Attitude IS Everything

I really should write about the man who broke my conditioning and changed my life completely for the better. That man is Paul Rubens, I always thought I could articulate things well. I had been told it was so, but Paul in 20 minutes managed to beautifully sum up everything I had suspected about life but had never managed to piece together.
That Attitude is everything, it really is, it is because you choose your attitude. It's a choice, you can make it consciously or unconsciously. I met Paul by being lazy. I had failed two subjects which put me off kilter with the rest of my RMIT year level by a semester. (I had been taught that if you score any higher than 51 on a subject your trying too hard. I had also vowed I would never work as hard as I had in VCE [which wasn't very hard relatively speaking] ever again for the rest of my life) so here I was paying for it by having to find a years full-time placement with a company in the marketing profession without my qualification as yet. RMIT's Catch-22 marketing illusion: Graduates from RMIT are more employable because they have a years experience in the industry tucked under their belts HOWEVER it is much harder to line up a job for that year of experience as you have no experience and furthermore are unqualified, so it pretty much balances out.
At any rate I didn't even try as I only had RMITs economical two week mid semester break to contemplate getting a job, I had two fails on my academic record and naturally didn't bother applying for any jobs, to my credit I did feel anxious the entire time I played computer games that break.
But I got shuffled into PSP which was the best single program I have ever done, the best reward for innaction ever, the biggest boost to my self esteem and confidence and gave me a whole new approach to life.
Paul gave all 50 students the Attitude speech pointing out we could choose to think our workplace didn't offer as much as other placements, that the Business Policy Game was a pointless waste of time etc OR you could choose to try and learn as much as possible, turn up to every class and make the best impression possible when you go to your workplacement.
Which I did and it worked well for me. But more on Paul he is the interesting one.
Paul skipped university to work for his parents business, importers of dutch goods for the dutch community that had been bringing in european goods that solicited complaints such as 'this cheese I bought of you has mould all over it, a white coating all around the edges.' and shit like that. Simple ideas and hard work Paul and his wife paid for an overseas trip to Europe by buying a shipping container of licorice at Auction that had been left in the sun and the liquorice had all fused together. So they cut it up and packaged it and sold it and went to Europe. In Europe Paul went to supermarkets and picked up products he thought were 'great' and called the number on the back and asked the manufacturers if he could sell their products in Australia. So he bought in Guylian chocolates and other such European marvels. He took over the business (with his brother I think) and encouraged money/time saving ideas, looked after customers and suppliers and then he eventually sold his stake in the business and had three goals 1. He'd never employ anyone again. 2. he wanted to do something in America. 3. He wanted to be fit and healthy.
SO he retired age 30 and eventually met a guy through a friend who had these inspirational books that coupled pictures with inspirational phrases. Paul dropped a comment that he should get them printed in Hong Kong and save costs. The guy said he didn't know anything about Hong Kong so Paul said buy me a ticket and I'll meet you there. And they did and Paul became the companies Asian correspondent. Without trying he tripled his net worth as those posters are everywhere now. The other guy had cashflow troubles so he started paying Paul in Stock.
The best story the one I love and broke my brain in a good way was the story of how he was in America and talking to this guy who (again) had cash flow problems for his franchise and offered Paul the operating rights to his franchise in Australia for $10 grand and Paul using his best logic determined their wasn't a market for it in Australia because people could buy hamburgers with the lot for $1.80 at their corner fish & chip shop that were better quality. Paul was wrong about that because the store was McDonalds. Paul is literally unphased by missing the opportunity to be a billionaire, because his attitude is so good. What he is passionate about is start ups, he has enough money to fulfill all his goals he doesn't need anymore that he has. Precisely the attitude that would make capatalism tenable and efficient.
Maybe I don't give my mother enough credit but I'm sure she would let the missed opportunity haunt her to the end of her days, as I would have. As such I was risk averse before meeting Paul. I now where a thumb ring engraved 'fors jurat andenes' I may have done a beckham and spelt it wrong because I just googled it but it means 'fortune favors the brave' [things seem so much more official when written in latin] as one of them affirmation things that purifies water crystals. [I wanna look good if I'm ever frozen to death] but mainly as a reminder that risk is a measure of both positive and negative deviation from the expected result: meaning if you don't stand to lose you actually lose the opportunity to gain anything.
If you are worried about losing something you are ensuring you will also never gain anything. Which is all well and good and says Paul should have taken a risk on the McDonalds venture in Australia. But there's a difference you are given an intelligent brain so appreciate that there are better risks than others. For example gambling is a probability rigged exercise so you can gamble and try and 'win big' however you are more or less guarunteed to lose the longer you engage in it which is the same as if you blindly throw money into the stock market, but in the stock market you can bet on a horse like Coca Cola who you know has no traditional product lifecycle and the market is probably going to grow in the next 20 years so you would make better returns by placing a 20 year bet on that one company (this is not financial advice okay, don't do it because I said it here. I don't guaruntee you'll make money) And relationships don't read this and say 'If I'm not single how am I going to marry someone better than what I got?' there probably is someone better out there you know [there's me of course] but risk is both positive and negative variation there could be a lot of people worse you gotta evaluate what is 'good enough' for you or or possibly 'low maintainance' enough for you. The fucken point is you can reason and judge for yourself (this isn't relationship advice okay just don't do anything because I said, fuck.)
Fucking fact is the best thing is to identify your goals and take the risks that stand a chance of moving you closer to fulfilling those goals. And get full value out of everything. I'm just starting to read about all these causes I'd dismissed as lost and uninteresting to me because they didn't involve ninjas but there's a world outside ninjas tom. A bright world, with cheese in it.
But seriously I went to this RYLA camp and stood around the first half day thinking 'who are these freaks? I don't belong here' but I had my goals such as disclosure and shit and was trying to force my cynacism down and try and actually be supportive, all that shit. I got so much more out of the experience by sitting and listening and trying to participate in everything that was on offer. I even had milk with my cereal.
On friday I had to print out a bunch of fancy rebates that was going to tie up a printer for 15 whole minutes and the courtesy thing is to send a boring email out to say 'Printer 14 will be in use...blah blah...sorry for the inconveniance.' for the 200 hundred people that don't use the printer anyway the greatest inconvenience is the email so I tacked on '...and I just want everyone to know how much I appreciate you all and you make $%#d& a great place to work.' which I got responses to like 'thanks so much.' and one guy sent me a recording of him making a sucking noise into his microphone. I did it to be a smartarse but also because I genuinly believe those positive vibes can make a significant difference in someones day.
Another example of choosing an attitude was from J/the doctor on triple j breakfast radio who was alking about getting called by telemarketers from an indian call centre. 'Most people get annoyed and tell them to fuck off, learn english or something like that but I thought "I don't know anyone in India and they are paying for this call" and he asked the guy all about india.' just such a fucking great attitude it would have made two peoples day.
September 11 and the Bush reaction is probably another stark example of choosing attitude. Hmmm... poignant tom poignant.
You know life is great. Paul and me and some other guys were standing outside a food truck at an Autowreckers and everyone was buying pies and Paul said 'I hardly ever eat pies anymore but when I do I think "gee there great"' it's so Paul. Life just gets sweeter and sweeter when you have the right attitude and I just wanted to take Paul and put him in my yard.