Reading

Knowledge Overdrive Leads To Burnout

Knowledge Overdrive Leads To Burnout

Garth Beyer

Showcasing your intelligence can only be done by gaining too much knowledge that you do not know what to do with.

On the other hand, you can overdue your schedule by reading too much only to end up as mentally shriveled as a trash-basket piece of paper.

I had 35+ bookmarks on my computer and at one time had 55+. I have a bookcase collecting various books I come across, and a longer list written down of books I want to get. Then there are the piles of Success, Mens Health, and other magazines being piled up. Not to mention the fact I spend a majority of my time in a bookstore. I surround myself with all of these informational resources because I want to learn as much as possible and become successful just as you are!

But I have come to find very quickly that you don’t learn first to be smart. You need to be SMART first, to learn.

What do you need to know before you start learning everything that you are passionate about?

S for Substantial – Define what is most important. What information are you really looking for?  Let go of the less credible websites and books and be sure of solid content. Stay focused on what you are out to learn and avoid being distracted by other information. Look at everything as a magazine — skip over the advertisements no matter how many girls they promise you.

M for Modest – The opposite of substantial, make sure that you are not overwhelming yourself with the toughest jargon-filled resources. Search for the middle ground to what you already know and what you have absolutely no understanding of. Too often people who want to learn jump the gun and it backfires. Modesty is also a reminder to find resources that remain free of vanity, bias, egotism and even boastfulness. Unless of course, that is your taste.

A for Allocate – Since you have observed what is most important to you, you can organize all of those bookmarks, books, blogs,  lists, etc. This allows you to focus on one subject rather than flipping through three different ones. I also call this Cleaning House. Go into your all your resources one by one and while you find the category for each, you can toss all the resources that do not matter or do not fulfill the substantial or modest requirements.

R for Relation – Now it is time to connect with your resources. Establishing a relationship requires much more work than simply following people on twitter, and “liking” something on Facebook. –It also produces a larger benefit– You need to expand your connections to communicating with other people who have the same interests. I have at least 4 blogs that I contribute to each day and 12-15 blogs that I give feedback on a few times a week. In addition, as I start a new book, I find the website or blog that goes with it so that I can connect even better and understand the information more clearly. What is even more clear is how quickly people will come to you for info, simply by participating in other people’s content.

T for Take Down – Originally I meant for “T” to stand for transcribe, since the best way to retain the most important information is to write it down. (Often in the form of your own blog or journal) But as I have gone through these processes multiple times, you need more than just writing your ideas and thoughts down. Save the fire crackers for the fireworks. I have never been a competitive person, but I cannot stand Journalists who go for the most posts, the most followers, the most “likes”. They are after numbers and these numbers are little fireworks. You want to TAKE DOWN these noisy competitors. CONTENT, CONTENT, and more CONTENT is the only way. Make sure each time you sit down to write your thoughts out that you EXPLODE with content. Let your competitors light off the kiddy fireworks. If you followed the previous four steps to the SMART process than I can guarantee you will have a much easier time creating firework information.

Stay Positive and Get SMART

Garth E. Beyer

Limit Yourself to be Unlimited

Garth Beyer

It was once only high-school students who waited until the day before a homework piece was due to do it. College students then adapted to these frowned upon practices. What do you know, now we see it in the work place. 10, 20, 30+ years of experience and people still wait until the last-minute to do projects, write speeches, create a game-plan.

These are the most successful people in the world. I do not even have to pull data to show you, I can tell you right here and now.

These people are true Pro-accelerators. That’s right, the title of Procrastinator will soon be obsolete as more begin to see the significance of limiting yourself.

Starting Off Simple

Those pursuing outrageous activities such as Parkour are always bombarded with warnings to “take it easy”, “don’t push yourself”, “are you sure you’re ready?”

By sending these warnings, it pushes the Traceur (Person who is involved in Parkour), to take a minute to evaluate himself before performing a dangerous acrobatic move. What are we doing? We are limiting them to be safe and make conscious decisions. Or are we?

As much as I believe that life should be lived like a sport– acted on impulse — this minute that the Traceur has to evaluate his situation is powerful. Not only because it can save his life, but because he can make the wisest decision in one minute than he could if he took an hour to observe, calculate, trace, and run smaller trials of his overall acrobatic jump.

He is already pumped and ready, the adrenaline is coursing through his body and every sense is focused, yet expanded to encompass all angels of the jump. His mind is the most acute and focused on creating a successful jump.

If he had taken that hour to observe, calculate, trace, and run smaller trials of his jump, he would end up nervous, afraid, and even if he still thinks he can make it. The adrenaline is long past, he has over-thought the execution and in the hour he was studying the move, he remembered about the holiday dinner he has with his family on the weekend. He called a couple friends to ask about the move and they ended up talking to him about going out that night to the movies. The whole hour he spent studying the jump, he used 5% of his energy on the task at hand and 95% on the rest of his life.

Limiting Yourself in School

I skipped my junior and senior year at high school and went straight to college thanks to the Running Start Program in Belvidere, Illinois. I took all college courses and received my associates degree with honors, two days before I received my high school diploma. During the two years I spent in college, I wrote over eight 5+ page papers, seven of which I wrote the night before or the morning of the day it was due. This is how I produce the best work possible, and it is the same for you.

Do you remember writing any papers for school that you wrote the day before or day of? You probably recollect the feelings you had about staying up until 3 or 4am in the morning to write it. Sure you can complain about how tired you are the next day, but it is rare to complain about how tired you are while you are completing the task. There is no time to so who cares.

You did it!

You were even an over-achiever and wrote an extra page to make it seem like you spent a longer time on it than most. You get it back and of course you received an A. You nearly pulled an all-nighter to write the paper, you damn well deserve an A.

What You Did When You Didn’t

That paper you received an A on was assigned nearly a month before you turned it in. Silly professor!

I can put an endless list here, right now, of what you could do in a 29 day period while you “procrastinate” on the assignment. That would be a waste though, you just had all that time to do whatever you wanted before the paper was due. So what are some things you do to enjoy yourself?

Can you guess what some of the other students did while you were using your imagination to mix mentos and pop together, play video games, and whatever other things you did in that 29 day period? Ah, of course they were preparing, they were in the..the..the LIBRARY!

That actually is not a bad thing, I saw you in there too. You were researching how to Parkour while the “other students” were reading ancient history  written half in Greek.

You get the point.

Alleviate your worry about the assignment and take part in activities that you can learn from, sports like Parkour or learning a new language with Rosetta Stone

Due = Do

When it is due, is when you should do whatever it is.

Do you get the life lesson of this yet? The task itself will expand to the time allotted for it.

I just came back from the bookstore where I read Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I got there at 9:45 and had to pick up someone at Starbucks at 11:05. Lucky for me, the bookstore and Starbucks are right across the street from each other. Before I arrived at the bookstore I told myself I had until 11 to finish the book completely — I have not even started it.

At 10:59 I turned the last page and saw a picture of Seth’s bald head, often the signature of both the beginning and end of his book. I did it, and it was no easy task. I read quickly and took from the book the most important factors, but I did not skip a single page. I have to thank Tim Ferriss for teaching me reading techniques to read quicker and still gain the same amount of knowledge.

Thoughts Become Things

Who knows how many great philosophers, great leaders, great activists, and even a common person has realized the power of their thoughts. The impossible has been done in life because one person thought it was possible. This is the only time you should NOT limit yourself.

When you set time limits to complete a task, you adjust your mind-set to complete it in that time. It seems we have forgotten the power we have even though we continue to use it. Now that you are aware of your pro-accelerating abilities you can break your worry of “procrastinating” and truly enjoy yourself.

Stay Positive and Unlimited

Garth E. Beyer

An Accord With Greatness

An Accord With Greatness

Garth Beyer

Today we focus on positive perspectives and cultural knowledge. What do you get when you combine the two? If you thought of the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), then you are correct. This incredible piece of literature has two to twenty lessons per Chapter and 81 chapters in all. Since there is so much knowledge to discover, I do not want to overwhelm you. Let’s read the second and third stanza of Chapter 63 and discuss how it can affect your life, business, and relationships.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63, by Lao Tzu

Second Stanza:

The difficult problems in life
Always start off being simple.
Great affairs always start off being small.
Therefore the sage never deals with the great
And is able to actualize his greatness.

Third Stanza:

Now light words generate little belief,
Much ease turns into much difficulty.
Therefore the sage treats things as though they were difficult,
And hence, never has difficulty.”

–   Translated by Charles Mueller, 2004

Can you visualize the power behind Lao Tzu’s words? In life we often take problems and set them aside, saying that we will deal with them later. We are all examples of this mistake. Before we know it, the problem has grown to a size we could never have fathomed. It then begins to come out of hiding and crush us. Can you think of a way or two that would prevent this from happening? Does being honest and strong come to mind? Be honest to yourself and others and muster up the strength to overcome the obstacle early on. By doing so, your reward is time and supplementary strength to strive for life success. For example, you have a couple of tasks to carry out for work. You have to write-up an introduction to the meeting you have tomorrow and file a summary to your boss of an interview you established. In regards to the second stanza, it would be in your best interest to follow through with these tasks early in your day. If you decide to contradict Lao Tzu’s philosophy, you will find yourself full of stress and pressure to complete the task before the following morning. Not only that, but your boss called you up hoping that you had a rough draft of the report done yet so that he could get prepared for the meeting as well. That was a lost opportunity for progress and greatness for you. To have the power to activate greatness, you must continuously distinguish the small tasks, duties, and callings of each day.

You may be feeling that this is irrelevant to your life. That you plan your day and you knock out all the simple tasks and to-do’s early on so that you can focus on your greatness the rest of the day. Whether this is you, or not, you might be interested more in what stanza three offers to enlighten you with. So I begin by asking you this? When you execute the small tasks, do you accomplish them? REALLY accomplish them? Or do you put forth just the right amount of effort to cross it off your list and move on? You will be more fortunate to discover greater success if you truly delve deep into the meaning that stanza three carries. Why don’t we extend the previous example to encompass the lessons from stanza three as well?  As Lao Tzu’s suggests, by taking the time and maximum energy to write an introduction for your meeting tomorrow and file a summary to your boss of the interview you partook in the previous day, you are paving your path to even further success than you deemed imaginable. Having put forth so much effort into such small tasks, your boss allowed you to run the meeting the following morning, allowing you to get on a first name basis of the CEO of your company. Not only that, but now your boss wants you to do a full-scale interview with other clients and he is going to your completed work to the Wall Street Journal. Does this inspire you and help you see the importance of putting forth your greatest effort even with the smallest of tasks? How can this relate to your career?

But wait, your success does not end there. I said at the beginning of this blog post that you can affect all areas of your life by following Lao Tzu’s factual philosophy. By executing the advice of dealing with small obligations, and dealing with them with all your effort — you show others that you are ready for the opportunity to excel in your business. In doing so, you become more prosperous. After becoming more prosperous by being an honorable hard-working person, you have more time and energy to devote to balancing your personal and family life. By using all of your will and effort to get tasks done, both small and large, you become wiser and stronger, you are able to do more of what you love, and have more time, energy, and money than ever before. The effort of positivity, honesty, encouragement, and success in daily tasks, is what you will receive in return from your accomplishments.

Stay Positive and be Sage-like

Garth E. Beyer