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Our attitude in many ways ties directly to our "inner voice" that forever asks the questions..."Are you moving toward your dream?" If your answer is "yes," then hope breeds contentment. However, if the answer is "no, it's too late," despair may fester within your subconscious. You might not even realize why your life lacks joy.

I can say this with conviction..."It is never too late to be what you could have been." Dreams are free, and just having them can make your life worth living.

Ray Kroc is one of my business heroes. He founded McDonald's when he was 52 years old, after trying for over two years and talking to more than one hundred people to raise the money. Fifteen years ago, I had the good fortune of talking to Tom Seay, one of the potential investors whom Ray approached. Tom told me how Ray had come to his office one Friday afternoon with his business plan for this "crazy idea" called McDonald's. For $100,000 he was offering Tom thirty percent of the company. Tom told him that he didn't have time to review it then but that he would take it home over the weekend.

Monday morning rolled around, and Ray was waiting at the front door when Tom got to his office. Tom invited him in and said, "Ray, I read this plan three times; even shared it with a friend. And we both decided that there's no way in the world you can make money selling hamburgers."

We all know that Ray thought otherwise; and the rest of course is history.

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. -Bill Vaughn

Take action. Get your goals out of the way early this year. Try and accomplish all of your New Year's resolutions in January. Think about it. It's fresh in your mind now. If you wait, things will only get in the way.

Here's what Mac has to say about it:

About 7 years ago I was in a Successories store and watched a couple in their early forties stroll through the front door. The husband stopped, looked around for about thirty seconds, then nudged his wife and said, "Honey, these guys stole my idea! Remember when I said to you, 'I'll bet we could start a business selling products with motivational quotes.' Remember that?"

I smiled and when they left I shared the story with our store manager. She said, "Mr. Anderson, we probably have one person a month come in and say the same thing." Then, out of curiosity, I spoke to some of the other managers and they reported simlar exchanges.

Hundreds of people had the idea, but only one executed it. This is a great example of the gap between "I should" and "I did."

Procrastination, in my opinion, is opportunity's natural assassin.

So what's your New Year's Resolution?

This is the first post in a new series. Each Monday will bring a nugget of inspiration from our founder Mac Anderson. This week's post is entitled Manage your attitude. Enjoy!

After more than thirty years in business, I'm convinced that the difference in success and failure is not how you look, not how you dress, not how you're educated...but how you think.

It's impossible for me to overstate the importance of maintaining a positive attitude. On the other hand, it's impossible to understate the difficulty in actually doing it. Staying positive is not easy, and it's a very personal thing. But it can be done. I can only share what works for me and hope that you can relate to my experience.

First on my list is exercise. Without question my levels of motivation and energy are tied to exercise. Have you seen those long strands of Christmas lights with about one hundred little white lights on each strand? What happens when one of those bulbs becomes loose? They all go out. They shut down. That's what happens to me when I don't exercise. It's my top "stress buster."

Second on my list is to live with gratitude. William James, one of the fathers of modern psychology, said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter their life by altering their attitude." Abraham Lincoln said, "People are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

We are blessed in so many ways, and we need to remind ourselves continually of those blessings. When we wake up each morning, we have choices to make: We can choose our socks, choose our underwear, and most importantly, we choose our attitudes.

The third key for me to manage my attitude is to laugh at myself and laugh with others. Many people take themselves far too seriously. As kids we laugh a lot, we dream a lot, but then we grow up and we become a heart attack waiting to happen!

Researchers have investigated why some people can't cope and found three reasons:

• Low self-esteem
• Living in the past
• Can't laugh at themselves

In fact, one study indicates that we need a minimum of twelve laughs a day just to stay healthy. Laugh at yourself! Laugh with your friends, your family, your co-workers. It will keep you going, keep you healthy, and keep you motivated.

An excerpt from Chapter 21 of Change is Good…You Go First:

"Life is full of choices...some people will choose to work for the team and embrace your culture. Others will not." -John Murphy

It's a reality an outgoing leader finds hard to bear. Some people won't like where you're leading them; others might not like you.

Like it or not, leaders must continually "pull the weeds" or their team's growth will be stifled. A "weed" makes its own rules, undermining camaraderie and consensus. They refuse to share and participate. They reject accountability and shift blame to others. Don't be fooled. "Weeds" can seem harmless...but, they'll do everything they can to take over your garden.

For years, Jack Welch had a rule that his managers must develop criteria to measure the performance of all the employees. They were instructed to identify the bottom ten percent in each department and replace them with "new blood." His controversial rule caused some problems for G.E. and was eventually eliminated in the name of political correctness, but it's hard to argue with the company's long-term success. I disagree with tying employment to a percentage, but I agree that new faces and fresh ideas can improve a company, especially when they are supplanting weeds.

In the long run, if a leader keeps to the path of least resistance and lets weeds grow, they will risk losing credibility with those who make the team flourish.

That wraps up our Change is Good...You Go First series. Thanks to everyone who has paid attention for this long. Keep an eye on the blog for good things to come in the new year...

An excerpt from Chapter 20 of Change is Good…You Go First:

In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing onto the wing of his Wellington bomber, 13,000 feet above the North Sea, to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he not only smothered the fire but shimmied along the wing back to the cabin.

Not long after, Winston Churchill, an admirer of courageous acts, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street.

Sergeant Ward was struck dumb in Churchill's presence and unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill noted the hero's condition.

"You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," Churchill said.

"Yes, sir," managed Ward.

"Then you can imagine," replied Churchill, "how humble and awkward I feel in yours."

Great leaders know that positive change requires a secure measure of buy-in with followers, and the greater the change, the greater the buy-in must be.