They Show Up When You Do

Here are 9 thoughts I had earlier today when I tried writing the start of a new book.

1) I’m thirsty. I’ll get something to drink before I write.

2) I should probably shower and shave now so I don’t have to later. That way I can totally focus on writing.

3) I’m sorta sore. I think I’ll stretch.

4) This couch is comfortable. Maybe I’ll just lay back and think about what I’ll write for a minute or two.

5) I should eat something so hunger doesn’t interrupt my flow once I get going.

6) I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.

7) I wonder if anything interesting is on Facebook or if I got any snaps or I missed that my phone beeped with a message.

8) I’m thirsty again and I didn’t fill my cup with enough water.

9) I wonder what I’ll do after I’m done writing.

The little voices in your head, your fears, your excuses, whatever you want to label them – they show up when you do. Always. It helps to notice them and let them pass, but from my years of noticing them, it doesn’t make it any easier. However, letting them go and pushing forward with my art has always made it more worth it.

Don’t listen to the little voices in your head.

 

Stay Positive & Keep Doing Your Art

It’s Going Down

The number of people you need to give you permission is going down.

The number of people you need to start something remarkable is going down.

The number of people you need to sell to is going down.

The number of people you need holding you up is going down.

The number of people you need (period) is going down.

Your chance of using the “there’s just not enough support/manpower/clients/etc,.” is running out, it’s coming to a close, it’s going down.

As such, it might be time to do things your way. Miraculously when you walk out on the edge thinking you’re at it alone, you’ll realize how wrong you are.

It’s the good kind of wrong, though, unlike the wrong of thinking you need more people.

 

Stay Positive & Sometimes What Launches A Company Into Success IS Less People

The Lizard Brain, Again?

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Yes, because it never really goes away. The lizard brain is everywhere, but the best time to catch it is right at the beginning. The beginning of a project, anyway. Why? So that when it comes knocking again (it always will), you will be ready to dance with it.

Daily I meet people who have things they want to do, dreams, wishes, goals, but don’t start. They are waiting for the right moment, they are waiting for more experience (when starting is the experience they are waiting for), they are waiting to get picked, they are waiting to meet and learn from this person or be referred by that person, they are waiting until the weather is better, or they have more contacts.

They say excuses are endless and reasons are few, but I’m not saying these are excuses. They are very valid reasons. Convincing. Logical. It just makes sense to wait.

What no one focuses on are all the reasons to not wait. This is how you begin to challenge the lizard brain.

The earlier you start the further ahead you are to others. Everyone else is letting their lizard brain win. The experience you want is actually the experience you will get from trying, whether you end up failing or not. The best way to get picked is to pick yourself. The greatest referral you will ever get is the one from someone who never saw you coming. The right moment is now.

It’s not about working your way up a ladder, it’s about doing what you love. And to do that, you have to acknowledge the lizard brain. After that, the rest handles itself.

 

Stay Positive & Come On Now, Let’s See What You Got

Garth E. Beyer

This post was inspired by someone who is truly going places. Start now.

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Inventors Sought!

We’re extraordinary inventors.

Not my generation, not Generation Y, not our parents’ parents, not teenagers, not our ancestors, not students at Harvard or Madison, not one specific group. All of us.

All of us are extraordinary inventors. And we should be ashamed.

We invent something in particular that there is already a surplus of. This something, we receive no credit for, no handshake, no raise, no stamp of approval, ribbon, medal, or award. We invent this something that should have only began as an idea that we acknowledgingly and self-respectingly shrugged off.

We invent new excuses.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not Something To Be Proud Of (then why do it?)

Garth E. Beyer

Problem Solution

It has almost been a year since I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca. When I was sifting through a box of my memorabilia I found a card. Not a thank you card, not a blank card, but a life changing card.

Seth gave out these life changing cards that, as you can see in bold, said, “PROBLEM.” You can guess what was on the back, but we will get to that in a moment.

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We were asked to think of the (or any) problem that we were facing that was holding us back from shipping, making the call, and in general, committing to something. Then we wrote it down on the card. We were then told to switch cards with the person next to us and they would fill out the back.

(Jumping forward real quick, this is not my card, we were supposed to keep our own but the lady I did the activity with accidentally kept mine and I kept hers. Not a problem, I’m actually thankful for it. It’s allowed me to write this post.)

The first half of the idea behind this card is that we have to face our fear. We have to think about what truly is holding us back. We had to make sure the problem was one actually worth writing down. Most importantly, we had to let someone else – who we barely even knew – see it.

As you can read, she has a real problem. It’s hard to sell anything to an audience you don’t have and even harder to an audience you have no clue where they are. Obviously, she needs a solution. That’s where I came in.

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Three solutions to her problem.

1. “Just start dedicating time to grow audience and the audience will form themselves.” When you’re just starting out. Forget the audience. Commit to revealing yourself first. No one is going to follow someone they can’t see, someone they can’t connect to, someone who is invisible or a mere shadow. Here’s a thought: Seeds flowing in the wind never land on soil that is never watered. You have to water the soil before any seeds will consider planting themselves.

2. “In order to find your audience, you have to go after everyone by testing your ideas and see the response.” Naturally, this is the second step once you begin “watering the soil.” It’s great to have an idea of what your audience is, but no one knows your audience better than your audience! – and if you’re just starting out, it’s likely you’ll be wrong a few times before you’re right. Better to make the big mistakes now than later.

I started a PR blog to show what I know when other professionals or employers checked me out. Soon I discovered that my audience was made up of students and people interested in learning about PR, not necessarily my original intention. You can have foresight, but never let yourself have a narrow mind.

3. “Take 10% of your time to grow your audience.” That’s not a lot of time, for good reason.  Get good at creating first. Get good at seeking criticism. Get used to challenging your fears. Get in the habit of shipping your work. Then follow-up by connecting, by interacting, by messaging like-minded people.

(Note: The third solution can work in reverse.)

Did this solution help her, I’m positive it did, but believe it or not, that’s not the point or the goal.

The point is that whatever problem(s) you have, there is always a solution. The moment someone else sees that, you’re held accountable, you can’t lie to yourself anymore that there is no solution, and above all, you have no excuse, nothing holding you back.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Often A Move We Have To Make

Garth E. Beyer

We got tricked into this by not knowing what we were doing, why were doing it, or what we would have to do later. It takes someone bold to express what their problem. Are you up to it?

Fear Grows Old With You

Sure, the older you get, the less you fear. Fantastic. Knowing that doesn’t help too much when your young and inspiring to be a journalist or a magazine editor.

It’s been two weeks that I sent an email to a student I met on a PR agency tour, who was interested in writing for a fashion magazine, asking her to submit a work example to me. I know a few people in the magazine industry that would either interview her or point her in the right direction if I referred her to them.

Two weeks and I haven’t received a response. There is no question about it, fear ate her and won’t spit her out. Once she thought of five or six reasons why she shouldn’t respond to me, she deleted my email. Fear got to her.

That’s the harsh reality of those aspiring to be journalists. When this happens, it’s not about being pushed two steps back, you have to start all over again.

If you’ve done something similar to this girl – and sure, you can love writing all you want – but maybe journalism isn’t your passion.

Life Is Short

If time flies when you’re having fun and having fun is all you do, life is short.

If you’re a person that is having tragedies in your life and think life is short. You have another thing coming: one longgg life of living with those tragedies.

Which statement do you hear more people respond with “life is short”? I feel that I hear a lot more people say life is short in response to tragedies: A close friend dies from driving drunk, a grandparent falls and gets amnesia, you get heartbroken by the one you loved for years. Those are logical reasons to note that life is short.

Then you have those who use “life is short” as an excuse. An excuse to not do well in school, an excuse to be reckless, to risk their lives without realizing they are risking putting their tragedy on someone else’s mind, as explained in the paragraph above. Though they may not say it aloud, an underlying factor of why people do “stupid” things is that life is short.

And it is. It should be. Life NEEDS to be short. Scroll back up and read the first contention of this post.

There’s a variable that very few realize about time flying when you’re having fun. Think about this for a moment, remember a time that you said “time flies when you have fun” in response to an experience you had. In that experience, was time going fast? Or were you lost in it? It’s more than likely time didn’t even exist during that experience, in your mind, it was going to last forever. It’s not until the experience is over do you state that time flew.

Did it really though? Or is it just a perception. Yes this is getting deep, but bear with me, there’s a point.

You can have two people that live to be 78 years old. One lived every single day having as much positive fun as possible but ended the day with saying how short life is. The other lived every single day, averagely, blindly, safely, and at her deathbed, she had realized how short life is.

Did either have a short life? Yes and no. They both lived to by 78 years old which is a fair amount of years to live, not short at all. But only one person really lived those years. Only one person made the absolute most out of every day, that made time fly, and at the end of each day wished they had more time to continue doing the fun things they did, that thought life is short, when realistically it wasn’t shorter than anyone else’s.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You can live each day and think that 24 hours is really short or you can go through life and once on your deathbed, wish you would have lived every set of 24 hours more.

 

Stay Positive & A Short Life Lived Is Better Than A Short Life Lost

Garth E. Beyer