The Champion Inside

As the economy continually swings back and forth we often hear about bulls and bears. A bullish market is one on the rise, a market that is doing well. A bearish market on the other hand is one in decline and filled with concern. As I watch the evening news and hear these terms they not only remind me of the market but they remind me of the choice I get every day of my life.

Each year as the new year approaches my father asks us how we feel about our opportunities for the coming 12 months. He’s big on goal setting and so New Year’s resolutions are right up his alley. Regardless of what your answer is, he’ll always tell you how optimistic he is about the new year. “I’m bullish about 2009,” he’ll say. No matter the year, he’s always bullish about the time ahead.

He is the ultimate optimist. He sees the good in every situation, and the potential in every person. Not once in my entire life have I ever gone to my father with an idea that he is told me it is impossible to accomplish. If he were placed in the middle of the largest ocean with only a 2 x 4 and a toothpick, he’d hop aboard the 2 x 4 and row for shore.

In my life I want to be the same; and it’s something I work on every day. I am quite sure that that is the only way to be that kind of a consistent optimist. It’s easy to be “bullish” on the good days and “bearish” on the bad. But keeping a positive mindset and optimistic outlook through the good and the bad takes real work.

In New York City, near Wall Street, there is a bronze statue called the “Charging Bull.”  After the stock market crash of 1987, Arturo Di Modica spent over $360,000 of his own money to create the statue. Of his own accord, as a Christmas gift to the people of America he placed the statue in front of the stock exchange as a symbol of the, “strength and power of the American people.” The police seized the sculpture, but eventually the Department of Parks and recreation installed it on their own a few blocks away.

When you look at the bull today, you’ll notice that its nose is lighter than the rest of its body. This tarnishing is a direct result of all the brokers who touched the Bulls nose on their way into the market. They touch the statue hoping for a bullish day.

What if we did the same? What if every day we entered our lives we took a moment to remind ourselves to have a bullish life? All sorts of things to be our “Charging Bull.” Maybe a positive quote placed somewhere that we will see a multiple times a day, maybe a saying that we can repeat ourselves at the beginning of each day. Maybe, we find a little trinket in the form of a bull.

What our “Charging Bull” is doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we find some way to remind ourselves to play the optimist instead of the pessimist. If we will, no matter how deep the ocean we find ourselves stranded in, and no matter what tools we have to work with, every day we will row for shore.

Jh-