tim gier

Attitude Is Everything!

Winners Never Quit!

There is no “I” in team!

What’s your favorite? I hate ‘em all.

Attitude isn’t everything. If attitude was everything, there would be no need, indeed no room, for anything else. Words mean something, or at least they should, and the expression “attitude is everything” is false. Attitude is something, even a BIG something, but it’s not everything.

Perseverance is something. Prior proper planning is something (and not just alliteration!) Determination and hard work are somethings too. Find someone who has been successful without those qualities and I’ll show you a lottery winner. Attitude is important, but it isn’t everything. (And before you tell me that without a positive attitude the other things aren’t likely, I’ll tell you that without oxygen in your lungs they aren’t likely either, ergo: Breath is Everything!)

Winners Never Quit. Really? A quick search of the intertubes shows up this list of Yale dropouts who made good and Bill Gates quit Harvard and last I heard, he was doing OK. Winners quit all the time, and in fact I think it is a hallmark of winners that they are unafraid to quit. To continue to pursue a path that leads nowhere is not a sign of strenght of character, it is the height of foolishness. If what you are doing provides little pleasure and less potential reward, quit now, while you are ahead.

There is no “I” in team. Two word refutation: Steve Jobs. (OK, a few more words. There is no “us” in team, or “we” in team either and, as a boss of mine once told me, “There’s no you in this team anymore son.”)

Simple mantras have their place, but they are no substitute for an honest assessment of  the risks and rewards of work, or of life. This is a difficult game, and the clock is always ticking. Do we really have time for silly sayings that tell us nothing.