When you run your own business (or, for that matter, when you live your life) there will be ups and downs, successes and failures. Your attitude will determine how you handle them, and how you handle them will determine your success.

Basically, attitude is about choices and expectations. First, let's talk about choices. Everything you do or say is a choice. There is always a choice. Paying taxes, for example, is a choice: you could choose to go to jail instead of coughing up dough. Why you would do that is beyond me, but it is still a choice.

Attitudes affect more than your choices, though; they affect your expectations. I am a firm believer in old axiom "Things tend to happen way you expect them to happen". If your attitude affects your expectations, and your expectations affect way things happen, then your attitude affects way things happen. Either consciously or subconsciously we do things that tend to sway outcome of any given situation to match our expectations.

For example, if you are making a sales call and you are sure that there won't be a sale, you probably won't give a very convincing argument to buy, will you?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this: attitude is single most important element of success in your business and your life.

"To live continually in thoughts of ill-will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find good in all--such unselfish thoughts are very portals of heaven; and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor." -- James Allen, As A Man Thinketh (early 1900)

The ability (and inability) to achieve your goals and dreams, is mostly due to too much time spent on activities not directly connected to this same set of goals and dreams ... let's call this Individual and Community or Communal (In)effectiveness.

Responsible adults today are finding that rules in new economy have changed. Great ideas are definitely source for innovation, however, they alone cannot secure a Competitive advantage in business or even Community effectiveness (when we are doing what we really want to be doing and that which brings most joy into our lives.)

It's all about action, or as UPS (United Parcel Service) refers to as, "Moving at speed of business." Business owners must find a way to bridge gap between knowing and doing. It's a challenge for any leader to take existing resources (talent & time) and turn them into action, which will increase effectiveness. Successful leaders from past had a common thread and that was their ability to inspire action, not only their own of course.