Attitude

   Most businesses stress the importance of knowledge, but I tend to believe that attitude is more important than knowledge, skill or abilities..  Having a good attitude means that there is no need to value ourselves by what we do, or base our sense of worth on our actions. If we were to only base our worth on what we do, we would fluctuate: sometimes thinking we are "good" when we do something "amazing", while other times feeling bad when we perform "poorly". I put these words in quotation marks, because I truly believe that the sense of achievement is relative to a great many factors, much of which is beyond our control. Something may seem middling as an achievement yet, due to the effort involved, may have turned out to be a tremendous stretch in terms of one's abilities.

   One of the most important attitudes that we can bring to a business or any endeavor, for that matter, is an attitude of "just showing up". What I mean by this is that we should always value our own sense of presence, rather than belittling presence as unimportant. The act of being in the moment, or just accompanying a situation, is a way of bringing our real self into the picture--and that is already good in itself, whether we acknowledge it or not. We have so many experiences, memories and even tidbits of insight to bring into every situation, so we need not "study for the part" of being in the moment and giving something of ourselves into the conversation.

   Failure is also relative...and although failure never feels good, I see failure as an investment in the future, since mistakes now will create memories that will lead us to better performance in the future. I believe these principles are important to any endeavor, be it work related or other.