usually stuck between looking back or looking ahead. What if I had done this differently, if so maybe I’d be happy? Or I can’t wait for this event or that event, then I will be happy. However, that is not going to make me happy because once I get to that moment ahead I will look ahead to the next one or back at the one I was in.

So, being present in the moment and grateful for what you have right now is a very important way have gratitude. I remember a tape I had from Zig Ziglar about a woman who said that she hated her job and Zig and the woman came up with 30 things that she liked about her job. That transformed the woman’s frame of mind to one of gratitude.

Showing Gratitude as Bloggers

So what does a book on student leadership mean to bloggers? It means a lot because each of the core principles of the book, Combinations, is as important to Student Leaders, Bloggers, Parents all the way up to our leaders in government. You might be a blogger who is struggling to find a voice and you see other bloggers who have tons of followers and are making tons of money so you figure to yourself that if you had a ton of followers and a ton of money then your blog would be successful. On some level you would be successful but are you grateful to the people who take the time to read your blog. Do you respond to their comments? Do you visit their blogs and read what they are writing? To you mention their posts when they have written something really inspiring?

Cultivating your gratitude.

Try this today, read through your last four posts including the comments. Did you respond to what your readers have said? If not do so in the comments or maybe in a new post. Did you read the blogs of those people who came to comment? If not pick a few and check them out, find a blog post or two read them. If you like them then thank your reader by linking to those posts, tell all of your readers about the post you read. That is how you can show gratitude as a blogger. Do that and success will come to you because people don’t care what you know till they know that you care.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the next combination, attitude.