It's All About The 'Tude

How is your New Years resolution going? If you are like most, not so well, right? Resolutions this year seemed to take a back seat to something that seemed to tug at Americans heart strings just a bit more... the Powerball-influenza swept across the nation faster than the Ice Bucket Challenge. Somehow the dream of winning 1.5 Billion convinced people that they could beat the odds and become rich quick. Work places all over the country even got in on the craze together (we can neither confirm nor deny that BC was one of those workplaces).

This craze got me thinking...what specifically is it about the lottery that gets everyone hopeful and excited? Is it because people believe that if they win the money then they will achieve HAPPINESS and have the OPPORTUNITY to do so many things.

Well here at BC, I believe we did win and here is why:

• Happiness is created by attitude, not money. I love the saying, "It is your ATTITUDE not your APTITUDE that will determine your ALTITUDE." In other words, how far you go really isn't based on how smart you are rather by your outlook. In our very first blog I mentioned the best piece of advice I had been given: surround yourself with outstanding people. I have found that this not only sets you up for success but outstanding, positive people help provide an outstanding, posititive culture. Those people are the same people that work hard and go the extra mile, when the going gets rough, these are the people you want on your side. If you want to change your circumstances, don't buy a lottery ticket, instead work on your attitude.
• Opportunities hit us in the face everyday. Many people wait for just the right opportunity to present itself rather than taking an opportunity and making the most of it. So many people give up before they even begin because they get overwhelmed and "self doubt" creeps in. Look around you. Most successful people are there because they got a small opportunity that they turned into something big. They weren't just lucky, they worked hard. I remember when we started Brandner. We started with an idea and we worked extremely hard; many days were 16 hours or longer. And, it wasn't weeks but years of hard work. What if we had just waited for the perfect opportunity to come around rather than going for it and making the most of the opportunities we did have? We would have missed so much.

We hope you are still nailing your New Years resolution. We hope that even though you might not have won it big in the Powerball lottery you have won it big in the Happiness battle. You can choose to be sad that you didn't win all that money or you can choose to control your attitude and your actions and create opportunities of greatness. We hope you choose the latter.