WisDumb: "Your Attitude Not Your Aptitude Determines Your Altitude" (Or Does It?)

Your attitude, not your aptitude will determine your altitude Ziegler.

If this is your first Wednesday WisDumb let me explain what we're doing here.

I am personally going after a lot of the various success quotes and platitudes, which is a can be a trite statement that doesn't really convey the truth and is oftentimes a lacking and I am poking holes in it. I'm playing devil's advocate.

And the sayings I'm going after, I'm not saying they're stupid, I'm not saying they're dumb, they are actually half wise, half dumb.

More importantly, they don't tell the whole story. And since social media is so inundated with people, myself included, sometimes sharing quotes and wisdom and thoughts and success platitudes that I thought it would be helpful to help shift your thinking on some of this stuff, and open it up, and at least make you think deeper.

So let's go back to this very famous quote by Zigler, "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

So what Zig is saying here is that, "Hey, man, it's just your attitude. It's not your, your skill set your aptitude is your your ability to perform will determine your altitude."

Now, I am a firm believer, that attitude is probably more important in the very beginning than aptitude in most cases. And it is very important that if you can find somebody who's got a winning attitude, and it's got a kind of a "go get them, I will be open, I will learn, I will figure it out" type attitude. That is one of the hardest things to learn. And it is one of the most valuable things that employer can have.

In fact, there was a an amazing book I read about the founding of Southwest Airlines, I think it was called Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, and it was it was really great. But South West Airlines has this entire philosophy in HR, which is hire for attitude, and train for, I guess, aptitude or train for the skill sets because they figure if we can find the right person, we can train them to do what we want.

However, this statement is woefully incomplete.

Because your attitude not your aptitude may determine your ability to get your foot in the door and figure it out. But you can't just go through life with you know, grinning a happy attitude, and not with any skill sets. Because it may get you in the door. It sure as hell isn't going to keep you in the door.

So here's my challenge to you.

Think about these two areas of your life. These two buckets, I don't care if you have to pull out a piece of paper and write this down. But look at your attitude and list out the things you believe with your attitude you're doing right. And then be brutally honest, and list out the things where your attitude could use an adjustment and optimization and think about it like are you sometimes being late? A little bit lazy, right? That's an attitude thing. Are you not doing some stuff that you should be doing? Are you taking the shortcut? are you complaining? Are you ever finding yourself in a victim mentality thinking, well, if somebody only gave me this, I'd be fine.

Or are you taking on this attitude that just give me something I am going to be resourceful. I will figure it out as I go. And a lot of times we show up like this.

But a lot of other times, we'll show up like this only occasionally. I am absolutely guilty of this as well.

But if you show up, ready to give your all and ready to figure it out, no matter what, especially when people are counting on you.

And that's really one of the most valuable things that you can do. Not only like, yes, as an employee, but as an entrepreneu, as a business partner. And if you're a consultant, if you have clients, that's what people want. They want somebody who's super resourceful and is going to go figure it out. In fact, I'm going to put a link to of previous podcast or an article called "A Message to Garcia." If you've never read a Message to Garcia, I am going to put a link to the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4pgzs2C8jk

And then challenge number 2, look at your Aptitude.

What are the skill sets you currently are working with? Where could you increase those, where can you add new aptitudes on there, and how can you help grow both of these areas, because one of the things you'll find out is, is as you grow your attitude and aptitude, your your confidence, your belief in yourself is naturally going to increase because not only are you going to have the skills you're gonna have the attitude to back it up to know that even if you don't have the skills, you're going to be able to get them and and succeed.

And then once your beliefs about yourself start to really coalesce and strengthen your entire identity is going to take on a new role. And at that point, there is going to be a cascade of a...