BIGG success is life on your own terms. But sometimes life throws you a curve ball.

How can you deal with it?

The best way is to prepare for it in advance.

How can you prepare for the unexpected in advance?

By keeping your options open.

Then, if it occurs, you can face the challenge with confidence. So today, we’ll share four keys to keeping your options open.

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Keep your options open by insuring that people see you doing what you do best.

Is your job “outbound” so you’re clearly visible to customers? If so, capitalize on that relationship. Ask them for a brief note about working with you. It will come in handy at your next evaluation or if you need to look for other work.

If your job doesn’t expose you to anyone outside your company, then work on your visibility. Get involved in your industry. Look for conferences you can attend. Participate in forums and comment on blog posts about your industry. You might even consider starting your own blog to show off your expertise. Volunteer to work for your favorite non-profit.

Networking

It’s amazing how many people who land a new job found it through a referral. It’s also amazing how much business results from our networks.

So why do so many of us pay so little attention to our network until we really need it?

Spend a little time every single day building and maintaining your network.

Going beyond the activities mentioned above to be more visible, do you participate in local opportunities?

Is your company a member of your local Chamber of Commerce? If so, do you attend Chamber functions?

Have you registered on Meetup to find out about local events of interest to you?

Are you on LinkedIn?
What about Facebook?
Have you joined any social networking groups specific to your industry?

The contacts you make through these sites will be valuable now. But they may prove invaluable should you be forced to make a change.

Marketing

What makes you unique? How can you communicate that? What opportunities play to your core strengths?

Is your resume up-to-date? If not, there’s no time like the present! For sample cover letters, resumes, job search and interviewing tips, check out Resume Help.

Bridge Plan

Develop a plan of what you would do if you were forced to change jobs.

How will you pay your bills?

Where will you look for a new job?

Who will you contact for referrals?

For what services would you pay (e.g. career coach)?

As you prepare this plan, keep a couple of things in mind:

• You may spot some problems. That’s why you’re doing this now. For example, at what point would you need to find some part-time work or freelance work to pay the bills?
  

• Plan some recovery time should a change be required. You’re human. It will be emotional. But you’ll feel much more confident having thought it through in advance. And you’ll be able to keep your options open to find the right opportunity for you!
  

Thanks so much for checking in with us today. Until next time, here’s to your BIGG success!

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It sounds funny to think about it that way, but your bigg dream can turn into a nightmare in both cases – coming up short or succeeding wildly.

Talent in triumph

We’ve recently seen an example of this with Susan Boyle. She walked out onto the stage of "Britain's Got Talent" as a middle-aged Scottish woman who said that she had never been kissed.

She had lived a very simple life, took care of her mother and sang at her local church. She dreamed of having a career in music for 23 years, even putting together a demo with no success.

Then she took a chance and auditioned for the popular TV Show. It was her bigg opportunity and she nailed it. Her life changed from the moment she began to sing "I dreamed a dream."

The whole world loved Susan!

Talent in turmoil

She became an international singing sensation overnight, going from obscurity to sudden celebrity. She couldn’t anonymously walk over to her local church any longer without a swarm of paparazzi tailing her.

No more quiet at home. Her phone rang off the hook. Everyone – from news outlets to fans – wanted to talk with Susan now.

It took a tremendous toll on her emotional state. Although she smiled for the cameras most of the time, she had a couple of incidents that made her appear unstable.

She was overwhelmed and exhausted by being thrust into the spotlight. In a recent interview on Today, Susan said, “[The] impact was like a demolition ball."

Before long, she started skipping scheduled appearances after her run on the show ended. People questioned her health. They wondered if she had what it took to be a star.

Her bigg dream had turned into a nightmare.

Crossing the line

There’s a dividing line when bigg success is at our fingertips. Will we accept it and move over to the new life of which we dreamed? Will we navigate the road less traveled and keep moving on to bigg success?

Or will we be afraid to cross into the unknown? Will we allow self doubt to hold us back? Will we tell ourselves we don't deserve this bigg success?

You have to plan for bigg success so you’re mentally prepared when you reach this point. How do you prepare?

Visualize it.

By picturing it clearly, you’ll be ready for bigg success when you reach it. You’ll also be more likely to get there! Use all your senses to experience it as if it had already happened.

Build a support network.

Surround yourself with people who care about you and believe in you. Associate with people at the level you’re trying to reach. Let them guide you on your way to your bigg dream and reach out a hand once you've made it.

That's what Susan Boyle finally did. As she said on Today, "I've got to be honest here. I guess I had to get my head around it, but through the guidance of a great team — and they are very good — I was able to see that in perspective and really turn that around.”

Bigg goal-getters work hard every day to achieve their bigg dreams. Make sure you also spend some time planning for that moment when you step into the limelight and shine. That's preparing for bigg success!

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Thanks so much for reading our post today. Next time we’ll discuss what a karaoke party has in common with social media. Please join us. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Are You a Victim of Your Own Success?

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“Don’t live by old sayings that don’t apply to you. For instance – ‘Have a Plan B.’ Having a Plan B means you believe that Plan A might fail. Having a Plan B requires that you put time and energy into what you could’ve been doing for Plan A to make it work. And if Plan A doesn’t work, guess what, get a new Plan A.”

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There’s some real wisdom in his quote. We’ll look at it line by line:

Believe

He’s emphasizing how much we have to believe in success, not in failure. We have to believe, in ourselves and in our plan, in order to succeed. The first person who has to be on board with our plan – the first person who has to follow us so to speak – is ourselves. If we’re not in line, we’re in trouble!

Throw away the security blanket

There’s another thing that comes to light with this quote. Think Linus van Pelt, Charlie Brown’s best friend and Lucy’s younger brother. He never went anywhere without his security blanket. 

We can’t succeed if we hold on to our security blanket, or blankets, as the case may be. We have to throw it away once and for all if we’re going to succeed bigg.

A lot of times we hold on tightly to that security blanket just in case. Just in case, things don’t go as planned.

Well, here’s the brutal truth – no matter how good we get at planning, things never will go as planned.

That’s when we have to hunker done. We have to double our efforts to make our plan work. We have to overcome all the obstacles that we will face and keep the faith.

The covenant with Nature

We must keep on believing that we will succeed because we have no choice but to succeed. When we reach that level of resolve, the forces of Nature begin to conspire with us, instead of against us.

It’s not a miracle. It happens too frequently to think of it that way.

It is no accident. Because that implies a randomness that doesn’t exist.

It’s isn’t luck because it happens more often to people whose thoughts lead to certain behaviors. The more determination we have, the luckier we get!

It’s more like a covenant. Nature says, “This is how much you have to believe. Here is what you have to let go of in order to have my blessing.”

Now, let’s look at the next line …

Setting priorities

Since we only have a certain amount of time, we can’t afford to waste it if we’re going to succeed bigg.  It’s all about priorities.

We tend to think that:

• we’re super-human
• we can do ten things at once
• we don’t need to focus on just one or two major objectives at a time

The bare naked truth is … all of that is a lie!

We do have to determine what is most important right now in pursuit of that bigg success of which we dream. Then we have to focus all our energy on only that.

In the last part of his quote, he says,

So the question is, how do you know if Plan A isn’t working?

One way to judge it is if you keep running into the same wall over and over again.

You’ve tried to climb over it.

You’ve tried to go around it on one side.

Then you tried the other side.

You tried to dig under it.

You even tried to blast through it.

You’ve tried five times, but the doggone wall hasn’t budged.

Plan B is like Step 2

It may be time to start thinking of your alternatives. And here’s where we deviate slightly from Steve Harvey. Because we think Plan B is like Step 2 on your path to bigg success. You have to have a clear picture of what bigg success looks like to you before you start. Then you need to map out the steps to get there.

With your plan in place, you’ll focus all your time and energy on Step 1 before you begin to take the second step. So we’ve thought about it before we start, but we don’t worry about it until it’s time.

We think Plan B is just like that. Before we start working on Plan A, we should have thought about Plan B. We’ve prepared for the contingencies. But that’s where we stop.

And the important distinction is this ….

Plan B doesn’t send us back where we were before. Plan B moves us ahead in a way that Plan A didn’t. It makes that wall insignificant.

The only path to bigg success

But it doesn’t pay to spend too much time thinking about Plan B because the wall we face probably won’t be the wall we expect. So now we’re back on track with Steve Harvey.

Think about it a little, but don’t dwell on it. While you’re pursuing Plan A, keep Plan B out of your head. Because you have to if you want to succeed bigg.

Your mindset has to be, “This is my only path to bigg success.” By thinking that way, you will find bigg success. 

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Thank you for checking in with us today. Join us next time as we begin a two-part series on the ten early warnings of a business in trouble. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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The One Ingredient That Guarantees Your Success

Abandon Ship!

Climbing The Stairway To Success

(Image in today's post by cobrasoft)

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He’s received accolades from across the country, including Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York and two Presidents – President Bush who was the President at the time this happened and now President Obama who invited Sully, as his friends call him, to the Inaugural Ceremony.

The story is fascinating. We heard over and over again how calm and collected he was. His coolness kept the passengers calm and collected too.

What makes someone a hero?

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission defines a hero as “a civilian who voluntarily risks his or her own life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person.”

That definition fits the mission of their organization, but is it expansive enough?

We turned to Merriam Webster. Two of their definitions of a hero stand out:

• a person admired for his or her noble achievements

• someone who shows great courage

We crafted our own definition:

It is a gift, not a sacrifice (although it may involve sacrifice) in the mind of the hero. It is the opposite of narcissism, but it is definitely not martyrdom.

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3 steps to heroism

Do you want to be a hero? We thought about this and it seems to us that becoming a hero is a three-step process:

Heroism starts with an attitude
Almost all of us think we have a duty to prevent harm to others as long as it doesn’t cost us too much. A hero expands upon that attitude. They feel a duty to serve others – to do good – whether or not it costs them something. 

It continues with preparation
This sense of a bigger duty drives them to preparation. They have a drive to be ready when the time comes.

Going back to Sully … as the pilot of a plane, he knew at some point there might be a crisis. So he gave a great deal of his free time studying everything situation he might encounter. It was his duty to be as fully prepared as possible should a crisis arise.

It completes itself with an action
The act of a hero is the manifestation of an underlying attitude. The success of that act depends on the preparation for it.

Sully had to respond because it was his duty. But his response didn’t start when the birds knocked both engines out of his plane. It began years earlier when he began studying flying.

So when the situation arose, he was ready because he felt a sense of duty and he had prepared.

Heroes, heroes everywhere
Heroism doesn’t always show itself in actions that make the news. There are heroes all around us. That’s what we’re going to talk about in our next two posts. Next time, we’ll discuss the hero behind the hero.

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Crisis Creates Opportunity for Great Leaders

We have a friend who has to be to work at 9. He gets up at 5 and makes a full breakfast, irons his clothes, and still has time left over! He doesn’t need our advice today.

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I’m a night-person by nature. I set the alarm to its max and I even hit snooze a couple of times. So, of course, that leaves me rushing around in the morning.

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It seemed like whenever I was late for work, I felt like I was behind all day. It reminds me of something my dad used to say, “The faster I go, the behinder I get!”

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But there’s a solution to this problem if you’re not a morning person. Work on your night moves.

Since you have trouble getting to sleep anyway, why not accomplish something in the meantime? Here are eight ways to make the morning better with the moves you make at night:

Set out your clothes for the next day.

Our moms always told we should do this. Of course, they were mostly concerned with clean underwear! Just in case we were in an accident, right? Because that was their biggest concern if that happened!

Prepare tomorrow’s to – do list.

Spend ten minutes or so mapping out the most important things you plan to accomplish tomorrow. Even if you just decide upon the one or two things you will work on when you first get to work, you’ll be off to a great start.

Pack your lunch.

You can have it ready to grab on your way out the door. Not only will it save you time in the morning, you’ll save money and will likely eat healthier too!

Pack your briefcase.

Gather together all the papers, files, and folders you need and put them in your briefcase so you’re ready to go.

Do your hair.

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And time for a “girlie” tip. I have thick hair that takes forever to dry. I rely on my straightener and styling tools for an easy fix in the morning so I can do my hair the night before.

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Or you could be like me and just have a receding hairline!

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Establish a sleep time.

Studies have shown that going to bed at the same time every night trains our minds and our bodies that it’s time to rest. To make sure you fall asleep quickly, develop a sleep routine.

Make coffee.

Get a delayed-brew coffee maker so you can get that morning pot ready the night before. Then let the coffee maker do its job. You’ll save time and money by avoiding that stop on the way to work!

Ain’t it funny how the night moves can help you lose the morning blues!

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Thank you so much for stopping by today. Join us next time as we discuss how to “one up” your way through the New Year. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00282-120908.mp3

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