Summary of Attitude That Attract Success free essay sample

He is also the president of New Hope International, a ministry dedicated to developing emerging leaders to plant twenty-first-century churches. The author of Doing Church as a Team. Wayne has planted churches in the continental United States, Guam, Samoa, Japan, the Philippines and Europe. He travels extensively as a speaker, recording artist and church consultant. Wayne and his wife, Anna, live in Hawaii with their children, Amy, Aaron, and Abigail. Summary: The book â€Å"Attitudes that Attracts Success† is a book of inspiration and knowledge about how our attitude can attract success. Wayne Cordeiro emphasized the advantages of those people who have good attitude than those who have a broken attitude. It is like finding two people who attended the same school, had the same teachers, shop at the same store, live in the same city and even attend in the same church. One struggles and the other is successful. Why? It is all because of attitude. We will write a custom essay sample on Summary of Attitude That Attract Success or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Our attitude is important because it is the one which drives our lives. In this book, Wayne Cordeiro enlisted the things that we need to do to be able to improve our attitude that can attract success. Each chapter contains different inspirational stories that are connected to the main topic. The first chapter was entitled â€Å"Make Your Choice†. The Sermon on the Mount – perhaps Jesus’ most famous sermon – addresses our attitudes. Theologians have called this series of teachings the Beatitudes. His lesson could be summed up this way: â€Å"Your attitudes will determine what you will be. † Jesus knew that developing a correct perspective on life was critically important to our lives and to our ministries, and so He spoke first and often on that very topic. In fact, before Jesus taught His disciples about miracles, discipleship or how to deal with the Pharisees, He taught them about attitudes. Every phrase of the Beatitude deals with building right attitudes because they become the lamp of the body, the very way we see and interpret the world around us. An interesting scientific theorem states that if your basic premise is inaccurate, then every subsequent conclusion thereafter will also be inaccurate. What this means is that if you are solving a math problem and you begin by determining 2+2 = 5, then all of your following calculations will be incorrect. Likewise, if my core attitudes and perspectives toward life and people are skewed, and then I too will experience massacre after massacre in the form of devastated relationships, foiled expectations and broken dreams. Jesus knew that from the core of our beings, we need to develop a right attitude toward life. Let our eyes and attitude be clear and every conclusion that we will have will have a potential for success. Believing that you can change is the main topic that was tackled on the second chapter of the book. No one has given an unalterable attitude. We are all capable to change but it is up to us. We are the one who is going to decide if how we are going to approach life and develop that kind of attitude. A new attitude doesn’t happen on its own. We must develop it, and the sooner we begin the better. Some people hide behind the excuse that they just can’t change: â€Å"I’ve been this way since I was a kid, and I’m not about to change now. † It’s never too late to change. Change is indispensable to growth. If you stop changing, you stop growing. And if you stop growing, you’re in trouble. What do you call a tree that has stopped growing? That’s right, dead. It’s no different with people. When they stop growing, they start dying. Some people stopped growing years ago. We might not bury them until they have stopped moving, but they really died years ago. You can change your attitude. When we refuse to change and resist God’s leading, life can become pretty miserable. Nevertheless, many times we won’t change until the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Failure is not when you get knocked down. Failure is when you refuse to get back up. Don’t hang around the swamps of despair. They will only skew you attitude and impede your resilience. Learn to bounce back quickly. Our attitude will either protect us or defeat us in the midst of storms. Let us develop our attitude well. Train your eyes to see what is good was emphasized on the third chapter of the book. All our lives, we have trained our eyes to see what is bad. From an early age, we have been training ourselves incorrectly. We get up and read the morning newspaper over breakfast, getting our minimum daily requirement of bad news. On the way to work, we stop by the newsstand and by the latest issue of a newspaper so we can find out what’s wrong with the world. We have to retrain our eyes. The reason is this: Whatever we’re looking for is what we will see. That’s how God made us. If we are looking for something good, we will see what is good. If we are always looking for what is wrong with people, what we will see is everything that is wrong. One way to cultivate staying power is to change your definition of an event or circumstance. After all, the way in which you define your circumstances will determine, to a large degree, how you will respond to that event. Let us consider it all joy, and watch our faith grow. Chapter four was all about raising the bar of excellence. Developing our attitude is like developing our skill on a musical instrument- it takes consistent practice to improve. Let us do something to excel more. Realize the potential inside you. God does not insist that we raise the bar a foot at a time. One inch is fine. This means incrementally increasing your abilities. Keep improving yourself for the sake of the kingdom of God, whether it be the depth of your faith, the way you treat people or the way you think. Improve this by 1 percent every day, and the potential God has placed in you will begin to emerge. But first, you must be willing to raise the bar. Play the right background music was discussed on the book’s fifth chapter. God created every human being with a built-in surround-sound music system. It resembles the on-hold music you hear when you’re waiting to talk to your doctor or the music wafts through the mall to entice you to buy more. Our internal music is composed of the thoughts we think over and over. These include selected memories – maybe something our parents once told to us, a word of encouragement from a teacher or the way we felt when we weren’t picked to be on the team or to be someone’s best friend. As we dwell on memories, experiences and thoughts, they are recorded on the soundtrack of our minds and play continuously all day long. Whatever you play on this internal sound system affects everything about you- your attitude, your self-image, your confidence level, your relationships, the way you communicate with others and even your faith. Each of us gets to determine what music we are going to play. You are a disc jockey, choosing your own theme songs. Doesn’t that seem wonderful? We get to play the music of our choice to accompany us all throughout the day. We can choose from every grand sound track, opera or melodious composition ever written! The reality is that most of us make some very odd musical choices. Some of our tapes and CDs have deep scratches on them. Some are so old, they’re like the 78-rpm vinyl records of decades ago- old songs, old experiences that should long have been forgotten or forgiven. You are the disc jockey. What is your playlist? You get to make the selections, so choose wisely! If your thinking is poor, so will your perspective be. And if your perspective is poor, so will your decisions be. Protect yourself well, guarding your thought-life and stewarding all that goes on in your mind. Then you will be able to stand your ground against Satan, against becoming a people of the lie. And when everything is done, you will be left standing, victorious. In the sixth chapter, it was said that we must practice, practice, and practice! As with learning any sport or musical instrument, the more you practice developing an attitude of excellence, the more proficient you’ll become at it. Learning to develop a good attitude doesn’t happen by accident. It needs to be intentional and deliberate- nothing less. You first attempts may seem awkward, but keep practicing. Practice the virtue of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self- control. Take time to practice these characters and qualities God wants to build in you and express through you. The more you practice these things, the more fruitful you’ll be in your attitude, business, ministry, and family. Never give up was emphasized on the seventh chapter. Let us all agree on one thing: Every one of us will have the dubious honor of being and receiving end of life’s setbacks- frequently. We all experience speed bumps in life. Suffering is inevitable, but misery is an option. Suffering will change you, but not necessarily for the better. You can let your setbacks become stumbling blocks or make them stepping stones. Life can make us bitter or better. All of us have stumbled, and many of us have often run the wrong way. But God is not done with us. Granted, there will be a few fumbles and misguided moves on the fields of our lives. Still, He prods us back into the game. He believes in us. The game is not over yet! The prerequisite for restoration is not performance; it is love. Love will always be God’s highest test. Don’t put a magnifying glass on failure. Put your magnifying glass on love, and it will help you see things the way Jesus does. That’s always the best way to look at things. Finish well. We have only one life to live for Jesus on this earth, and it will soon be over. Time passes quickly. It is like rewinding a videotape: the closer it gets to home, the faster it goes! So it is with each of us. Don’t live with a squandered life. Since you have only one life to give, live it well. What separates a futile life from a fruitful one? Your attitude will be the difference between existing and living. Your most important life decision will be your choice of whether or not to follow Jesus Christ. Your choice to open your heart to Him will be the most eternal decision you will ever make. If you have not done that, don’t hesitate for another moment. There is no greater choice than to choose Him to be the Lord in your life, no matter how many possessions you own, how much money you have made or how much power you have accumulated. Just because you are a Christian does not guarantee fruitfulness. Anyone can develop an attitude that attracts success. You don’t have to be a world-famous evangelist to shine. Just start by shining your light to those around you every day. And what is the beacon through which your light will shine to those around you? Your extraordinary attitude! Each of us can live an extraordinary life with an attitude of excellence, but it must be diligently cultivated. Here are some keys of building extraordinary attitude: Aim for the right target. An attitude that attracts success begins with knowing which opportunities to accept and which to reject. This way you will begin to develop not just an existence but a life that is about answering God’s call every single day. Remember, first aim for the right target. What are you aiming for? What is your goal? That will determine the race you run. Run the right race. God sets a different race before each and every one of us. You cannot run someone else’s race; you can only run your own. If you run the wrong race, you’ll end up at the wrong finish line. Understand what satisfies your soul. Contentment cannot be acquired directly. Rather, it is a by- product of a life that is focused on the right things. Truly content people are those whose aim in life is something much bigger than attaining mere contentment alone. If your sole aim is to acquire possessions and money in order to be comfortable and content, then contentment will be as elusive as butterfly. Learn to understand what satisfies your soul; otherwise, you will never develop an attitude of true contentment. You’ll always be looking for a good time but never finding it. Make contentment an inside job. Contentment is vital in developing an extraordinary attitude. It’s the final critical key in our process. Each of these four keys seems simple, but each is eternally priceless. Remember, start off right by aiming for the right target, the one God has for you as you â€Å"run your particular race to win†. The next step is just to do it. Run the right race. The last two go hand in hand. Understand what satisfies your soul, and do so by learning contentment. With these keys in hand, you’ll be able to run your race and finish well! The last chapter is all about going back to the source. Your attitude, in essence, is the expression of your faith and the display of your character. The bottom line of developing an attitude that attracts success is not simply found in positive thinking. We must go beyond a positive outlook. God is the only one who can change the human heart. The government can’t, money won’t and ideal circumstances don’t. Without God, our efforts will be futile at best. Developing a world-class attitude takes decisiveness, commitment, perseverance and willingness to be effective at this thing called life. Your attitude is, in essence, the expression of your faith and the display of your character. It is not simply the result of positive thinking. It is the result of Jesus Christ’s working in your life moment to moment and your cooperation with His instructions. The Bible is our attitude instruction manual. When God’s word fills our minds, we can’t help but to develop a better attitude. We all will have two teachers in life: the teacher of wisdom and the teacher of consequences. Both are tremendous teachers, and you will learn from both. There is a price that must be paid to be enrolled in each class. However, the price that must be paid for the teaching of consequences can cost you everything you have. For some, it has cost them years; others have paid with their future, and for still others, it has cost them their families. You will have no doubt learned from consequences, but she can be a cruel taskmaster. Wisdom, on the other hand, comes from lessons learned vicariously through others consequences. You can learn from others’ experiences without having to go through the pain yourself. But there is a price for obtaining wisdom as well, because wisdom requires you to develop something called discipline. When you would rather get angry than be patient, discipline is painful! When you want to tell someone off but you know it would be wiser to let it go, this also can be painful. Be aware that the pain of discipline will cost you pennies, whereas the pain of regret can cost you millions. Wisdom can come from many different sources. We can learn a great deal by experiencing every new thing firsthand and feeling pangs of consequences, but they may not be the best way. Experience can be a good teacher, but wisdom is far more desirable. Prayer is the time for making an attitude adjustment. Prayer is one more elusive exercise in a Christian’s life. It’s a bit like watering a plant: You may not see immediate results, but if the discipline of prayer is neglected, the consequences can be disastrous. Prayer must be a habit- a daily habit. Developing attitude that attracts success is a choice. The most important decision you will ever make in life is your decision to follow Jesus Christ. This decision will determine the eternity of your life. The second most important decision you’ll make will be the attitude with which you will follow the Lord. This decision will determine the quality of your life. Never stop learning. Make it a lifelong goal. Discover new truths and insights that will awaken your spirit. New horizons will help you to look ahead and focus on your potential rather than on your problems, on your future rather than on your failures. Here are three ways that adopting and maintaining a positive attitude will create more opportunities than you ever thought possible: 1) A positive attitude will help you recognize opportunities as they appear in your life. Its important to understand that all sorts of opportunities surround you every day, but most of them pass by unnoticed. The ones that we do notice are the ones that are in alignment with our attitudes. Theres no magic to it, really just a matter of focus. If you maintain a positive attitude, you will naturally notice people, opportunities, and circumstances that have the potential to positively affect your life. Conversely, if you adopt a negative attitude, the only circumstances and people you will notice are negative ones. Either way, those things that are not in alignment with our attitudes are filtered out by our minds. To use a rather mundane example have you ever been car shopping, and thinking of buying a particular model (for this example, lets say a Honda Accord)? Chances are, it probably didnt take long before you started seeing Accords everywhere. You noticed them in traffic, you saw them in parking lots, you encountered advertisements for Accords uddenly they seemed to be everywhere you looked! Now, did a swarm of Honda Accords really start placing themselves where you would see them? Of course not! They were there all along, but you just started noticing them when your mind was focused on the possibility of purchasing an Accord. People, opportunities, and circumstances work in much the same way. When you adopt a positive attitude, youll start noticing positive opportunities and people. They were there all along, but you didnt see them until you changed your mental focus. If you did see them, you probably didnt notice the potential they had to positively affect your life. 2) A positive attitude attracts positive people. We naturally gravitate toward people who exude happy, positive vibes. Given the choice, would you rather spend the day with someone who saw the world as being full of possibilities, or with someone who moped around and blamed everyone and everything around them for their failures and unhappiness? Attracting the company of positive people will open up even more opportunities for success. The people who gravitate to you will be open to helping you making a contact for you, inviting you to an enriching event, lending their efforts to help you achieve your goals simply because you have lifted their spirits with your positive energy! 3) A positive attitude will give you more energy and allow you to accomplish more. Worry, anger, self-pity, and other negative emotions are HUGE energy drains how easy is it to get out of bed in the morning and attend to the activities that will contribute to your success, when youre feeling sorry for yourself and dwelling on all of the negative aspects of your life? A positive attitude makes the difference between dragging yourself out of bed, even more tired than when you went to bed, and springing out of bed before the alarm goes off, ready to meet the opportunities each day has to offer. The extra energy you get from maintaining a positive attitude lets you work more efficiently, take on new activities, and create the circumstances for your own success. And when its time to turn in for the night, youll feel even better knowing that every action you took throughout the day contributed to that success. Ready to create your own proof? Then try this simple exercise: Decide for one day that youre going to maintain a positive attitude no matter what. You dont have to worry about how simply making the committed decision to spend one day with a positive mental focus will take care of the how. When negative thoughts arise (and they will), acknowledge them and let them go. Dont judge them this will only serve to facilitate further negative thinking, because youll mentally beat yourself up for having the negative thoughts in the first place. Instead, view them as if youre watching a television commercial, or looking at a billboard. This helps you emotionally separate from your negative thoughts, so you can easily let them go. Doing this only leaves room in your day for positive thoughts. Your day doesnt have to be perfectly positive in fact, even the most positive people still encounter negative emotions and thought patterns but making the mental commitment to maintain a positive focus will place you far ahead of people who allow them to constantly be mired in negative thinking. More than any other factor, the condition of your attitude will determine the quality of your relationships with other people, whether you can turn a problem into a blessing or whether you become a victim of defeat or a student of success. The simple fact that attitude â€Å"makes† some while â€Å"breaking† others is a significant enough reason for us to explore how it works and how it is cultivated. The attitude we develop will cause us to see life either as a series of opportunities or in terms of our probabilities for failure. How a person defines life’s events will do more than anything else to determine his or her potential for success in life. How true it is that you are one attitude away from a bright future! III. ANALYSIS This book is for leaders, businesspeople, homemakers and young people. No matter what our background is or what our occupation may be, the principles of this book can transform our lives and relationships. The only prerequisite is that we’ll be an avid student of life. Many people are not that far from a life of joy and success. Just a few adjustments and life would come loud and clear for them. Like a radio that’s not tuned quite right, the music can be heard but it’s full of static and fades in and out. A small turn of the dial would recalibrate the frequency by just a few hertz. Then, all of a sudden, the scratchy signal is transformed into a stereophonic symphony of sound. Our attitude is where that small adjustment must be made. Attitude can mean difference between success and failure. Someone once said that the difference between people is very small, but that very small difference is very big indeed! Living a life of joy and success is something God has already wired into our design. God has planned our future to be one of success. He takes no joy or glory in a mediocre life. Fruitfulness is what God wants for each of us, and He’s ready to help us achieve it! Just like what Wayne Cordeiro said, â€Å"Our attitude is like a fragrance that we carry around with us. The difference is that skunks carry a bad odor while a beautiful Hawaiian plumeria blossom carries a fragrance. Whether we like it or not, each of us carries one of the above. We are the one who are going to choose which odor we are going to carry. † We are what we are today because of our past experiences. This was included in Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory. He also believed that our past experiences motivate us. On the other hand, in the individual psychology of Alfred Adler, he believed that our dreams and our future are our motivation. These theories are applicable in this book because our past experiences and our future or dreams are our motivation to have a good attitude that can be a key to success.