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Greatness: It’s all about attitude
I often think about the influence my first grade teacher had on me, and how her special little twists on grades made such a lasting impression, and thankfully, have carried over into my adult life and work. The principles she taught about attitude led her students to appreciate the difference between something ordinary versus the exceptional, something great. To her it was all about attitude.
To the best of my recollection her little twists on the grading system went something like this:
A was for Attitude of excellence – All her best students made this grade
B was Better than average – But you better work a little harder
C stood for Common – Clearly just average, nothing special
D meant Deficient – Definitely not good
F was for Failing – Forget wasting your time in her class
That teacher’s little grading treasures struck a chord with a lot of students, because when she retired she was honored as one of the best teachers the school, in its long history, ever had. Her main theme, regardless of the subject, was attitude. She taught us the importance of always bringing what she termed an attitude of excellence to everything we did. We were drilled on things like punctuality, cleanliness, order and respect for authority. Oddly enough, years later when I entered the armed forces, these were again the very things we drilled on. Anything less was not acceptable. Like my first grade teacher, my drill instructor understood these disciplines were essential to preparedness, our mental and physical fitness.
I have to ask myself, what has happened to our schools today that such teaching has disappeared? How can our next generation be prepared for the challenges they are certain to encounter, without the attitude this kind of teaching instills?
I share this because it seems to me everything we do in life is largely graded or measured by the attitude we bring to the endeavor. One of life’s formidable challenges is to overcome complacency or mere contentment with getting by. These breed mediocrity, and must be overcome, if we are to succeed in life or in business. What’s the remedy? It’s a shift in attitude, when we decide that anything less than our greatest effort simply isn’t good enough.
Tags: attitude, business, Philosophy