The main story is about a girl’s basketball team that made the national championships when they shouldn’t have won a game. The other stories – from David to Lawrence of Arabia – all support why these girls were able to achieve what they did.

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He cites a study that showed that small armies beat superior opponents a little over one-fourth of the time (28.5%). However, when these underdogs ignored the conventions of war and fought on their own terms, they won nearly two-thirds of the time (63.6%)!

So you’re two times more likely to win if you set the rules of the game!

Set your terms to get your terms

Bigg success is life on your own terms. So it turns out that it’s a circle. You set the terms (your strategy) so you get the terms you desire (your mission).

You are the entrepreneur of your life. You’re in charge. Set the terms for the battles you engage in so you’re more likely to win those battles.

Small businesses, the Davids of the business world, can trump the Goliaths. Not by trying to compete head on. Not by following the conventions.

By crafting strategies that may fly in the face of wisdom and engaging the Goliaths in unfamiliar ways, Davids can be victorious.

The price for bigg success

If you plan to go head-to-head with the Goliaths, there’s a price you must be willing to pay.

It takes effort. You have to be willing to work longer. You have to work harder. As Gladwell says, effort trumps ability.

He cites the girls’ basketball team. Their secret? A full court press. Not just when the game was in its final minutes like a lot of teams do. These girls used a full court press for the entire game.

It rattled their opponents who hadn’t practiced for a full court press. Their standard plays started at half court. By engaging their opponents on the whole court, these girls put them on unfamiliar turf.

There are many ways today for small businesses – even solopreneurs – to trump large competitors. In many cases, they don’t involve money. They involve time. But that’s okay because you know that effort trumps ability if you focus that effort on unconventional tactics.

That’s how to make your small business a bigg success!

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Thank you so much for checking in with us today. Next time, we’ll chat about why women shouldn’t compete with men. Or is it the other way around? Please join us next time to find out. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00523-111809.mp3

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The Coming Age of Small Business – Part 1

We can hear Harry Carey singing it right now! (We’ll warn you: If you listen to our show today, you can hear why we could never be on American Idol!)

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Bigg success is life on your own terms. There are five elements of bigg success – money, time, growth, work and play. Today we’ll focus on play.

If you’re a regular reader, you know we’ve confessed that play is the thing we struggle with the most. We love our work. We’ve found that thinking about the five elements of bigg success helpful because we make sure we schedule some play time.

We love baseball, but going to a Major League Baseball game can be a real budget-bender. By the time you buy the tickets, pay for parking, and grab a hot dog, you can spend some serious smack!

You don’t have to throw your budget a curve ball to have fun at the old ball game

We feel fortunate to live in a University town. We have some bigg time sporting events, including a baseball team that is doing very well this year. Go Illini!

Last year, we kept talking about going to a game but never made it. They start early when it’s too cold for us to watch a game outside.

This year we made a commitment to go, so we were keeping an eye on their schedule. Lo and behold, they ran a bigg promotion – you could get into the game for free (it normally costs $5) and you could even get free food.

Now that’s a bigg deal!

And the promotion was a bigg success! They had a record attendance. In fact, so many people showed up, we decided it was worth buying food from the concession stand instead of waiting for the free stuff.

It was a great game. We had lots of fun and some good time together as a couple (see pictures on our Flickr page). That’s the best part. The second best part was that Illinois came back to win in the ninth inning!

But what if you don’t have a University team in your area? Can you still take in a ball game on the cheap? Baseball, you bet!

Summer college baseball leagues. College baseball players finish their collegiate schedules early. They want to keep playing without jeopardizing their amateur status. So college leagues have sprung up. We have a team about thirty miles from us (ticket prices are $6 – $9). Check the National Alliance of College Summer Baseball site for the team closest to you.

Minor leagues. Future professional baseball players have to train somewhere. There are minor league teams all over the country. We have a AAA team fairly close to us ($6 – $10 for a ticket). If you don’t know of one in your area, check out the Minor League Baseball site.

Amateur leagues. We have several teams in our area like this. You can take in a game for a few bucks plus any food and drinks you may want.

Little Leagues. We love watching the Little League World Series on television. Check out the raw talent in your area to a Little League game. You can’t beat the price and there are games all over. We have a field within walking distance of our house.

So what’s the bigg idea? Tap into your local community and have a bigg day out at the ball park!

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Thanks so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we discuss how some friends of ours taught their teenage daughter the value of money. 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/00395-051509.mp3

Related posts

Taking Time Off to Get More Done

The Work-Play Tradeoff

(Image in today's post from our Flickr page our Flickr page)

Ryan left a great comment on that topic. He’s one of our regulars and he often leaves comments. We love the feedback!

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Pre-paying for play plans improves productivity

He said that he’s learned that it’s good to keep busy with his downtime. So he goes to a sporting event or a concert just about every week. Because he’s paid for the ticket in advance, he feels compelled to go. That’s his secret – it forces him to work more efficiently to get his work done.

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I had never thought of that little trick! We schedule fun activities of course. But I had never thought about purposefully and routinely scheduling an activity that I paid for in advance as a way to ramp up my time at work.

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It’s a great suggestion. It’s easy to get so busy working that I fail to recharge myself by doing something that gets my mind off of work. By committing my money, I’m more likely to commit my time!

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I’m one of those people who can go and go and go. But at some point, my body and my mind start saying, “Enough already! What are you doing to us? We need a break!” Ryan’s suggestion helps make sure that doesn’t happen.

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Fortunately, and maybe unfortunately, George and I are very similar in that respect. I’m a bit of a workaholic myself. So we work very well together. But I agree – it would be helpful to schedule more time for fun knowing that I’ll be more productive at work.

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It’s about living with purpose on purpose. After all, we’re only human. We should live on human time! Plan something fun and pay for it in advance. You’ll be more likely to do it!

Ramp up your downtime

Ryan also said that when he was in college, he got better grades when he took eighteen credit hours than when he only had twelve in a semester. His personal observation sparked a thought for us …

… we should always be a student!

It pays bigg dividends to be curious about everything with which you come in contact, not just your area of expertise.

Since Ryan brought up sporting events, you can learn from studying the players – when they’re warming up, idle, in the middle of a play, or when the game’s on the line.

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This is something I do. It’s interesting to see the differences among players when the game’s on the line. I’ve learned a lot about operating under pressure by watching sports.

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At concerts, there are a lot of details. The artist’s stage presence, the lighting, the way musicians play together, and even their hair! If it’s a symphony, study the conductor and how he or she leads. They’re masters of their craft and we can learn lessons that we can apply to our crafts.

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One of my favorite things to do is to be a student when I’m talking to people in social settings. I can read a book or an article, but there’s nothing like learning about someone’s occupation and interests first-hand. You get to ask questions and go deeper into a subject with a real person who is living it.

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We have a friend who made a great suggestion that has forever changed how I watch movies. He said to think of yourself as a director. When the movie is over, ask yourself what you would have done differently. It gets my creative juices flowing and makes for great conversation afterwards.

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Always be a student. It helps keep your mind young. It expands your imagination. It will help you reach bigg success even faster!

Of what are you a student in your downtime?

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 Ryan for your thought-provoking comment. And thank you for reading our post today.

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Please join us next time when we talk about how to get to the greener grass on the other side of the fence.

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/00377-042109.mp3

Related posts

Mixing Work and Play

Taking Time Off to Get More Done

Why Work Life Balance Doesn’t Work

(Image in today's post by davdibiase)

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 …

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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!

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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

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Starting from Scratch – Part 1

Starting from Scratch – Part 2

(Image in today's post by cobrasoft)

But it’s not just the games … it’s tailgating before or after. Grilling. Chilling. Playing games. The fans sporting their team colors. The friendly rivalry between the fans.

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It’s a great way to catch up with people. We see people every fall that we just don’t see much otherwise. It’s a great way to build upon relationships and meet new people.

As we’ve said before, some people look at it as networking. We see it as netplaying. Because hanging out with cool people is bigg fun!

How one man became the world’s only professional tailgater

Joe Cahn has a passion for tailgating. He sold his businesses and his house. He bought a motor home and hit the road!

He has become the self-proclaimed Commissioner of Tailgating. Now in his eleventh year, he has tailgated with hundreds of thousands of people at all 31 NFL stadiums, over 123 college stadiums, and 9 NASCAR tracks.

We saw an interview with him where he was asked if he goes to the games. He said he rarely goes inside the stadium. After all, he’s the Commissioner of Tailgating. He doesn’t want to step on the toes of the National Football League Commissioner!

Joe Cahn found his passion. Then he found a way to live it.

If you’re into tailgating, we highly recommend that you check out his site, Tailgating.com. He has some great recipes, party tips, trivia, and even information on parking lots!

On top of all of this, with the Presidential election upon us, he’s started a third political party – the Tailgating Party! One of the planks on this party’s platform …

Forget the left wing and the right wing. Just give me the chicken wing!

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(Image by SN_Frost, CC 2.0)