Attitude is important; I will give you that. But it will not keep anything from happening to you. It will help you deal with what happens to you, but it will not keep anything from happening to you. So while it is important, it certainly is not everything. Attitude is only one thing.

What people sometimes think is if they get their attitude right then they will have no problems, they will have nothing bad happen to them, and they will not even have to work—simply because their attitude is so good.

Attitude alone will not change things. Effort changes things. Thoughts change things. Words change things. Again, remember this: It is what you think about, talk about, and do something about that comes about. That is what changes things: the combination of those three things. It is not what you have a positive attitude about!

It takes more than being positive, because you can be positively lazy. You can be positively wrong. You can be positively stupid.

Have A Negative Attitude Sometimes

Sometimes I have a crappy attitude. I mean it is totally negative. How about you?

You will not often hear a self-help guy admit to having a bad atti¬tude. But I am not your typical self-help guy. I gladly admit I am very negative sometimes. I have days where I am anything but positive. I need days like that. You need those days, too.

“Now Larry, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would I need to be negative? Why would you need a negative attitude?”

Being negative serves me well. I think it will serve you well, too. Some days you need to get ticked off at yourself—mad at the way things are going and mad at yourself for being the kind of per¬son you are. Mad at the way you are raising your kids—mad at the way you are behaving with your spouse—mad at the way you are running your business. Anger and a bad attitude are sometimes great motivators. Sometimes you have to get upset in order to change things.

In order to make positive changes in your life, you first have to get negative about your life.

It is not about being positive or negative; it is about what works and what does not work. It is about what moves you from where you are to someplace else. It is about what makes things better for you.

It is like those people who ask that old, stupid question: Is the glass half empty or half full? My answer? Who the hell cares?

What difference does it make if the glass is half full or half empty? Here is the real issue. Does it quench your thirst? That is what mat¬ters. Attitude alone will not quench your thirst. It will not move you from where you are to someplace else. That is why I am not a motiva¬tional speaker. Instead I call myself The World’s Only Irritational Speaker™. I am just not sure I can motivate you to move from where you are to someplace else. However, I am very confident that I can make you so irritated with where you are that you will do anything you can to be someplace else.

In order to make positive changes in your life, you first have to get negative about your life.