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Summary: Attitude. the most potent invisible builder of your life. or the invisible destroyer of your life. Destroyer of your dreams, of your results, of your relationships.
It is invisible to you, but glaringly obvious to others.
Isn’t it time you took an inventory and start changing your attitudes, one by one. As an Expanding Human Being, I study. A lot. I study books, movies, people, myself. Sometimes there is no rhyme and reason in my studying, and sometimes, like now, there is.
Perceived as an expert
I have recently found a teacher who teaches people how to become an expert and market themselves as such, online.
Most people that learn from this guy are already experts at some things, but… It is one thing to be an expert, and another to be perceived as an expert. People go by their perception, not by the fact, in reality, people have no idea what they see, only what they perceive.
I have decided to follow the teaching of this guy, and pick an area of self-growth that people can appreciate, and build an expertise around it. Not necessarily know more, but show more. Pick an area I am already an expert at, but shape the perception to showcase the area…
On reading the ‘What Color Is Your Parachute’ ((my current active coaching students get a pdf copy of this book in the subscribers section of this site, https://free-stuff.by-sophie.com)) to lead the new email coaching program (on finding your life’s purpose through finding and doing the thing you love to do that produce results,) I found he writes a lot about attitudes… Perfect. I will reshape my image as a ‘changing attitudes so they serve you’ expert.
From my coaching practice I see that attitude is the biggest mystery and the most potent invisible destroyer or invisible builder of a person’s life.
And I love the simple no-nonsense way Dick Bolles relates to attitude, so I will quote a chapter from his book… it is good food for thought for you, because this issue, self-esteem, comes up for every single person on the coaching calls.
Most people who come to these calls have both
- the delusional self-image of magnificence (in the area of potential, standards, etc.) and
- the delusional low self-esteem of not being enough, not being acceptable, etc.
It seems that you have the attitude, that you are the best, and that you are the worst.
Each attitude does its own damage:
the high self-esteem prevents you from growing, and the low self-esteem prevents you from growing.
So you are stuck and stay on the level where you are, and unless I can help you change your attitude, make it realistic, you’ll stay stuck.
For example, people who have been in my Playground program, which is the best method I know to wake up to reality, good and bad, have been able to grow more, do more, take on more, even though we’ve never specifically said it changes attitudes… The Playground changes the attitude without saying the word ‘attitude’ hardly ever.
But now that I am becoming the world expert on changing attitudes (lol… if that word becoming weren’t there, you could say I am boasting, right?
But I am setting my sights high, I am aiming high, and have a realistic expectation that it will take work, maybe a lot of work, but work is good and I’ll love doing it!)
I will probably rewrite all my sales letter to include the program or remedy or energy’s effect on attitude… Changing attitudes has always been there, always been the goal, but now I will name it and claim it.
now I will name it and claim it
I will bring the focus on that… and in no time you’ll read the articles of the world’s foremost expert on changing attitudes.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to talk so much about myself, but I wanted to share the whole idea of becoming an expert, hoping that you’ll map it on yourself, and will see how it can be useful for you. Useful if you already have an expertise that isn’t perceived as an expertise. Nutrition, healing touch, making useful things, freezing the moment, selling, creating beautiful things, etc.
Generalists don’t make much money, experts (specialists) are expensive and are in high demand.
OK, here is the chapter from the book ‘What color is your parachute? 2012’
As most of us know, the proper attitude toward ourselves is called ‘good self-esteem.’ But self-esteem is an art. An art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves.
The name for thinking too much of ourselves is ‘egotism.’ We have all run into that, at some point in our lives, so we know what it looks like. Some of us have even caught a passing glimpse of it in the mirror.
In our culture and others, we are taught to recoil from this in horror. We even have mythologies warning us against it; the story of Narcissus comes to mind. Poor guy!
In order to avoid egotism, a lot of us go way overboard in the other direction.
We shrink from ever declaring that we have any virtue, any excellency, any special gifts, lest we be accused of boasting.
And so we fall into that opposite pit from egotism, namely, ingratitude.
We appear ungrateful for the gifts that life, the universe, God—you name it—has already given us.
So, how do we adopt the proper attitude toward our gifts—speaking of them honestly, humbly, gratefully—without sounding egotistical? Just this: the more you see your own gifts clearly, the more you must pay attention to the gifts that others have. The more sensitive you become to how unusual you are, the more you must become sensitive to how unusual those around you are. The more you pay attention to yourself, the more you must pay attention to others. The more you ponder the mystery of You, the more you must ponder the mystery of all those you encounter, every loved one, every friend, every acquaintance, every stranger.
Self-esteem is an art. It is the art of balance.
A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves. But we can only think too much of ourselves if we lose sight of others. Look at yourself, but equally look at them—with wonder.
That is the proper attitude we all should set as our goal.
Now, I am starting to realize that as long as attitude is just a word, and you don’t have the distinction ‘attitude’, you are still a lost puppy.
So my next article will be an attempt to distinguish article… But in the meantime, if you know what is good for you, start doing that work. The work of distinguishing.
Especially if you don’t have everything you want in life.
And just please know, that the dictionary definition is just that: a definition… and is not very helpful.
If you have read The Science of Getting Rich and you never got what is ‘the certain way’ then that is as good a clue as any to consider that you have no idea what an attitude is. Wallace D. Wattles was THE master of attitudes…
The book doesn’t teach doing. It ONLY teaches attitude. Because doing with the wrong attitude doesn’t produce the result you hoped for. And this may be the story of your life.
So what you want to learn is the ability to adapt, to assume the attitude that produces the results you want in life.
You can read the book, and if you so desire, you can get individual and group coaching to clarify the attitude and help you with assuming it.