Because Humor Is A Good Thing

To continue what has become a tradition, tonight we bring you our favorite “notable” from this years’ Darwin Awards, given annually to people who are caught doing things so stupid that they become case studies in Natural Selection.

And our favorite one tonight is this:

A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer… $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

Sure, it’s not nice to laugh at other people’s misfortunes, but we feel it’s also very useful to know what it looks like to emphatically NOT “Get It.”  We’d say this guy qualifies.

That’s all we have to say about that.

The Gurus of Get It! 

 

 

More Thoughts On Expectations

As we wrote a week ago, expectations are–or should be–a natural outgrowth of your Vision for your Perfect Life.  But there are many pitfalls associated with expectations.

One of those is when you allow somebody else’s expectations for you define your life.  This is an especially pernicious problem in that it seems like it’s a good thing.  After all, it’s nice to have a supporter! And on top of that, sometimes those expectations get projected from such an early age that it’s very difficult to separate the projected expectations from your own.  But if another person’s expectations for you push you to be something that is not true to your Perfect Life, then you will end up living a lie.

This phenomenon is fairly common, and shows up in everything from the “Stage Mom” to the “Tiger Dad”.  But it also shows up in small ways–ways that are sometimes even more destructive.  Imagine you in pursuit of your Vision, feeling very confident about your direction, and then being told that that confidence was somehow off-putting to people around you.  The “expectation” from others that you would not project the faith you have in yourself might show up in a sales meeting as self-doubt . . . and cost you an opportunity!

Remember: your expectations for yourself are the only ones that matter.

The Gurus of Get It

Challenge: Second Chances

Professional golf has four “major” championships every year, and winning one of them is a very big deal.  This year at the first “major”, a young man named Rory McIlroy went into the final round of the tournament with a 4-shot lead–to professional golfers, an enormous lead.  Unfortunately, the pressure of the moment got to him, and he kind of blew up on the second half of the round, eventually losing by 14 shots.

Some golfers have withered under the spotlight of such a collapse, never to recover. 

This weekend, Rory had another chance.  In the second “major” of the season, he again played spectacular golf through the early rounds, and approached the final day with an astonishing 8-shot lead.  Except this time he handled the pressure, he handled the course, and he ended up winning the tournament by a record margin.  Oh, and with it, the slight little payday of $1.4 million.

Now, you’ve probably never been in the bright spotlight of the final round of a major golf tournament, but in your own world you have probably faced a pressure cooker very similar to what McIlroy went through. And it’s also possible that you faced the pressure with less than the grace and strength you would have wished.  Don’t get discouraged!  The lesson of failure should never be your inadequacy–it should be simply the exposure of holes that you need to plug.

Because you will get a second chance someday.  With any luck, and a lot of hard work, you’ll be as prepared for it as Rory McIlroy was.

–The Gurus of Get It 

Thoughts on Expectations

“Expectations,” as an entity,  are a very mixed bag.

On the one hand, you should, and indeed must, have very high expectations of yourself if you are to achieve your Perfect Life. Expectations are a natural outgrowth of Vision and Goals.  On the flip side of that, however, is the tendency to start pressing when you don’t live up to your own expectations.  And we’re not talking about small things like cheating on a diet; we’re talking about that feeling you get when you’ve spent too much time not quite living up to your own expectations.  Then you start to get uptight and anxious, and start trying to force good things to happen to get you back up on your own imaginary timeline.

That, of course, can go horribly wrong.  “Just trying to get caught up” is exactly how most gamblers squander their life savings and how corporate bad guys start down the road of Enron.

And expectations of other people are a whole different category of “mixed bag”–projecting on to another your hopes and dreams can be a major risk, and should only be realized after a long period of developed trust and understanding.  To somehow believe that another person could possibly be who you want them to be is to set yourself up for disappointment and relationship problems.

So let your expectations happen, and let them all be natural expressions of your Vision.  But try to understand that you are human, and the people around you are even more so, so guard against letting your expectations flip to the “Dark Side.”

The Gurus of Get It

Musings on Honesty

We were watching the television show “House” the other day, and after a while the thought struck us: what is it about this show that makes it worth watching?

Sure, there’s the medical drama element, but that’s been done to death.  So what is it about this particular show that has earned it a run of eight seasons, boatloads of awards, top ten ratings (on Fox!), and generally has held an audience against really long odds?

Or think about this: why was “American Idol” the most popular show on the planet with Simon Cowell? 

Let us propose our theory: because both the character of Dr. House and  Simon Cowell are one thing that very few of us are: brutally honest.  And sure, House is also funny and Cowell has an interesting game show dragging along with him, but we don’t think that’s why people tune in.  What distinguishes these two shows is that on a regular basis we see people speaking their minds without a filter.

And, frankly, it’s refreshing.

We would never advise anyone to take on the sort of maliciousness that frequently colors both “characters'” dialogues, but don’t you ever wonder what would happen if you just laid it on the line  the way these two do?

Just something to think about.

The Gurus of Get It!

Challenge: Ask

“You always get 100% of what you don’t ask for.”

It’s okay–take a minute with that one.

The point is that if you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it.  100% of the time!  And it really doesn’t matter even just a little bit why you don’t ask for what you want–if you don’t ask, there’s no way in the world you should expect to get it

You may ask, “ask for what?”  Whatever it is that you want.  A pay raise? a promotion? you want the pretty girl/hot guy to dance with you? you want the neighbor to stop leaving his trash in your yard?  Whatever. 

In a larger sense, it’s not only ridiculous, but it’s unfair to expect other people to read your mind.  And, yes, there are certain things that it’s nice to expect–but one of the central tenets of our philosophy involves learning from experience.  So how’s that “expecting” working out for you?  If somebody is not providing you with what you think it’s reasonable to “expect,” then it becomes your issue to articulate it to them.

So this week’s challenge is simple: don’t be afraid to ask.  The worst that can happen is they say “no.”  And is that so bad?

—The Gurus of Get It