A Harvard University study found that when a person gets a job, 85% of the time it is because of their attitude while 15% is because of how skilled they are.

The older I get, the more I realise how our attitude affects our lives. I sometimes ask myself how can two people with the same skills and abilities, in the same situation, end up with two totally different outcomes? The difference maker is attitude.

Sometimes you don't need a great attitude to be successful in life. If you believe that attitude is everything, it may hurt you more than help you. If attitude is everything, then the only thing that would separate each person from the other would be the belief that they can do it.

The older I get, the more I realise how attitude affects our daily lives. To me, it's more important than the past, education, money, circumstances, failures, success, looks, talent or skills. No attitude is strong enough to compensate for lack of skills and knowledge. Attitude is more important than what others think, say or do.

It can make or break companies, churches, schools and even homes. The most important and amazing thing is that we have a choice every day about which attitude to adopt. We cannot change the past nor the fact that people act in certain way towards us. We cannot also change our fate, but the one thing we can do is work on our attitudes.

• Samuel Radebe, Heilbron