Get Its Come In Many Shapes and Sizes

We don’t know much about these guys, but from what we do know they seem to be doing a very good thing.

Ryron and Rener Gracie are third generation Jiu-Jitsu masters, from the legendary Gracie family, and their latest venture is a series of training videos.  But what most interested us is the latest commercial we just saw for the series: the brothers talk about bullies.  They talk about how everybody gets bullied, and that once a bully senses a victim, they will never let up until they get caught.  And they talk about how bullying leaves much deeper psychological scars than it does physical.

But, most importantly, they talk about how the proper training gives a child defenses–both physical and psychological–that make them able to withstand a bully . . . WITHOUT resorting to violence.  And they offer the first lesson for free (thus the name of the website). 

We know nothing about the Gracies other than their name.  But this is the A-squared Principle in action: they take their Awareness of the problem, combine it with their expertise to take ACTION!  Awareness and Action to improve the life of children.

Sure seems like Getting It to us.

The Gurus of Get It!

Top Ten, Number 3: Risk Much

We began the process of this program with a simple question:  What would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and give yourself some advice?  #3 was a big surprise.  It seems that the people who responded to us, with their accumulated thousands of years of experience, regret most the chance NOT taken.  That’s right: #3 is “Take more risks or chances.”  We were reminded of this today driving home from dinner.

There is a great gymnastics training center in the area, and it features a big sign out front announcing “Home of 2008 Olympic Bronze Medalist Sasha Artemev.”  For those of you who don’t remember Sasha’s story, he was an alternate to the 2008 team who got the call to go the day before the Olympics.  He ended up being the very last competitor in the team portion of the competition–a clean pommel horse routine meant Bronze for the Americans, a mistake meant 4th place and no medal.  In that pressure cooker, Sasha responded beautifully, securing a surprising medal for the Americans.

But that wasnt’ the end of the story for Sasha.  He had also qualified to compete on the pommel horse in the individual competition.  “Playing it safe” and performing the same routine as at the team finals would get him in medal contention, or at least give him a very respectable finish to follow up his medal.  But that wasn’t good enough for Sasha.  In the days between the team competition and the individual competition, he reworked his routine to add difficulty–a clean performance would likely mean a medal, but the risk of falling was a lot higher.  In the end, he gave a thrilling performance which, unfortunately, concluded with a fall and a middle-of-the-pack finish.

WE LOVE THAT MENTALITY!  One of the true hallmarks of a person who Gets It! is that willingness to take the big chance for the big reward.  The fall doesn’t matter–the quest for the “gold medal” will make you be better and stronger and, ultimately, happier!

So ask yourself:  is there some part of your life where “playing it safe” has become habit, where a little extra risk might open up amazing new possibilities for you? 

The Gurus of Get It!

Friday Challenge: Be A Source Of Light

For this weekend, try this:  don’t complain.  Don’t be sarcastic ( in a mean way). Don’t order people around (unless that’s your job).  Don’t point out other people’s faults and mistakes.  Follow your mom’s advice: if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.

On the flip side, try this:  compliment people.  Ask people how they’re doing.  Tell other people about somebody else’s success.  Share an uplifting story.

In short, be a source of light.  The world is chock full of darkness, from the large-scale (like the genocide in Darfur) to the small and petty.  Be that person in the office, or in your home, or at the gym, who brings something positive into the room.

Because changing the world isn’t always about finding a cure for cancer or world peace–though those are nice, too.  Sometimes changing the world is about bringing a smile to a child’s face, or comforting somebody who needs it, or just making your office or house a little more pleasant place to be. 

One Act of Random Kindness at a time.

The Gurus of Get It!

Another True Get It!

We spend a lot of time going around talking about passions and creating your perfect life.  There are times, for some people, that this means “fame” or a lot of money.  We are not saying this cannot be a part of your vision, but the real message is about living a life you love, and working, no matter what it takes, to continue that life.

Take our Get It! of the week.  She is Jennifer Frances and her article was in People as a “People Heroes among us”.  Jennifer had a fond memory of getting books from her Grandma as she was growing up.  Ten years after college, “STUCK in a job managing apartments, Jennifer decided to turn her fond recollections of Nana’s books into new momories for kids today.”  In the last 7 years she has helped distribute 200,000 books by driving a used van around the states.  How does she pay for this?  She does it through donations and waitressing.   Why does she do it?  “Recently one young recipient told her, ‘You’re going to give a lot of kids a book habit.’  And that, says Jennifer, sums up my mission statement better than anything.”

As we have shared from the beginning, passions are a wonderful thing.  When you find yours, money, fame and any other perceptions of what success should be, will go out the window.  We promise that if you can find what you love to do, no matter what it is, you will live a very happy life.

The Gurus of Get It!

The Importance Of Vision

We posted that last week we had a table at the University of Colorado-Boulder for Parents’ Day.  And it was, to say the least, illuminating.

We had a number of conversations with young people and their parents that ended with some variant on “we just want to get through and focus on this class/semester/degree.”  Short-term thinking, in other words. 

Invariably, our response was along the lines of “but what if they can’t focus because they don’t care about the class/semester/degree? ” 

See, we believe that there are a great many people who show up at college because it’s the next logical step.  They get berated with the statistic that “a college degree will make you a kajillion dollars more during your life” and the pressure from the “system” so they feel they are failures if they don’t end up on a college campus.  But, for some reason, 70% of them don’t finish.  Do you really think the 70% aren’t capable of college work? Or do you think that a great many of them are there but don’t know why and so they eventually drift back out?  We’d be willing to bet that most of the 30% that actually finish college know what they want to do, and why the college degree matters.

Without a VISION for what these students actually want to accomplish with their college education, it makes almost no sense that they would focus well on their schoolwork.  Sure, a large number of them are smart enough or disciplined enough to survive, but a lot of them aren’t.  The ones that see the college degree as a necessary step to achieving some greater purpose don’t have that problem–focus  comes naturally.

Take a moment, please, and slow down every once in a while.  Look at YOUR big picture, and understand what the VISION is before embarking on some grand scheme.  If whatever is demanding your attention today does not contribute to accomplishing your VISION, reassess–find a way to get back on the path to your PERFECT LIFE without having to chase your tail around all day.

The Gurus of Get It

A Wonderful Opportunity

This morning, across this great country, millions of students are waking up for the first time in months to the dreaded phrase “Time to get ready for school!”  And we understand the impulse to groan, especially for those out there who might not feel like school is exactly “in their wheelhouse.”  Or, at least, it hasn’t been in the past.

But we teach that the past is irrelevant to today–to what you can accomplish and what you can become TODAY!  So, for all those students dreading the opening bell, wondering what new humiliation can be heaped on them this year, or waiting for the knowing nod from the teacher who calls out their name at roll call, we say START OVER!!

Your past is your past, last year was last year, your grades start out the same as everybody else’s grades today.  The only reason you have to worry about this year is if you can’t shake the bad habits and doubt and destructive self-fulfilling prophecies you’ve made a pattern out of in the past.  BUT . . . if you can be a better you, be a more attentive student, be a more disciplined note-taker, be a harder worker who doesn’t accept self-imposed limits . . .

Then this year could be the year your Perfect Life begins.   Make no mistake, learning has a value all to itself, seperate from any function in “the real world.”  But the habits and mindset that you approach your year with are the sort of thing that translates into accomplishments, which then translates into greater confidence, which then translates into more accomplishements, which then become the foundation of your dreams.

A Perfect Life doesn’t have to involve stellar grades.  But going “outside the box” and being a better student than you think you’re capable of being is a great beginning to a Perfect Life. 

And who knows?  You might find that you actually LIKE being that new person.

The Gurus of Get It!

This Is What We’re Saying!!

What are the “golden handcuffs”? They are that thing that keeps people from leaving a job they really aren’t fulfilled by, but which makes them too much money for them to walk away. Thus, they are in “golden handcuffs”. . . .

So, we American’s have plodded along as best we can, trying to anesthetize the lack of fulfillment in whatever way we can. So then it makes sense when we hear that we are both the wealthiest people in the world, and also the fattest and consume the most drugs…by far. These are just a couple of indicators. The drugs for “depression” and “bi-polar” and “A-D-D” are not entered into the stats of illegal drug use, but they are more often a stab at the same goal, to numb the unhappiness and lack of fulfillment. Our divorce rate is a pointer as well…

Truth is, many of these folks were miserable. These lives they’d built up were self imposed prisons of unfulfillment. And though the burn of the fear of financial insecurity is hard to bear for some, it forces one to start looking at life in a new way, asking some gut level questions. It provides a space; a time for looking at what’s really important, and what one really wants their life to be about. . . .

This article was e-mailed to us recently, and we couldn’t agree more.  The difference is, this article is about changing careers–sometimes unwillingly–after things go wrong.  We want you to spend some smarter time at the pivotal time of your life to make things RIGHT from the get-go.

And the truth of the matter is it has nothing to do with the house, the car and the benefits package.  It has everything to do with your passions, your unique ability to contribute to the world, and what will get you out of bed with joy and enthusiasm every day.

However, it’s never too late.  If you are one of the people impacted by the economy, or if you’re just ready to find you purpose, start by asking yourself the right questions and stop worrying about the Joneses.  Believe me, your family would rather have a happy you at a smaller home than the miserable you in your current mansion.

The Gurus of Get It!

Live in the Moment!

Before we jump into the gem of the day, we wanted to share some good news.  Get It! is now officially available on Amazon.  This is a huge step for us in realizing our visions and dreams and one we hope you will help us to share.  Just a hint if you try to pull it up, punch in Get It along with either Charness or Alcorn and the book will come up on top.

Now, let’s talk about living in the moment.  We have all heard that you cannot change the past or control the future.  Really the only thing we can control is ourselves in this moment.  That seems easy, but not too many of us follow this advice.  We, as a society, love to fixate on what we cannot control.

In order to help this process for you, we would suggest the following.  Take (5) sticky notes and on each one write “Is your brain where your body is?”  Now place these notes on a bathroom mirror, on your desk at work, in your car, etc.  With any luck, through time, you will start keeping your mind in the present moment.  We understand that you need to plan for the future and think about your next steps, but that is very different than “worrying” about yesterday or tomorrow.

Good luck with this.  It may not be easy, but your life will be so much happier as soon as you start living this concept.

The Gurus of Get It!

Be Your Own Masterpiece

Think of it in another way: are there still people in your society who have not yet discovered who they really are or what they were meant to do with their lives? They may be in the wrong job. They may be writing bad poetry. Or worse yet: they may be great poets working as laborers, never to be discovered.

This line, from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, is really the essence of our program.  We don’t pretend that anybody out there is genetically “bred” for a particular life, but there is little doubt that everybody out there has certain traits and character qualities that make them better disposed to a certain life–a certain career or lifestyle or life’s pursuit.

That’s why it’s so important to answer the first of our Seven Questions: if you don’t understand who you are, you may end up spending enormous resources chasing some phantom life that really isn’t ever going to become your Perfect Life.

So consider this question over the weekend:  are you doing what you were meant to do? Or are you just getting by doing what gets you by? 

The Gurus of Get It

What Is Possible

We talk at length in the book about your “Best Self.”  We ask you to note that time in your life when you were better than even you thought you could be, and then to move boldly into your future as if that person were the one making the everyday decisions that dictate the course of your life.

But maybe it’s a little hard to picture your Best Self all the time.  Maybe you think to yourself “I don’t have a Best Self that can do anything amazing.”  Well, you’re wrong.  But just in case you need a little inspiration, we direct you to this site, which has numerous stories about ordinary people minding their own business and suddenly reacting to a crisis in a “Best Self” sort of way.  One of our favorite stories:

Chloe C. Van Alstine helped to save William T. Trainor from drowning, Wells, New York, November 1, 2008. Trainor, 48, was the driver of a vehicle that left the roadway, entered Lake Algonquin, and began to sink in water 10 feet deep. He escaped the vehicle through a window and struggled to stay afloat in the 45-degree water at a point about 90 feet from the bank. Chloe, 17, high school student, witnessed the accident from the opposite bank, where she had been jogging. She immediately ran across a nearby bridge to the other side of the lake, removed her shoes, and entered the water, its coldness startling her. Swimming to Trainor, Chloe grasped him to keep him from submerging and then started back to the bank with him. When they were met by a man responding in a boat, Chloe and Trainor held to the boat as the man returned them to the bank. Trainor and Chloe were examined by emergency medical personnel but were uninjured.

Now, we’re not saying that your “Best Self” has to be a hero–quite the contrary.  The point is that if Chloe, at all of age 17, is capable of that, then somewhere inside of you is somebody capable of something pretty extraordinary. 

You should let that person out to play every once in a while.

The Gurus of Get It!