Goal-getters Videos

People who reach bigg success aren t constrained by the same forces we are. Baloney! It s a myth that we all aren t constrained in the same ways. But there s a bigg difference between the average Joe or Jane and people who ultimately reach bigg success. ___ ___ Remove the constraints! The average person gives in to those constraints. Bigg goal-getters don t see themselves as constrained so they don t allow themselves to be constrained. They don t waste time telling themselves all of the reasons why they can t do something. They focus, instead, on why they can do it and how they will get it done. There s a key lesson for us: By changing your focus from can t to can you open your mind to all sorts of possibilities. Your mind follows your lead Your mind will let you take it wherever you want. Think about why something can t be done and your mind will come up with all kinds of reasons to prove you right! Think about how it can be done and your mind will start figuring out any number of ways to overcome every challenge that holds others back. Sure, some ideas won t work out. You won t care. You know one of them will lead you to bigg success. But if you never get out of the gate if you just assume that you can t win the race you won t. The first part of the killer combo: Child-like imagination People who reach bigg success dream bigg. You must dream again. You must dream the kind of dreams you dreamed when you were young. Your dreams probably won t be exactly the same as they were then. But they will be as bigg as the dreams you saw through the eyes of a child. When the world was your oyster. When there was nothing you couldn t do. When you could imagine all of the bigg things that you would accomplish. When you knew that nothing could stop you. When you couldn t wait to grow up so we could get to all these wonderful ideas. The second part: Experiential wisdom But you re not a child anymore and that s good. You re better equipped now to achieve your bigg dreams than you were then. Combine that child-like imagination with the wisdom you have gained from your experiences. Together, they will help you achieve things that other people only fantasize about, if they allow themselves to think about them at all. That s the difference. That s why you should celebrate your age. You have gained an asset that you didn t have when you were young. You have learned from your experiences, haven t you? Celebrate them! Take joy in all of them the good, the bad and the ugly! You have the killer combination to achieve bigg success! Because of it, the possibility of achieving the impossible is more probable! Believe But too much of the time, we don t think about that. We stopped dreaming bigg dreams. We accepted being average and ordinary. Deep in your soul, you know that you re excellent and extraordinary. You have to believe again! Believe that you can achieve what you can conceive! Then find a way to do it. It only takes one person discovering one way to do anything that s never been done before. Then people marvel at the accomplishment. You re still the one! You are that one person! You were born to dream bigg dreams. You know it because you ve done it. You were born to be excellent and extraordinary. But first you must remove the limits that keep you from dreaming bigg. Dream. Then think of ways to make your dream your reality. Believe that you will win. Did you hear that? You will win. You will achieve your dream. You re still the one! Now, take action and you ll be a bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thank you so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we ll talk about why it pays to be small in business today. Until next time, here s to your bigg success. Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00521-111309.mp3 Related posts Overcome Self Doubt in 4 Steps The Hero Within the Hero (Image in today s post by asifthebes)

Picture yourself standing beside a bigg lake. It s a gorgeous day. The sun is shining. There is no wind. The lake is as calm as can be. It looks like a solid sheet. You toss a small pebble into this bigg body of water. As it splashes into the water, it creates a ripple a ripple that flows out from the center where the rock hit the water in all directions. ___ ___ The same thing can happen in your schedule. You have your day all mapped out. Then something unexpected hits it. It ripples out and can affect your whole life, for the day or longer. In our interconnected world, it may be a ripple in someone else s schedule that creates a ripple in yours. Your spouse has to work late so you need to make dinner. A co-worker has a sick kid so you need to double up on a project. A client calls and you have a great opportunity but the work has to be done right away. That s exactly what happened to us recently. We had too many projects on the table already. We had another who needed a proposal revised. Work can affect home. Home can affect work. If you re not careful, a little ripple in your schedule can create a tidal wave in your life. If you schedule yourself for every minute of every day, a little ripple can create a tidal wave. Plan for the unplanned. Allow time in your schedule to react to the inevitable situations that will arise. Similarly, if you don t allow for extra time on every project, a little ripple in your schedule can create a tidal wave in your life. Plus X your schedule. Budget more time than you think it will take. Bigg goal-getters tend to be a pretty optimistic bunch. We think we can do more than is humanly possible. Try to discover your natural optimist bias. For example, you may find that you think it will take two hours but it actually takes three. You think it will take two days; then you do it in three. By tracking expectations and comparing it to the actual, you ve learned that you need to plus 50% your schedule. If you get done earlier than you thought, you know you won t have any trouble finding something to do. If you don t give yourself some down time, you can expect a little ripple to create a tidal wave. Rest and relaxation are extremely important. Variety is invigorating. Give yourself some time to recover. Even so called wasted time just pure do-nothing downtime is valuable sometimes. Similarly, if you don t take care of yourself, a little ripple in your schedule can create a tidal wave in your life. Do something, anything, physical. It can make a tremendous difference in your ability to deal with ripples. If you re like us, we often grab a quick bite to eat while we keep working. You may do that now and then, but force yourself to get away from it all once in a while. And give yourself some time to wind down before you go to bed. Otherwise, it s hard to shut the brain off. If you don t tend to all areas of your life, a little ripple can create a tidal wave. If you re so busy doing everything you do, you may not be tending to important relationships. When a little ripple comes along, the connection is missing that keeps it a ripple. So it turns into a tidal wave. There will be ripples on your path to bigg success. Ripples make calm waters more interesting. Keeping them from turning into tidal waves leads to bigg success. How do you deal with ripples? Tell us by leaving a comment, e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leaving a voice mail at 888.455.BIGG (2444). Thanks so much for reading our post today! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Next time, we ll discuss finding rhythm in life. Please join us. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00502-101609.mp3 Related posts The Recipe for Life on Your Own Terms The Surprising Thing Others Expect from You (Image in today s post by ilco)

It s Back-to-School time and we re in the middle of a ten-part series on lifelong learning. We ve talked about the 3 R s we learned in school and how they apply to our lives now. Last time, we started the 3 R s of bigg success by talking about the 1st R responsibility. Now we want to talk about the 2nd R resiliency. ___ ___ We always knew how important it was to be resilient. However, the events of the past year or so have highlighted why it s vital that we are able to bounce back. One of the things we know for sure is that there will be surprises on the path to bigg success. That s when you have to dig deep to find your ability to press on. The difference between a promise and a commitment ___ I m admittedly going back a few years here. I remember a banquet from high school. Our football team had a very successful year. The quote behind the dais said, Losers make promises, Winners make commitments. There s a fine line between those two terms. ___ ___ Promises are a declaration of what you will do. We re told to keep our promises. Of course, we should. But that quote, George, highlights how you keep promises. You make a commitment to make them so. ___ When you do that, you have an emotional stake in the promise. You re not just saying it. You will do it one way or another. That s the bigg goal-getters mindset. That s the mindset of people who will reach bigg success in times like the ones we re living through. 5 ways to become more resilient Change is occurring at a rate we ve never seen before. One of the things that we can count on in the future is that things will keep changing. Resiliency is a critical trait for bigg success. Here are five ways to become more resilient: Develop a will do attitude. We used to say can do but the term can isn t strong enough. Try this: Say I can succeed bigg. Now try it this way: I will succeed bigg! Do you see the difference? A will-do mindset empowers you. Believe in yourself completely. Become flexible. Rigidity isn t one of the 3 R s of bigg success! It works against bigg success these days. Things change quickly, which makes the future difficult to predict. Learn and adapt. It s critical to bigg success. Develop a problem-solving process. Check out our post called SOLVE IT where we map out such a system. And take a note from the Chinese: Put all your problems in a box and pull them out one at a time when you re ready to deal with them. Summon strength. Different people do this in different ways. Your strength may come from inside yourself. It may come from meditation or prayer. It may come from people who care about you. It may come from a combination of all of these. It doesn t matter where you get it, but find mental, emotional and spiritual strength. Focus. Focus on what you can control, not what you can t. Focus on who you can influence, not who you can t. Focus on the most important thing you for you to accomplish next for your bigg success. ___ Don t miss the party! Trust Agents is flying off the shelves. It s the one book you must read this year. ___ Thank you so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time as we discuss the 3rd R of bigg success relationships. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00465-082109.mp3 Related posts Reading Reading and wRiting Reading and wRiting and aRithmetic The 3 Rs of Bigg Success Part 1

Here we are in the middle of the Dog Days of Summer. So today we start a five-part Dog Days series. Of course, the term Dog Days refers to this time of year when it is hot and humid in much of the developed world. It goes back to a time before we had air conditioning, when it was just plain hard to get motivated to get much done. ___ ___ But the term has also come to mean times when there isn t much progress. That s what we ll focus on today identifying five common reasons behind slowed progress. It s a problem we all face from time to time. Dogging it One reason we may not accomplish more is simply that we re dogging it. It could just be laziness. However, we doubt that s a problem in our community of bigg goal-getters. It s more likely a result of one of two other things: You set your goals high, but didn t reach them. Now you re discouraged. That s understandable. But you have to get back in the race. Give yourself some time to lament. While you re doing that, set a very short-term goal that stretches you just a little bit. Then chase it with all you have! It will get you back on track to bigg success. The flip side is that you did reach your goal. You feel good and good for you! You should. Take a little bit of time to celebrate. Then set a new goal. We grow as humans by striving for more. So push yourself by setting a new goal that gets you excited again. Dog toys Lack of progress can also come from too many dog toys. We play with one toy for a while; then we play with another one. But we never really make any progress because our attention is directed in too many directions. Focus is crucial for bigg success. You only have so much time to push yourself forward. So pick a toy that will take you to bigg success and keep playing with it! Doggy paddle ___ We may be swimming in stuff; we re disorganized. So all we can do is doggy paddle. Research has shown that the average American loses almost an hour a day due to disorganization. What could you accomplish with an extra hour every day? ___ Dog eared ___ Sometimes my students turn in a paper that is dog eared instead of stapled. They ve just folded the top pages over together. It shows that they waited until the last minute. It makes a bad impression. Preparation leads to bigg success. ___ Dog tricks The final reason we may feel stuck on a plateau is that we lack knowledge or know-how. We need to learn some new tricks. That s the thing about bigg success: we put everything we have into reaching our goal. Then we need to learn new things to get to the next level of success. It s a never ending journey that makes life exciting. And it s that excitement that propels you to bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks for checking in today. You made our day! We talked a little bit about new tricks today. But we ve heard that you can t teach an old dog new tricks. Please join us next time when, doggone it, we ll take on this saying. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00451-080309.mp3 (Image in today s post by mioawee)

Bigg success is life on your own terms. When we talk with people about their biggest challenge in living their lives on their own terms, one of the most common responses involves work life balance in one way, shape or form. ___ ___ The tug-of-war For many of us, it s a perpetual tug-of-war. We love our family. We thoroughly enjoy our time with friends. We relish time to ourselves. But we also love the work we do. We take pride in our accomplishments. Rightly so. But we re only human. We can t be two places at once. The result? We re not as happy as we should be. We re not completely fulfilled. It may cause feelings of guilt. Depending on where the knot is in the tug-of-war we re playing which side is getting more attention we may feel guilty about not giving enough attention to the other side. When we re at work, there are times when we may feel guilty about not being home. When we re home, we may feel guilty at times about not working. It seems like a no-win situation! The sacrifice Research shows in our effort to have it all we re sacrificing something that s very important to our well-being: sleep. So we end up dragging at work. Or we re spent before we get home. By the time we get there, have dinner and do some household chores, we only have enough energy to crash on the couch. But we keep pushing. Day after day, we push to the point of exhaustion until, finally, something inside of us says, Enough! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ The surprising thing Stewart Friedman is a Professor at Wharton and the author of a fantastic book on leadership. It s called Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life. In his research, he has uncovered an answer to this work life balance problem. It has to do with a surprising thing others expect from you. They expect drum roll please Less! Dr. Friedman s research shows that other people expect a lot less of us than we think they do. In many cases, they re not the ones putting the pressure on us. We re putting undue pressure on ourselves! You are the entrepreneur of a very important enterprise your life. Just like any entrepreneur, communication with your key stakeholders is crucial. Talk about expectations. Great entrepreneurs have these conversations with their employees. They talk about expectations with their investors. Follow that example have a conversation about expectations with the key stakeholders in your life. Discuss options. Ask for their help in discovering options so you meet their expectations. Reach an agreement about respective participation in each other s lives. Think of it as a service level agreement. You ll come away with a clear understanding of the expectations the most important people in your life have of you. Then you can focus on scheduling your days to meet those expectations. Or better yet, exceed them. After all, this is the community for bigg goal-getters! Thanks so much for the gift of your time today. We ve heard over and over again that money can t buy happiness. Please join us next time when we ask, Can happiness buy money? Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00445-072409.mp3 Related posts Flipping Work Life Balance Taking Time Off to Get More Done Why Work Life Balance Doesn't Work (Image in today s post by KevinKLuu)

Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. ~ Neil Armstrong Today we re celebrating one of the biggest successes of all time. Forty years ago today, on July 20, 1969, three men Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time. ___ ___ They had launched their mission 4 days earlier, flying 203,000 miles to get there. About six-and-a-half hours after they landed, with one-sixth of the people in the world tuned in to watch, Neil Armstrong descended down the ladder of the lunar space module. As he became the first person to walk on the surface of the moon, he uttered those famous words: That s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. We never get tired of hearing those words. It gives us goose bumps. They are so inspiring. But we have to remember that it didn t just happen. It began as a bigg goal over eight years before. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. How to set goals like President Kennedy President Kennedy s goal was very well-stated. It was a SMART goal. SMART is an acronym for: Specific Measurable Action-Oriented Realistic Time- and Resource-Constrained Let s look at each of these five components of a well-stated goal using President Kennedy s goal as an example. Specific President Kennedy said that we were going to do two things: land a man on the moon return him safely to earth You can t get much more specific than that. In this case, it may be easier to think about what wouldn t be specific. He could have said, We re going to land a man somewhere in space. That s not specific. He clearly articulated the destination. Measurable President Kennedy s goal was clearly measurable. We would certainly know if a man had landed on the moon. We could certainly tell if he returned safely to earth. Note, though, that landing on the moon and then not being able to get back safely would have meant the goal was not reached. Let s bring this point on being measurable safely back to earth. Here s an example of a goal that is not measurable: I m going to increase my income next year. What does that mean? If you increase it by $1, did you really accomplish what you set out to do? A well-stated goal would be: I m going to increase my income by 5% next year. I m going to increase my income by $2,000 next year. Now you ll know if you accomplish what you set out to do. Action-oriented When President Kennedy called for this mission to send man to the moon [PDF], he made clear that it would take a tremendous commitment by the entire nation to reach this goal. He called for innovation. He called for new money. He said it would take a concentrated effort for an extended period of time. But it would get done. And get done it did. In a similar vein with our personal goals or the goals we set for our businesses we must commit to taking the necessary steps to achieve the goal. Realistic President Kennedy said, I believe we have all the resources and talent necessary. Your goals can and should be bigg goals. They should stretch you beyond anything you ve ever accomplished before. But they have to be realistic. Otherwise, they don t lead to bigg success. They only lead to discouragement. Time- and Resource-constrained This one s easy. President Kennedy said we would accomplish this goal by the end of the decade. It was 1961. The goal was reached July 20, 1969. He made it clear that resources would have to be diverted from other good causes if this goal was to be reached. When you set your goals, be sure to give yourself a due date. When will you accomplish this goal? What resources will be required to do it? Do you have them? Goal-setting is not goal-getting John F. Kennedy was able to reduce all of this into a simple goal statement of 31 powerful words that set this course of events into action. Because he wasn t just a bigg goal-setter, he was a bigg goal-getter. Setting goals is just the first step in that process. We have a great tool the Bigg Goal-Getter s Workbook which takes you through the entire six step process to put goal-setting and goal-getting to work for you. It s free when you subscribe to our free newsletter, The Bigg Success Weekly. Just one final point: Good goals have a reason behind them. They serve a bigger purpose. Every goal should lead you closer to the bigg success of which you dream. So we ll close with John F. Kennedy himself explaining why sending a man to the moon was so important: We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00441-072009.mp3 Related posts The Power of Imagination The Single Biggest Barrier To Your Success Regrets...Had A Few? (Image and quotes in today s post from NASA)

Bigg Success is life on your own terms. The 5 elements of bigg success are money, time, growth, work and play. Today s focus is play. Bigg goal-getters work very hard to achieve their goals. It s important to take time to rejuvenate yourself so you can keep making your bigg dreams come true. ___ ___ If you can t steal away for a day, steal away for an hour One way to do that is to take a daycation spend a day enjoying one of your favorite activities. Take in a ball game. Go for a hike. Enjoy a drive. Sometimes you can t take an entire day away from work. Synergize look for a way to fit in some fun with the work even if it s just for an hour! We find it therapeutic to be around bigg water. So after a few meetings recently in Chicago, we spent time walking along Lake Michigan before driving home. Experience nature with all your senses When you do stop to enjoy nature, use all of your senses to really take it in. Looking out, we could see almost nothing but water. There was a sail boat on the horizon; a seagull bobbing on the waves. We could hear the waves, coming into shore in rhythm and washing back out. We could feel the breeze, the moisture in the air and the warmth of the sun. A splash from a wave hit our hands. It was cold! Every once in a while, there was that fishy smell with which we re all familiar. It s a reminder of the life we can t see beneath the surface. As we breathed in the smell of the air, the taste in our mouth changed. It was wonderful. It makes your problems seem insignificant when you experience a body of water as massive as this. It s always hard to leave, but we were re-energized in a short time because we really took it all in with all of our senses. Bigg goal-getters give their all to achieve their bigg dreams. But you have to take time to stop and smell the roses (or the fish) to keep pushing towards bigg success. What is your favorite activity? How do you take it all in? Tell us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. See a short video mix of the sights and sounds we enjoyed at Lake Michigan. Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00440-071809.mp3 Related posts Take Me Out to the Free Ball Game Taking Time Off to Get More Done The Work-Play Tradeoff

This is the final installment of the three levels of freedom. First, we talked about freedom of: those basic freedoms that we who live in the developed world take for granted. Then we talked about freedom from dependence on others, addiction to things and limiting thoughts. Now we re ready to discuss the highest level of freedom: freedom to. ___ ___ Freedom to live your life on your own terms This is what Bigg Success is all about. It s the freedom to live your life on your own terms. As we get freedom from, our confidence grows. We conquer our fears one at a time. We start a new dialog with ourselves. We tell ourselves we do deserve better. We tell ourselves we will do better. We stop listening to what other people say or worrying about what they think. It s liberating. Who cares that your neighbor just bought a hot little sports car? Not you. You have bigg plans and a new car isn t part of them right now. Who cares that your college classmate just got a great promotion? Not you. You have your own bigg dream to pursue. You re the entrepreneur of a very important enterprise your life. You call the shots. Successful entrepreneurs find a way to press on, to endure. You ll do whatever it takes as long as it s legal and ethical to live your life on your own terms. Every day, you re free to give it all you have. And that s a level of success you can revel in. At the end of the day, you can be at peace with yourself if you ve given your all that day to move you toward the life you dream of living. Until tomorrow. Bigg goal-getters are usually happy, but they re never content. Be happy today while eagerly anticipating all the bigg things you will accomplish tomorrow. Freedom to relish in the success of others You also have the freedom to help other people live their life on their own terms. But there s a step in between. As we get beyond our limiting thoughts, as we start to conquer our fears one by one, as we move past the freedom from level, we gain that confidence that is so crucial to bigg success. The way we think starts to change. We see the potential within us. We come to appreciate our uniqueness. Small-minded people get jealous of others and their achievements. As a bigg thinker, you welcome the success of others. You applaud it. You feel the freedom to relish in it. Freedom to help others live their lives on their own terms Now you re ready for the highest level of freedom to freedom to help others live their lives on their own terms. You re ready find synergies with other people. You can look for ways to combine your respective strengths while shoring up your shortcomings. You know that by working together, you can accomplish far more than either of you can accomplish by yourselves. The reward? You both reach bigg success even faster! ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time as we continue this discussion of freedom. We ll talk about financial freedom. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00428-070109.mp3 Related posts Three Levels of Freedom - Part 1 Three Levels of Freedom - Part 2 (Image in today s post by svilen001)

We have some questions about work life balance. It sounds so nice at first. But when you really think about it, what exactly does it mean? ___ ___ Let s start with the phrase itself. Work life balance. It implies that work isn t a part of life, doesn t it? So is work death? And how do you figure out this whole balance thing. It seems like you would have to tightly define work and life. So what is work? For example, does work mean the time you spend making money? If so, a stay-at-home mom or dad doesn t work! Yet we all know how hard their job can be. What about other unpaid work? Are the chores you do at home part of work or part of life? Here s another scenario: Imagine you want to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. So you take a temporary part-time job to pay for that trip. Is that work or is it part of life since you re really only taking on the part-time endeavor to pay for something fun? What if you turn your hobby into a part-time business? You think it s great; instead of having to pay to do something you enjoy, you get paid to do it. Is that work or life? Would it make any difference if that part-time business turned into a full-time opportunity? Would you be working at all or would your whole life just be well, life. And what is life? Assuming you work in an office, do you consider the time you spend commuting work or life? Let s assume that you consider it work. What if you choose to live some distance away from work? That s definitely a life choice. So is the extra time counted as life or is it still work? Does sleep count as life? It s essential for life, but how productive are you at work after a sleepless night? Even if you don t get the sleep that s recommended, it s still a significant chunk of your day. So when you think about balance, do you just exclude sleep altogether? What is balance? Doesn t balance imply an equal split between work and life? Is that what work life balance really means? Are you supposed to spend half your time living and half dying (if work is death)? If it s not a 50 / 50 split, how can we call it balance? How many people ever achieve an even share of each? Is that even desirable? Okay, we hear it you want to know our point. Well, we have three of them: No lines in the sand The first one is that work life balance is not only an outdated concept, we re not sure it was a great concept in the first place! Bigg goal-getters don t draw a line in the sand. Work and life are integrated. They always have been. They always should be. Work is a part of life. Life is a part of work. It s best to accept that reality and find ways to make them work (or live) seamlessly together. It s a custom blend Bigg success is life on your own terms. You decide the right mix of personal and professional. It s your custom blend. If you re perfectly happy spending eighty percent of your time on personal activities, have at it. If you love your work and want to spend eighty percent of your time doing it, more power to you. We ll just share one caveat about working too much. Research has shown that experts can get too close to their subject and lose some of their creativity. You may not be well-rounded, but at least be a little rounded! We re preaching to ourselves in that last paragraph we needed the reminder! Look for synergy Finally, don t think zero-sum. Don t accept that there has to be tradeoffs. Work doesn t have to end so life can begin and vice versa. If you think there has to tradeoffs, then you re right. It s a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, if you think it s possible (better yet, probable) that you can find a solution that doesn t require a trade-off, you ll be more likely to try one. That s the bigg idea behind bigg success. There is synergy in the world. Strive to find ways to get your personal and professional lives working for each other instead of against each other. That s bigg success! What works for you? We d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below, call us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mail us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks so much for reading our little rant today. Please join us next time when we begin a series of five posts on freedom. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00425-062609.mp3 Related posts Flipping Work Life Balance Taking Time Off to Get More Done Why Work Life Balance Doesn't Work (Image in today s post by svilen001)

Bigg Success is life on your own terms. Today we want to focus on growth, one of the five elements of bigg success. Little things can make a bigg difference on our path to bigg success. Oftentimes, they re mostly attitudinal adjustments. We ll discus six of these little things today. ___ ___ Instead of taking an extra fifteen minutes, give an extra fifteen minutes. Over the course of a year, if you were to show up fifteen minutes earlier and stay fifteen minutes longer, you d have 120 more hours of productive time. That even allows for four weeks of vacation! This doesn t have to be work. It really depends on your objectives. You may get home fifteen minutes earlier, put an extra fifteen minutes into studying for that certification you want, or work on building relationships for an extra fifteen minutes a day. Instead of telling someone about you, ask about them. Ask your spouse or significant other about their day. Ask that person you just met about the work they do. This makes a bigg difference in so many ways. It s amazing how much we can learn from others. By letting the other person tell you about themselves, you learn about yourself and your world. ___ I find this ironic. You seem more interesting when you let the other person talk about themselves. They find you more interesting because you re letting them talk. ___ ___ You always tell me, Mary-Lynn, that the less I talk, the more interesting I am! ___ Instead of sitting back, lean forward in your chair. This is somewhat related to the last one. One benefit is that you ll stay awake! But the other benefit is that you will be more engaged with the person with whom you re talking. You appear more interested. So they feel better about themselves. Instead of walking around with a frown, flash your bigg beautiful smile! When you smile, it makes people wonder what you re up to! Tony Robbins says: Motion creates emotion. Even when you don t feel like smiling, by telling yourself to smile you ll soon see the world in a different way. Even in the worst of times, we can find something to smile about. Instead of seeing the bad, see the good. This applies in so many ways. We ll just discuss a couple. How about the people around you like your co-workers? Look for their good traits. See what they do well. Compliment them on it. How about your company? Don t focus on all the things you don t like about it. Focus on the things your company is doing well. Along that line Instead of focusing on the problem, think about solutions. There are a lot of problem-finders in the world; we don t have enough problem-solvers. It s easy to find a problem; it s a lot harder to SOLVE IT. But bigg goal-getters know that s how you find bigg success! What little things have made a bigg difference in your life? We d love it if you d share that with us. You can do that by: leaving a comment below e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) Phil Gerbyshak called us with a comment on our Lone Wolf or Lead Wolf show. He said: ___ For a long time, I lived as the lone wolf but, in the last few years, I ve realized that being the lead wolf is a lot more fun, a lot more rewarding, and a way to get a whole lot more done and experience some bigg success. So thanks for inspiring me with this article and podcast and for all you do to help us be a bigg success. Make it a great day! ___ Thanks Phil! You make it great every time we hear from you! And thank you for reading our post today. It s no little thing to us. We hope it makes a bigg difference for you! Please join us next time when we talk about why, when it comes to your career, the second time s a charm. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00413-061009.mp3 Related posts Success in a Can The One Ingredient That Guarantees Your Success A Paint Roller Helps Manage Change (Image in today s post from chrissi)

Bigg Success is life on your own terms. Today, we want to focus on time one of the five elements of bigg success. For bigg goal-getters, there never seems to be enough time in the day. Yet we all have 24 hours 1,440 minutes 86,400 seconds in the day. Sometimes it s helpful to look at things through a different lens. Let s make these units of time more tangible by thinking about them as units of inventory. ___ ___ Going bananas for time Think about a grocery store. More specifically, think about the produce area of the grocery store. Can you see the apples, the lettuce, and the broccoli? Oh, and there s the bananas! Our grocers have to sell these things before they go bad. Otherwise, they aren t worth anything. Unlike canned goods, produce has a very limited shelf life. So it is with our time. We all have 86,400 seconds as an asset at the beginning of every day. But this second is gone. Now this one. The seconds turn into minutes; the minutes into hours. When you look back on your day, did you get the most out of every hour? I don t have time ___ Our friend, Lisa Cree, said something profound to me a while back. She said, I don t have time is a statement of priority, not fact. If something is important to you, then you make it a priority and you do have time for it. ___ ___ We always hesitate to recommend this, but if you really feel like you don t have time for those things that are really important to you, keep a journal for a week or maybe even a month. It s a bit tedious but it will be worthwhile. ___ To make the best use of your time, ask yourself these three questions: Have you set your direction? You have to know where you re going to use your time effectively by doing the right things. Are you working efficiently? Do you use technology enough (or too much) to get things done expeditiously. Are there tasks you perform yourself which could easily be done by someone else? We have more options for outsourcing, both in our businesses and at home, today than ever before. Are you capitalizing on them? Are you focused enough? As a bigg goal-getter, you may like to have a lot on your plate. But here s a really important principle to understand: If you try to accomplish too much, you risk accomplishing nothing! Bigg success is life on your own terms. We ve discussed before that one of the meanings of the word terms in our definition is phases. During any term (e.g. a year), focus on two or three major objectives. Break that down into quarters or months. Then you ll know what you need to accomplish every day and every week. Here s another bigg secret: You ll get where you want to be faster if those two or three objectives work in synergy the bigg idea behind bigg success rather than having two or three completely different things. Focus on doing a few of the right things the right way so you reach bigg success faster! ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we ll discuss little things that make bigg differences. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00412-060909.mp3 Related posts The Single Biggest Waste of Time Does Haste Still Make Waste? 4 Secrets to Having All You Really Want (Image in today s post from iprole)

Bigg success is life on your own terms. That s how we define it. We were talking a few days ago ___ ___ ___ I said that we should make something clear about life on your own terms. I could be going through a mid-life crisis. Does life on my own terms mean getting a fancy new sports car, spending money like crazy, going clubbing, shirking my responsibilities, and walking away from relationships, all in an attempt to get my youth back? ___ Life on your own terms is not a license for poor behavior In fact, it s quite the opposite. It should be an ideal that we strive to live up to. It s about finding our purpose for being here and then deploying all of our resources to live up to that promise. Because of that, it s not a selfish thing. We can t reach bigg success without the help of others. In this age of interdependence, we are able to live our lives on our own terms by helping others live their lives on their own terms. Life on your own terms is also not a passing fancy It s a direction, not a point. It s very emotional because it is so personal, but it s not based on one s feelings at this moment. ___ I may feel depressed right now. Does that mean life on my own terms means being depressed? Of course not. ___ ___ Feeling down from time to time is something we all experience, but we have to respond to it, not just accept it or give in to it. Going to the mid-life crisis example, maybe I m not feeling as young as I used to. Is the answer really to blow a bunch of money and waste a lot of time? ___ ___ Bigg goal-getters accept that there are some things that we can t change. No amount of money is going to make me any younger physically. We recognize the realities of our situation and respond positively to keep moving toward our bigg goals where we want to go, what we want to achieve, who we want to be known as. ___ Each day we write another page of our autobiography. We show the world who we are by how we live our lives. Life on your own terms is dynamic, not static While it s not a passing fancy, it does evolve over time as we discover more about ourselves and the world around us. ___ I remember when I was in my early twenties life on my own terms then meant being in the Forbes 400. I wanted to get rich in my own business. Then I heard Donald Trump asked about the difference between $70 million and $700 million. He said, A bigger boat. I realized then that I didn t need a bigger boat! ___ ___ So how did that change your terms? ___ ___ I decided it wasn t worth my time to work that hard to make the extra money. If all I was going to get out of it was a bigger boat, I wasn t interested. Don t get me wrong; money still helps! But life on my own terms evolved to building quality relationships and sharing experiences. ___ ___ Your desire to own your own business didn t change? ___ ___ ___ Oh no, that desire definitely stayed the same. ___ ___ So life on your own terms changed as a result of this new information. You realized there were more important things to you than the money you thought you wanted. But you still wanted to be in business for yourself. ___ ___ You may decide that less is more like I did. Or you may realize that you ve been selling yourself short and you want more. ___ It s life on your own terms. It s not a license for poor behavior. It s not a passing fancy. But it is dynamic; it may change over time as you gain knowledge about yourself and your environment. How has your definition of life on your own terms changed over time? Share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. Thank you so much for reading our post today! ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ New research shows that a promotion may be good for your wealth, but not necessarily your health. Please join us next time to find out why. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00373-041509.mp3 Related posts Stop Trying to Fit into the World Does Haste Still Make Waste? 4 Secrets to Having All You Really Want (Image in today s post by svilen001)

Bigg success is life on your own terms. As we ve discussed before, the terms in our definition of bigg success means several things. One of the ways we can look at terms is in time frames. Sometimes when we think about life on our own terms, it s hard to see how to achieve something that bigg. Want to know how we respond to that? We say, Don t try! Before you click away, give us just a second to explain. What we mean is ___ ___ Don t try for the bigg goal all at once. Break it up into little actions. Give yourself a due date for completing each action. Suddenly that bigg goal isn t so bigg at all. You advance toward it action by action. Those little actions are milestones. You can think of the period of time between due dates for your milestones as terms. Vision to Victory We introduced this subject last time when we talked about how to ramp up your savings, but we left out something really important. You must have a clear vision of bigg success in your mind. What exactly does life on your own terms look like? Then, as you map out the actions required to get there, it s crucial that each action build upon the previous action. Success breeds success, as the saying goes. So when you succeed with one action, you re more likely to succeed with the next. It s all about momentum. Momentum is a precious thing Once you get momentum, you want to do everything you can to keep it because it works both ways. We think of an interview with an excited football player whose team had just won a bigg game. He described their victory by saying: We had the momodum, but then we lost the momodum. Fortunately, we were able to get the momodum back! He may have been too excited to get the word momentum right, but he certainly understood what it was all about. It s something we see all the time in sports. It doesn t just happen on the playing field. We think it s particularly important to understand this right now. Things haven t been going the way a lot of people would like lately. We just have to work all the harder to get the momentum (or should we say momodum ) back. Life may throw you something unexpected. That s part of the price of bigg success. That s okay. You know you can do it. You know you will win. In those moments when things don t go your way, don t get discouraged. Overcome your fear. And charge back. Get momentum working for you again because success does breed success. Build a cumulative advantage to turn success into bigg success. Build success into bigg success You do that by staying hungry. We ve said before that bigg goal-getters are usually happy, but never content. That s one of the secrets to building on your success. Another secret is to understand the fine line between confidence and cockiness. Stay humble, but be proud of what you ve accomplished. Perhaps most important, stay focused to gain a cumulative advantage. Make sure your milestones work together so you get where you want to be as fast as you can get there. Then focus exclusively on reaching your next milestone. If you ve done everything you can today to get to that next milestone, then you are living your life on your own terms right now. You may not have reached your destination, but you re well on your way to bigg success! How do you stay focused on what you need to accomplish today? Share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. Thanks so much for spending your time with us today! ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Next time, we ll talk about when your definition of success changes. Please join us! Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00372-041409.mp3 Related posts When Things Don't Go Your Way Starting from Scratch - Part 1 Starting from Scratch - Part 2 (Image in today s post by cobrasoft)

Bigg success is life on your own terms. We ve said that the reason for the redundancy your own in our definition of bigg success is to explicitly show that you are the entrepreneur of a very important enterprise your life. ___ ___ If life on your own terms means building your own personal brand, there s a very important principle to keep in mind: You re the entrepreneur, the CEO, and the brand manager! With their careers, some people fall short in reaching their potential because they just sell a service. They exchange their time and knowledge for money. As bigg goal-getters, we don t want to just sell a service. We want to create our own brands. But we don t want to just create a personal brand, we want to build our lives on our own terms. ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ One crucial key to building our personal brands is consistency. There are at least three areas where this holds true: Promotion One of the things the biggest brands do very well is convey a consistent brand image. Yet that s one of the mistakes that we make most frequently in building our personal brands: we re inconsistent in showing ourselves to the world. You want to convey a consistent message across all the media you use your resume, your cover letters, your e-mails, notes you send, social media you might use, clubs you join, and on and on. With these materials, you create the image of who you are. You also want to keep in mind who you re trying to relate to in order to create the best promotional materials for your brand. Promotion sets the expectations. What can I expect from you? That s your brand promise. Performance You want to meet, or better yet exceed, the expectations you set. Believe it or not, it s better to deliver at a consistently lower level than to perform poorly at times and superbly at others. Kind of counterintuitive, isn t it? However, think about your experiences as a customer. Aren t you happier if your expectations are low but satisfied, than if your higher expectations aren t met? ___ For a very simple example, think about getting an e-mail from me today that is written well and has no typos. Tomorrow, I send you an e-mail that s just full of typos. What would you think? ___ ___ I might think, What s going on with George today? Is he sick? Is he too busy? Is he just this careless sometimes? It raises a lot of questions. ___ At the start, strive to meet expectations all the time. Then find ways to gradually improve your performance so you exceed expectations regularly. That leads to bigg success! Persona Have you ever dealt with a person who is very chatty and friendly one day and may seem somewhat aloof at other times? It s okay to be moody; we just don t need to share it with the world! We have to find a way to control our emotions so we present a consistent temperament. Sweatin to an example Think about Richard Simmons. He s done pretty well for himself. He s always dressed in the same kind of clothes, complete with the shortest of shorts. He s wacky and upbeat. He s always empathetic and dancing to the oldies! You may not want to emulate Richard Simmons. We can understand. However, he has done an outstanding job of building his brand. You know what to expect and he consistently delivers. All someone has to do is say Richard Simmons and you get a clear image in your mind of who he is and what he s about. That s the lesson for all of us. Consistently in your promotion, your performance and your persona build your personal brand so you can live your life on your own terms. That s bigg success! What are you doing to build your personal brand? You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. Thanks so much for personally reading our post today. We brand that a good day! Please join us next time when we share how recent bad luck and bad timing almost kept us from life on our own terms. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00364-040209.mp3 Related posts For What Will You Be Famous? Getting The Credit You Deserve Your Potential Power (Image in today s post by blary54)

Chuck e-mailed his bigg challenge to us. He s starting a new job next week. It s his third job as a manager. In the position he s leaving, he feels he made too many changes too quickly. It created a problem with his directs. He s hoping we can offer him some suggestions as he gets ready for his new job. ___ ___ As bigg goal-getters, we often want to change things too fast as leaders and even in our personal lives. We think we need to lose weight so we jump into an exercise routine and completely change our diets. It s too much and we end up right back where we started. We have to be especially careful with change when it affects others. Like in Chuck s case, any changes he makes will affect one or more of his employees. Two of our rules for change here at Bigg Success are: That s the way we ve always done it doesn t mean it s the best. That s the way we ve always done it doesn t make it wrong. Change is essential to make improvements in our lives and our businesses. We want to focus on the changes that will make the greatest impact given their cost. When we talk about cost, we mean your investment of time and money two of the five elements of bigg success. ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Get out the paint roller We heard a suggestion some time ago from a person who had learned to manage change effectively. He said that when he takes on a new leadership position, the first and only change he makes is to paint a single wall of his new office. He feels like he s changed something. It relieves that pressure. Everyone around him can see that he changed something. In fact, they often ask, Why did you paint that wall? Why that color? Why just one wall? It makes them curious. You may make a different, but similarly insignificant, change. By doing this, you re really buying time to find out what is and isn t working while subtly signaling that change will happen. Once you find out what isn t working, you can determine which changes to make in what order based on their impact on your organization or your life! What are your suggestions for Chuck? You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. Thanks Chuck for sharing your bigg challenge with us and good luck with your new gig! And we thank you for reading our post today. Join us next time as we share a remedy for one of the most discouraging thoughts you can have. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00362-033109.mp3 Related posts 3 Questions for a Brighter Future Making Change Work Does Haste Still Make Waste? (Image in today s post by anitasweb)

Last time, we discussed a new paradigm for thinking about our lives: you are the entrepreneur in charge of running a very important enterprise your life. ___ ___ Terms can inspire action Our definition of bigg success life on your own terms explicitly recognizes that terms are important. Not just words, but words that matter. Words that empower us. A single term can cut through the complexity of a subject and make it simple to understand. And therein lies the power of terms. To create understanding and, from that understanding, actions to achieve bigg success. Life on your own terms. What are those terms for you? ___ One of the terms we use here at Bigg Success is goal-getter. I love that word. It combines go-getter with goal-getting. So it s a powerful word to me that implies movement toward what I want to achieve. ___ Terms can limit us Like many things, terms can also work against us. They can limit what we achieve. We can define ourselves too small. We can view our businesses too tightly. We may see our careers too narrowly. ___ For example, I defined myself for years as a radio DJ. That s what I was and that s what I was known as. But when I started using the term broadcaster , I could see a bigger picture and new possibilities. I am now a broadcaster who happens to use the internet as my medium. ___ With terms, we can also magnify our shortcomings and minimize our strengths. It s so easy to do. Your terms are unique Notice that we define bigg success as life on your own terms. Your terms are not my terms. They are uniquely yours. Your terms have the power to inspire you to bigg success. To lift you up when you re down. To push you even higher when you re up. Terms as time frames There s another meaning to the terms of life on your own terms. We think of school terms a semester, for instance. It s valuable to think about terms in terms of time. In other words, as phases. To achieve the bigg success we dream of, we will set our goals in time frames. For example, say you want to be the best attorney in your area. That s your end goal. In the first term, your goal may be to complete your undergraduate degree. Term 2 get your law degree. Term 3 pass the bar. And so on. You break up your long-term goal into terms time frames to make sure you stay on track to reach bigg success. ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ The terms of the deal See how rich a single term can be? But we re not through yet! There are two primary factors in any deal the price and the terms. There s a basic negotiating principle: You get to pick the price or the terms, but not both. If you ever get to pick both, you better get a great deal! Do you see the implication of that principle to bigg success? If you set the terms, bigg success sets the price. The higher the level of success you seek, the higher the price will be. You must be willing to pay that price or you can t you won t be able to live your life on your own terms. There s a story about an amateur golfer who approached a famous golfer. We believe it was Tom Watson. The story goes something like this The amateur said, I d give anything to drive a golf ball the way you do. Tom Watson said, No, you wouldn t. The amateur said, Yes, I would. After several more rounds of this, the pro decided to let the amateur in on his secret. Tom Watson finally said, I learned to drive the ball the way I do by going to the range every morning and driving a bucket of balls. When that bucket was empty, I drove another one. And another one. The pro continued, I drove balls until I could feel blisters forming on my hands. And do you know what I did then? I kept driving balls. Before long, my hands were bleeding. So I drove another bucket of balls. Day after day, week after week, I drove balls in spite of the pain. Eventually, my hands were full of callouses. That s how I learned to drive the golf ball the way I do. So if you want to drive golf balls like a pro, there s your price. You set the terms, but then you must pay the price to reach bigg success. It s worth it because it s what you want. By the way, there is also a price to pay for not living your life on your own terms. We think that price is higher! Share your terms So what are your terms? What does life on your own terms mean to you? And what terms inspire you? You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. We want to highlight the members of our community and their stories. In those stories, in our terms, is information and inspiration for all of us. So we all reach bigg success even faster! Thanks so much for reading our post today. Join us next time as we continue diving deeper into life on your own terms. We ll talk about five very special terms the five elements of bigg success. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00358-032509.mp3 Related posts What is Bigg Success? Own Your Life

When you study anything, it s important to understand the definitions. So today, we re happy to announce that we have refined the definition for bigg success: ___ ___ Bigg success is life on your own terms. ___ I just love that because it is so empowering. Who else can tell us how to live our lives? ___ ___ It s not about money or material possessions. Or it can be. It s not judgmental. If it works for you, it works! ___ Your terms, not others We don t always live our lives on our own terms. We live by the terms set by others. Our families and friends, with all good intentions, have their thoughts about how we should live. Society sets expectations of us. Hollywood and Madison Avenue paint a picture of how our lives should look. Teachers, bosses and others guide us to the life they want us to live. Sometimes we even place demands upon ourselves that aren t congruent with what we really want. Taking charge Enough is enough. We must take our lives back. We must claim the most precious gifts that we have been given. To choose who we are and who we become. To live the life we dream of living. To find our path to happiness without regard for what others think. To feel in control no matter what situation we face. When we feel that we have power over our own lives, we can relish in every moment even if things aren t going exactly as planned. Not a selfish endeavor Life on your own terms sounds selfish, but it s not. In fact, it s quite the opposite. It means figuring out how to get from where you are now to where you want to be for the benefit of yourself and the people you care about. How we re doing it We understand this definition well because we re living it. ___ I worked in the corporate world. I had outgrown the place where I was working and I didn t want to move for two reasons: I was engaged to George and the industry I worked in was experiencing troubles so I thought a move would be risky. ___ ___ I ve been a passionate business owner for years and teach entrepreneurship at our local University. I saw the internet as a great place for learning and a way to combine those two passions. I also have a passion for a certain young lady named Mary-Lynn and working together seemed like a slam dunk! ___ So we created an opportunity for ourselves Bigg Success to be partners both personally and professionally. It works for us, but it doesn t work for everyone. It s how we re living life on our own terms. ___ Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ People in transformation We ve designed Bigg Success to be the place for goal-gettin go-getters bigg goal-getters as we like to call you. That s the reason for the second g in Bigg! Bigg goal-getters don t just talk the talk. We also walk the walk. Because we re positive thinking, fun-loving people. We re people in transformation. Usually happy, but never content. Always striving to grow. Always looking to expand. Always in search of our next bigg opportunity. So from two bigg goal-getter to another, welcome to Bigg Success! We look forward to getting to know you better. To growing together. To seeing you reach your bigg goals while we attain ours. Reach bigg success in your life even faster Bigg success is, and always will be, a developing concept. That s the nature of bigg success! It s still about personal and professional development. We think by defining bigg success the way we have, we can have a richer conversation. We will discover new things which we ll share with you. We hope you will share your knowledge with us and the entire Bigg Success community. Because all of us know more than any of us. Start by telling us what life on your own terms means to you. You can share that with a comment below, by calling us at 888.455.BIGG or by e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com When you share, whether by writing it or speaking it, you get the ideas out of your head. So you learn and so will everyone else in the community. By all of us sharing, we learn from each other so we all reach bigg success in our own lives even faster! Thanks so much for reading our post today. You ve probably heard of Brand You. You may have heard that you re the CEO of your own life. We don t think either one is correct. Join us next time as we dive deeper into the definition of bigg success to find out why. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00356-032309.mp3

There is a group of people that most people just don t understand. They face the same problems we all face but they just don t get how bad these problems are this time around. ___ ___ When they listen to the news, it s the same news we all hear. But they just don t get it how bad the news really is. They have the same concerns for themselves and their families that we all have. But there is one difference between this group and the majority of people They think their lives are going to get better this year! The future is bright. So bright, they probably wear shades! They think the economy will turn around. And there s a startling number of Americans who think this way. In fact, according to a recent survey, more than one-third of all Americans are in this group. And only one out of five people said they worry about the economy on a daily basis. Are they tuning out? So what do you think? Are these people who think their personal situation will improve this year nuts? Or do you think they re onto something? Or maybe they re on something? Here s what they may not be on they may not be reading, watching, or listening to the news! Bad news does seem to be good news to the news media. We ve spoken with a large number of people over the last month or so who say they ve tuned out the news. Sometimes that s a good coping mechanism. If you re tired of hearing gloom and doom, it might be more productive to focus on something more positive. Challenge spells opportunity We put ourselves in this group of optimistic people. We think things will get better this year. That s not to say we won t still see some hiccups, but it appears that there is significant strength just below the surface. While we face some major challenges right now, that spells opportunity for bigg goal-getters. But don t expect to win a spelling bee if you spell it that way! Getting real The article we mentioned earlier cites some of the benefits of being an optimist. On average, optimists get sick less, live longer, and appear to have a higher quality of life. This is consistent with other research we ve seen on the benefits of being an optimist. Seeing the glass half-full does seem to pay off. But while it s important to look for the silver lining in any dark cloud, and we don t think it pays to be pessimistic, we also think that we should be realistic. We have to sort through all the information in front of us to try to determine what the objective reality is. To make sure that our perceptions aren t creating a bias as we look at a particular situation. Because we re more likely to make mistakes if we re overly optimistic. We ll see opportunities that aren t really there. And unfortunately, we must admit that we re speaking from experience here. But pessimists miss out on opportunities because they either don t see it or they don t act on what they see. Bigg goal-getters are an optimistic group. While one-third of the people in this survey said they think things will get better this year, we bet that the overwhelming majority of our community would put themselves in that category. And that s a good thing as long as we filter our optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Be positively real. That s the recipe for bigg success! ___ Speaking of Bigg Success, did you know you can get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success emailed to you every week? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks so much for reading our post today. Join us next time when we discuss why you should stop trying to fit into the world. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00339-022609.mp3 Related posts Mania in the Market and Rising Above the Crowd Your Emotions and Your Money (Image in today s post by lusi)

If you re like most bigg goal-getters, you have a lot of ideas. But how do you know which ones you should invest in? That s what we want to talk about today project selection. ___ ___ This process can be used for so many things. You could use it to decide if you should start a business. It would help figure out if you should expand your existing business. You could even use it to determine if it s worth going back and getting more education. To get started, you ll need to make some projections, using assumptions, about the expected income and expenses of your project. The process itself is a science but the assumptions are definitely an art. It requires that you use your own judgment and the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. So let s look at the two most common ways to determine if a project is worth doing. Payback period As its name implies, this method simply looks at how quickly you get your investment back. So if you invest $100 now and earn $25 the first year and $75 the second year, you have a two-year payback. Payback is commonly used because it s so simple. But think about it it ignores all the money you could make after the payback period. And that can really skew your investing decisions. You choose projects that return your investment quickly and neglect projects that may offer greater potential but more patience. ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Discounted cash flow (DCF) Fortunately, there is a better way to calculate the worth of a project. With this method, you explicitly recognize that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. However, a dollar tomorrow is still worth something which isn t recognized by the payback method. It s called discounted cash flow because we look at all of our expected cash flows and determine how much they re worth right now by discounting them back to today. That is called the net present value (NPV). Calculating the NPV is a four step process: Determine how much you will invest by year. Usually most of your investment in a new project is made upfront (and probably in the first year). But if your project requires that you make an investment over a few years, you ll want to account for that. Estimate how much income this project will generate by year. Obviously, you don t want to take on a project if it doesn t increase your income. So look at how much you think you will make with this project and compare that to how much you think you plan to make without it. That s your increased income from the project. Decide upon your opportunity cost. Here s where it gets a little tricky. Consider where you could invest your money if you didn t invest it in this project. Weigh in how certain you are about your projections. For example, if you determined your project was no more risky than investing in Certificates of Deposit at a FDIC-insured bank, you could use the interest paid on those accounts as your opportunity cost. Most projects aren t that certain so your rate will usually be higher than that. Just remember the less certain you are about your incremental income, the higher your opportunity cost. Run the numbers in Microsoft Excel (or your favorite spreadsheet program) using the formula: Example Should I get certified? We ll offer an example so you can see this concept in action. Let s say you want to go back to school to get certified. It costs $2,000 for the certification program. You expect to make an additional $2,000 a year if you do it. You plan to retire in three years so the increased income won t benefit you for too long. You ve looked at other opportunities and determined that you need to earn at least 6% on your money. We see that your payback period is one year. That s how long it will take to pay you back the money you invested. Using DCF, your NPV is $3,157 as shown in this screenshot from Microsoft Excel: To get that, use Excel s Insert Function command: With DCF, the rule is: If NPV $0, then invest in the project. After all, your expected return exceeds your expected cost. So in this case, your NPV is over $3,000. Therefore, you should go for it! If you want to know what your annual return is, just change the opportunity cost field in your spreadsheet until your NPV equals $0. In this case, your annual return is 83% over the life of the project. In general, pick the projects with the highest NPV until you run out of money to invest. However, there is one important variable we failed to account for in this calculation your time. We ll discuss that tomorrow. Thanks so much for stopping in to read our post today. Until next time, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00321-020209.mp3 Related posts A Better Way to Pay Off Your Mortgage Early (Image in today s post by monetary 3D 2)