Everyone’s Scared

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Which means two things.

1. Very few dance with it or merely walk calmly forward. Few carry on when fear is pulling them back. That means that if you were to go forward with every fear imaginable (all fear is imagined), then you have an instant advantage without doing any of the easy work. Yes, dealing with fear is the hard work, actually making/doing whatever it is you’re passionate about is easy. Haven’t you walked into an art gallery and seen paintings that you know you could replicate? Making art is easy, but shipping it, putting it on the wall, giving it away, selling it – that’s the hard stuff. And fear is with you every step of the way.

2. Shame on you for enabling others to let fear control them. For saying it’s okay that they don’t give their work away, or suggesting they keep working on something until it’s better instead of showing it as it is. After all, the only way they will get better is if they show it and get feedback… from more people than just you. Yes, fear is what walks between you and your friend with its arms around both of your shoulders. Fear is tactful at making you as nervous as the person doing their work. That’s why you have as much responsibility to push others forward as they have to push themselves. Fear is about tough love and tough love will out.

 

Stay Positive & Keep On Keeping On

Garth E. Beyer

What Is 9 To 5

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I can tell you straight up that it’s not the hours you work at a job. I don’t remember the last person who told me they literally worked 9 to 5. No. 9 to 5 is a jobstyle, not necessarily a job.

9 to 5 entails monotony, redundancy, and banality. It’s rarely valuable, in earnings or in personal benefits. 9 to 5 signifies structure. There is no room for creativity. Clock in. Clock out.

The beautiful jobstyles are the 5 to 9 ones. The ones that you’re a part of throughout the day. They are more lifestyles than anything else. There’s no clocking in or out, there’s only waking up and going to sleep.

5 to 9 entails connecting, giving, producing, sharing, creating, being passionate, showing sincerity, and being you. Payment is partially in dollar amounts, but more often it’s in happiness, in that feeling when you do a good deed without the person knowing it was you.

This generation is changing the hours, the jobstyles, and what work really means.

 

Stay Positive & More Power To You

Garth E. Beyer

Numbing Emotions

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There’s actually no way you can. You can hide them but they don’t play that game very well. By default emotions do the seeking. You can fake them, and sure, sometimes you fake it until you make it, but rarely.

Rarely because emotions are the effervescence of your pursuit. It’s not the way you painted the portrait that an observers falls in love with, it’s the emotion that they can see was put into it.

On the other side of the spectrum, you can’t numb the negative emotions of vulnerability, of being rejected, of getting criticism that you couldn’t handle. And that’s okay.

The way I see it is this: falling down doesn’t cease the pain.

The only options you have are to either keep creating art despite how much it may hurt or to find a new way to make better art by leveraging your emotions. You may not be able to numb them, but you can always leverage them.

 

Stay Positive & Lean Into Discomfort

Garth E. Beyer

The Sweat Of Perfection

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No. This isn’t about working hard. It has nothing to do with perfect practice making perfect. It actually has nothing to do with quality. It does, however, have everything to do with fear, effort, and vulnerability.

Edward R. Murrow called stage fright ‘the sweat of perfection.’

What Murrow was implying is that getting yourself up there, just doing it, trying, testing, shipping, making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself to criticism, sharing what you have created is what makes perfection.

You can build a myriad of matryoshka dolls but they will never be perfect unless you share them, because that’s what creating is really about.

Perfection is a state of completeness and nothing is complete until it’s given away.

 

Stay Positive & Perspire Perfection

Garth E. Beyer

3 Steps To Get Better At Anything

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1. Consume: Read and read often. Find idols, heroes, and infamous artists. Study them. Research what they researched. You’ll quickly discover that while tracking their footsteps, you’re leaving your own.

2. Produce: Try. Create. Make. Experiment. Fail. Produce something as often as possible. Choose not to have a choice if you construct something each day, just do it. Your goal is 10,000 hours or 10,000 lightbulbs, whichever comes first.

3. Share: Ship with style, deliver relentlessly. To share is equal amounts act of giving and feeling vulnerable. Don’t think about waiting. Tell yourself the best time to ship is now, and it will be. Whether you think you have something that matters doesn’t really matter. Someone, somewhere believes it matters. Will they find you?

 

Stay Positive & Consume Feedback Then Repeat

Garth E. Beyer

Encore

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Is it at the back of your mind? When you’re selling a book? Playing on stage? Speaking in front of 15 or 1,500 people? Or just finishing your menial tasks faster than the rest?

Too often I have seen people judge their work by whether they get an encore.

What about the regular applause? Is that not good enough?

No. It’s not.

Because no one makes themselves vulnerable for applause, they make themselves vulnerable because they want to do it again. And since sooner is better, the best is when they get an encore.

 

Stay Positive & Truly, Every Moment Is Your Encore

Garth E. Beyer