Attitude and long-itude

Seems to me that business success – or any success – is determined principally by one thing – your attitude to what is happening around you. Life is, after all, what happens while you’re making other plans. I clearly remember seeing the following on someone’s cubicle wall, which captured exactly what I thought:

ATTITUDE

by: Charles Swindoll (www.insightforliving.org)

The longer I live, the more I realize the 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 we have a choice every day 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 string we have, 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.

Strategy

Ethical dilemmas are inevitable in business. How you deal with them reveals your principles. Some companies are just after your money, others realize that customers won't stay long with that attitude. Same with employees. My view is that we are all on the same team and all involved need to benefit from our transactions to make this all worthwhile - customers, vendors, employees. That's why our company name is so important to me - "happy, prosperous & blessed" needs to apply to the complete "food chain". Give customers good value, go the "extra mile" with support for them; give employees fair wages and good benefits with profit-sharing; represent vendors to your best ability.

Proverbs 22

1 A good name is more desirable than great riches;
to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.