February 2009 | Bigg Success

Monthly Archives: February 2009

Stop Trying to Fit into the World

Written on February 27, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Balance

puzzle_piece Here we are. It’s February 27. And we don’t know what to do. You see, last year was Leap Year and we got married on Leap Year Day, February 29. So we’re ready to celebrate our one-year anniversary and the date doesn’t exist!

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marylynn
I guess you’re off the hook, George!

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george
Well, now Mary-Lynn, it takes two to tango!

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Of course we knew this when we got married, but we still thought it was fun to get married on Leap Year Day. We get a lot of jokes about it.

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marylynn Yeah George, you get a lot of high fives from the guys because they think you only have to remember our anniversary every four years!

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george
They think I’m a genius!

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One of the interesting things we learned about February 29 is that it doesn’t exist as an option on many drop-down lists. For instance, people born on Leap Year Day can’t enter their correct date of birth. Or, if you’re like us, and you were married on Leap Year Day, the real date often isn’t an option.

We don’t fit into the world. So what are we going to do about that? What do you do when you don’t fit into the world?

Our answer is to make the world fit us instead of trying to fit into the world.

We realized that this is an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons, as the saying goes. So we’re not going to celebrate on February 28 or March 1. Nope.

We’re going to celebrate on both days!

First, did you notice that, by making the world fit us, we get to celebrate twice as much?
Now that’s a good deal! And that’s often the case – if we stop trying to fit into the world, and instead make the world fit us, we end up much happier with the results.

Second, it doesn’t have to work for anybody but us because it doesn’t affect anyone but us. We’re perfectly happy celebrating for two days instead of one. We’re just fine with the date of our wedding not being on the calendar every year. Because it made us come up with a better alternative!

And in being forced to come up with that better alternative, we ended up with an answer that’s even better than if we weren’t faced with this situation. We will get to spend even more time together.

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marylynn
Hey, I just thought of something … does this mean double the gifts?

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george You’ll just have to wait and see, Mary-Lynn. But I just thought of something too. What do we do in 2012 when there actually is a February 29?

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marylynn Hmmm, that’s a good question. I guess we’ll have to celebrate for three days … three times the gifts sounds like a good deal to me! Now I’m the genius!

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Thanks for checking in with us today. Join us next time when we discuss the lost art of making change. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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(Image in today's post by danzo08)

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These People Just Do Not Get It

Written on February 26, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Happiness, Personal Growth

optimists 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.

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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!

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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!

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
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Your Emotions and Your Money

(Image in today's post by lusi)