The great and wonderful female humanitarian and highly successful author and speaker, who also just happened to be totally blind, Helen Keller, was once asked, “What would be worse than being born blind?” She replied, “to have sight without vision.”

All truly effective leaders have a vision within their own minds of what they must accomplish while they are alive here on this earth. That vision becomes the energy behind every one of their efforts and purposed actions they take. It is the force that pushes them through all of the problems, challenges, and obstacles they encounter as they live out their lives and expend and invest their resources while simultaneously turning their visions into reality. As you invest in other people and their efforts, your life will automatically grow and change in a positive direction.

Mental Attitude is without question an individual’s greatest personal asset.

Just as our attitudes are the extra “pluses” in our lives, they also are what makes the greatest differences in our lives as we effectively live with and lead other people in the directions and for the purposes those other people have chosen to live.

Leadership of other people has less to do with a person’s position than it does with a person’s disposition. Your disposition as a leader is critically important because it will ultimately influence the way those who follow you think, feel, and act about how you lead, about your leadership capabilities, and about where and for what purposes you are leading them. The really great leaders of other people fully understand that the right and positive attitude will set the right and positive atmosphere, which will in turn enable the right responses from and by other people with whom they are leading and associating.

Author and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson said it correctly when he stated:
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.”

You have very great and strong creative power within you. It was placed there at the instant of your own conception. You would be wise to remember this quote and make it a living and active part of the manner and way that you personally live out and conduct your own life.

One of my greatest personal mentors, Dr. Charles R. Swindoll, Pastor, educator, author, and speaker made a most profound statement concerning personal mental attitude. Permit me to share with you his powerful and meaningful words of wisdom. He said:

“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, or a home. The
remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the
attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past.
Nor can we change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We also cannot change the inevitable. The only thing that we can
do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am
convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90
percent how I react to it. And so it is with you—we are in charge
of our attitudes.”

Without having and using a good, correct, and well-employed positive mental attitude, you will never be able to reach your full potential. Your positive mental attitude and your regular use of it as you live out your life will become the very source of the “extra measure” of something special inside of you that provides a little extra edge over those other people around you whose thinking is wrong, critical, or negative.

I could go on and on and wax eloquently about possessing and developing a positive mental attitude, but suffice it, that I will share a true story with you that says it better than could I.

Your attitude and your example is always on display. Everyone with whom and for whom you labor or assist, knows everything important about you by the example you show the world through your thoughts, words, and actions—by your example and the way you live your life.

Subject: Attitude

She is 92 years old, petite, well poised, and proud.

She his fully dressed each morning by eight o’ clock, with her hair fashionably coifed, and her make up perfectly applied, in spite of the fact that she is legally blind.

Today she has moved into a nursing home.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making this move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, where I am employed, she smiled sweetly when told her new room was finally ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on her window.

“I love it !” she stated with the great enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room…just you wait,” I said.

Then she spoke these words that I shall never forget:

“That does not have anything to do with it,” she gently replied.

“Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.
Whether I like my room or not, does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind. I have already decided to love it!

It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice! I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all the happy memories I have stored away…just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you have already put in.”

You have been given these two wonderful gifts from a God who loves you: (1) A Mental Attitude and (2) the Ability to Choose your own way. What you do with both of these gifts while you live out your life here on earth is what will be your gift of thanksgiving and gratitude back to God for His abundant generosity. Use them wisely and use them well!

Peace and Love to All of You……………………Poppa Bear