Asking Questions

Still Discovering, Learning, Making A Fool Of Yourself

Garth Beyer

“I don’t mind looking stupid. I don’t know everything.”

Those were the words of a well-seasoned PR pro after asking what “lossless images” were during a meeting.

While she thought she was making a fool of herself, I was thankful she asked because I had no clue what lossless images were either. In fact, it sounded like they were saying lostless images, which made it even more confusing.

It’s a fairly natural situation that if you have a question about something, someone else in the room has the same question, but so follows the tragedy of relying on someone else to ask the question.

Please learn that asking questions that help you discover or learn something new — essentially asking questions that make you feel you’re making a fool of yourself, have the exact opposite effect.

It shows you care. It shows you’re humble and can embrace humility. It shows you believe you can still grow.

 

Stay Positive & We Get Better When We Continuously Feel Like We’re Making Fools Of Ourselves

Keeping Sane

Garth Beyer
  • Not everyone needs to approve of your work.
  • The “good” in a good idea comes from having passion, not from the actual idea.
  • You’re told to ask good questions, “can you help me?” is the best one.
  • Always have something fun planned two weeks in advance.
  • You’re enough.

It’s easy to go insane when your work load gets heavy. It’s hard to implement the habits above. You know how I feel about easy vs. hard.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not Easy, But It’s Worth It

How To Get Comments On Your Blog

Garth Beyer

It's Time To Get Comments On Your Blog

This goes beyond asking at the end of the post for users to comment.

There are benefits to not allowing comments on your blog: no criticism, no trolls, one less things to keep an eye one, you may become influenced by what people say they want in a comment.

But there are also benefits to allowing them: there is often a diamond in the rough (positive feedback), it gives you a chance to connect with someone new, it allows you to practice not taking criticism personally.

Instead of asking readers to post a comment without reason, there are a few better options.

It matters what platform you use: If you’re gung-ho about getting comments on your blog post, you might be better off using a platform like LinkedIn. It’s much easier to put yourself in a community platform that has active commenters rather than starting a blog from scratch and trying to get comments. Think Reddit, Medium, LinkedIn.

Use your voice: I mean, really use your own voice, make each post you write personal. By doing so you are likelier to get friends and family and coworkers and colleagues to hit the comment button because they respond to you as a person, not as some robot spitting out information.

Make blog posts completely question based: Mental Floss does this in a great way with their Friday Happy Hour. This way it is less about you trying to interact with someone and more about getting your tribe to interact with one another.

I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 30. Guess it right and I’ll send a free PDF version of my book Transformation: The seminar that saved me from myself. Leave your guess in a comment below or tweet at me @thegarthbox

 

Stay Positive & Go Curate Some Conversations

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Your Tongue Functions, But So Does Your Fear

Garth Beyer

There’s no frog in your throat or cat having your tongue. You have a voice, you have curiosity (obviously what killed the cat, emphasizing the cat can’t have your tongue), and you have an interest. So why are you quiet? Why are you standing still? Why are you incapable of doing anything but breathing and fidgeting in your seat?

Fear grips us all at times. The better chance of accomplishment, the larger the opportunity, the increased likelihood of getting what you want – that’s when fear really gets to us. That’s not okay.

I was recently in a conference where everyone attending was interested in the speaker and what he had to say, but they didn’t show it beyond just being there. Fear had them and they missed their opportunity to stand out, to be recognized as the courageous one, to be remembered by the speaker, to accept the authority, the accomplishment, the opportunity. Why? They feared being disappointed.

Can you guess what they felt anyway? – disappointed.

 

Stay Positive & Fight Fear With Movement, With Voice, With Accomplishment

Garth E. Beyer …and don’t… don’t forget to ask questions

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How To Get A Second Meet Up

Garth Beyer

We meet a lot of important people: Idols, Influencers, Administrators, Deans, and so on…

Typically, after meeting them, we fly on the cloud quote of, “You won’t believe who I met!” And that’s it. Rarely does one continue to say, “and I am meeting them again for lunch in a couple of weeks!”

To get that second meet up with someone, all you have to do is ask a question – and no, it’s not “would you like to meet up again?” [insert “ain’t nobody got time for that” meme]

You want to ask a question that the other person won’t be able to answer right away. Not only that, it must be one that they will want to think deeply about and get back to you on.

It seems simple, but it’s devilishly difficult to 1. Put in the emotional labor in such short of time to understand what the person is truly passionate about and 2. To craft a question that they have never thought about related to their passion.

In achieving this task, you create an instantaneous bond. People who are of high influence are always more attracted to those who give them more challenges than they are attracted to their supporting fans.

 

Stay Positive & It Works Out Best When You’re Both

Garth E. Beyer

Questions are a big deal.