Dr. Russ Buss Held Hostage and Squatted on Somewhere in the World

Where is the drrussbuss.com website?  We are not exactly sure.  What we do know is that as of January 2, 2012 any attempt to search for and access this website only takes you to a “Go Daddy” parked page which asks whether you own a website by that name.  Clicking through the prompts just brings you back to the parked page. 

We were able to access the Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog through its host site Squarespace.  The good news is that no content has been lost.  The bad news is that all of those who know us as drrussbus.com cannot access the inspirational material they have been seeking on a regular basis.

Where in the World is DrRussBuss

The best we can tell the “Buss” is being “squatted on” in Australia.  The actual hi tech term is “cybersquatting” or domain squatting which -

• “according to the United States federal law is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.”

We know for sure that a company in Australia has purchased our domain name.  What they plan to do with the name is unknown.  We can only hope that the “Buss” is not being abused while it is held hostage.  That domain name was special to us and we wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen to the “Buss.”  The “RussBuss” was a good vehicle from which to tour and explore optimism.

Unfortunately at this time we have no way of knowing when, if ever, we will be able to get the “Buss” back; at a minimum we estimate several months of concerted effort.  We still have questions about how the domain name was made available to sell.  And we will pursue reasonable channels to have it returned.  But we know you cannot wait that long to receive your next daily dose of optimism.  We know you need your “Optimism Now!”

Get Your “Optimism Now!”

This situation has certainly put our optimism stamina to the test.  How do we recover from this setback within a few moments and move forward towards our goal of teaching how to live optimistically in every moment of life?  If we allowed pessimism to rule the moment we would act like helpless victims and likely do one of the following:

1. Spend months trying to get the domain name back while losing over two years of effort building a stable audience platform.
2. Use a .org or .net domain name version of the site which we do happen to own.  While this solution is not necessarily pessimistic it is not optimistic either because it does not entertain the possibility of a grand new opportunity that might be out there as a solution to the problem.

We asked ourselves: “What is the grand new opportunity inherent in this negative situation?” A possible answer came to mind immediately.  We had recently purchased a new domain name that would support the new iPhone application we have developed and are about to release.  The domain name is: www.OptimismNow.com.  We realized that is was the perfect hosting name for the Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog and it could still support the App.  Because the new domain name has the word 'optimism' in it, it will likely make it much easier for individuals to be searching the net and stumble upon it.

Bookmark www.OptimismNow.com

For easy access to your daily dose of optimism, go ahead and bookmark the site with its new domain name.  Trying to access the site via the drrussbuss domain name will only take you to a dead end.  Meanwhile we will be trying to rescue the “RussBuss” from its Australian captors...

Ten Positively Positive Optimism Quotes from Dr. Russ Buss

1. Achieving our maximum mental and physical state-of-fitness requires developing our God given abilities as far as we can take them with our best efforts.
2. Pure mental endurance increases as we build and practice our optimism stamina skills every moment of every day.
3. The glycemic index is a rating that informs of us about how fast and how high any given food raises our blood sugar.  Ideas that raise optimism too fast and too high may leave us mentally drained in any given moment, and even more vulnerable to pessimism.
4. It only takes a few extra moments in time to share your optimism with another and make their day, but it takes less than a moment to share a pessimistic perspective or action that spreads a sense of gloom and doom.
5. Given someone else a moment of optimism with a kind word, smile, a few moments of your undivided attention and you have the potential to make their day and you unforgettable.
6. Spread pessimism in a moment of irritable expression, rejection or a lack of attention and you will quickly be forgotten, perhaps forever.
7. Attitude is everything.  Think about how your attitude and behavior towards others might change if you thought: “I could be seeing this person for eternity in God’s universe.”
8. Self-worth comes from within and not without.  The less we are dependent on worldly things and relationships to bolster our self worth the more we control it and the more of it we have!!!
9. The greatest optimism comes from taking on and overcoming the greatest challenges.  But, if you don’t practice moment-to-moment optimism with your daily  pet peeves, you will never have the strength to climb to the top of Mt. Optimism.
10. Self-worth has no mass.  Self-worth is pure energy driven by effort over which we have total control.



Quotes to Inspire your Holiday Optimism

By Dr. Russ,

Make it a “Bussterrific" holiday. “Bussterize” any holiday pessimism with these ten Dr. Russ Buss quotes called “Bussterisms.”

1. Optimism is priceless and can’t be bought with any amount of money.

2. Optimism can only be paid for with effort, a lot of sweat, some pain and a few tears.

3. Make your dreams a reality with your optimism.

4. For an optimistic Thanksgiving keep these two words in mind: ‘acceptance’ and ‘tolerance.’

5. For the maximum positive holiday spirit share your optimism everyday from Thanksgiving to New Years with family, friends, and everyone else you meet on the street.

6. Rejoice in the joy that we share and receive optimism with and from dolphins, horses, elephants, dogs, cats and the entire animal kingdom.

7. Find optimism during the holiday season by participating in many holiday rituals whether it’s a holiday dinner, sitting on Santa’s lap, decorating a tree, lighting a candle, going to a tree lighting ceremony, baking and eating cookies.

8. Optimism thrives when we help others less fortunate than us during the holiday season.

9. When Boomers and GEN-Ys get together over the holiday season, they will have the opportunity to create harmony for the ages.

10. Holiday optimism begins on Thanksgiving when we give thanks for the bounty and blessings of life, it continues with a celebration of life’s miracles, and goes on for another year as we make our New Years resolutions.



What is Optimism? Where can it be Found?

By Dr. Russ and Jackie Monroe,

Optimism! Wherever we go everyone tells us: “We need more of that!”

Where can optimism be found?  Fourteen million New York City subway riders can find it on the back of a Metro Card that has an originally designed graphic of the word ‘OPTIMISM.’  Michael Grynbaum, New York Times, has written: “Optimism is a scarce commodity in a city where unemployment is at a 16 year high.”

Can optimism be gotten for free?  The answer is yes and no.  No. Once you find optimism you do not have to pay for it.  Yes. The cost of finding it takes effort, and quite often “blood, sweat and tears.”

Does hope count as optimism?  Partially. Hope is an essential component of optimism, but it is not the same. Hope is the dream, it lays out the goal and long range target, and gets us started walking down the road of optimism.  Hope embodies the thought of desired outcomes such as good health, peace on earth, happiness, a six figure income, or an increase in the stock market.

Optimism provides the path and action plan to make the dream a reality.  Optimism provides the resilience needed to deal with reality.  Optimism provides the courage, motivation and persistence needed to keep going in the face of incredible odds, major and minor setbacks, failure after failure, and the wisdom to recognize opportunity in every negative event.

Perhaps we can find optimism in a song.  In 1949, Bing Crosby sang, “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.  If you are looking for more optimism you are likely a “tweener.”  You are pessimistic sometimes, optimistic sometimes, and somewhere in-between most of the time.

Is it possible to find optimism in each and every moment of every day?  We believe it is, but it will take a great deal of work and practice.  Optimism is a skill that must and can be learned.  We, the so called optimists, learn something new about optimism every day.  Learning to be a “skilled optimist” requires the kind of training and mentoring equivalent to becoming a master plumber, electrician, violin maker, or web master.

If you happened to grow up with parents who were good at teaching and mentoring optimism, you were born into a family of “skilled optimists.” Your “skilled optimism” apprenticeship started the day you were born.  But, most of you grew up in a family of “optimism-pessimism tweeners” and you are the ones searching for more optimism especially in these tough times.

If you are a self-identified “tweener” this blog is for you.  But, you have to be prepared to believe in yourself.  Are you prepared to “sweat out the tough stuff,” stay in the game despite setbacks and tough going, and persist to overcome expected and unexpected obstacles?  Are you ready to turn in your “Optimism Metro Card” for a free “Buss” transfer pass and ride the “Dr. Russ Buss” down the path of OPTIMISM.  At each stop (daily blog entry), you will have the opportunity to build, develop and improve your skills of optimism.

So get on board the Dr. Russ Buss.  More importantly invite all your friends and family to get a FREE OPTIMISM BUSS pass by sending them an e-mail link to the Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog.  Join in the fun of spreading your optimism and making it GO VIRAL!!!

Optimism Quotes of the Week from the "Bully Pulpit" of Dr. Russ Buss

By Dr. Russ,

Use these “Bussterisms” – Dr. Russ Buss original and useable “OPTIMISM QUOTES OF THE WEEK” – to “Bussterize” pessimism - pulverize a negative, hopeless, helpless thought by replacing it with a positive, energizing and motivating one as if to turn dust mites into “stardust.”

Ten Bussterisms for the Week of September 27, 2010

1. A bully with a log of “dog doo-doo” pasted to his cheek becomes a “silly, smelly bully.”

2. When you thank a bully for calling you a name, the bully appears kind rather than mean and loses his bully power.

3. Consider that underneath the hard mean outer crust of a bully is a hidden persona that feels terribly vulnerable about something.

4. Teach your children to ask what they CAN do for YOU and THEMSELVES.

5. Learn to stay your course while adapting to change by constantly connecting and reconnecting the dots between the past, present and future.

6. Learn to pray for the strength to take on life’s challenges and difficulties.

7. Pessimism keeps us trapped in the comfort of inactivity, afraid to take on the risks inherent in optimistic action.

8. Every life crisis contains at least one golden opportunity.

9. Look for a golden opportunity in the “storage attic of the mind” full of passions past, discarded daydreams, and many previous impossible nay possible definitions of YOU.

10. You do not need to know everything to get started on a new life path, but you do need a torch of passion to light the way.