Monthly Archives: December 2011

Who Writes for Writers?

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A writer is someone who writes. Or is it?

Eliot Rose seems to express it as something much more than someone who simply writes.

It is sort of obvious the difference between a Writer and someone who writes. What I want to know is who writes for writers?

Every career in the world has someone writing on them. The politicians have journalists swarming over them like they just battered their bee hive. Even small home improvement business’s have writers discussing their products in articles and people online blogging about their experience at the business and videos of their products. (More often funny than promotional) Even the common person has people writing for them, that is how we get both non-fiction and fiction books. I ask again, who writes for writers?

The answer slightly touched my mind as I was reading blogs at ProBlogger which is mainly a collection of guest posts. Guest posts?

Many blogs use guest posts instead of interviews. The blog will let someone who they think has something worthy to say and relates to their niche to write a post for their blog. This is best promoted when the guest blogger is someone of extreme significance and is well-known. The ability to impact readers works just the same for someone who simply has an interest in what the blog naturally discusses.

Then I was wondering how negatively effective it is to have a guest post that has nothing to do with your niche. Sparingly, it could throw people off track, inspire a new idea, change perspectives, and simply remind people why they come to your blog. Of course the guest blog would be different than what your niche is, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be something your passionate about. (Ex. Your niche blog is Public Speaking. You also have a passion for exercise but never blog about it. Guest blogger comes and writes a blog on fitness.) Now you get a chance to create a connection between fitness and public speaking. Let’s see how good you really are as a Writer. Proving that you can make those sort of connections interesting would attract all the more writers.

Now instead of attracting readers who have an interest in Public speaking, you now attract readers who’s niche is fitness but have a passion for public speaking. Viewers go up. Well I gave my answer for the question, “Who writes for the writers?”     What’s your answer?

Stay Positive and Go Out And Write For Other Writers Too (someone has to)

Garth E. Beyer

“Two is better than One. Especially when Two can multiply your followers”

I am looking for Guest Bloggers that write about life lessons. You can email me at TheGarthBox@gmail.com

Poetry Night 007

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Tonight I want to share a poem that I read in Tim Ferriss’s “4 Hour Work Week”. I can say nothing more, this young girl who wrote the poem says it all. This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. It was sent by a medical doctor – Dr. Yeou Cheng Ma. Please do what you can to help fulfill this young girl’s dreams.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Stay Positive and Slow Dance

Garth E. Beyer

Discovering What LIFE Truly Is

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A girl once told me at the beginning of our relationship how she was not a gift to be had, or a reward to be won. It is the same with life — it is not a problem that needs solving, a game to be won, although it has challenges, it is not a challenge itself to be completed. There is not a completion to it and no rewards because there is no winning. In order to find out what life is, consider defining what life is not.

Although, your life CAN have an advantage, and there are benefits to that.

 

Stay Positive and Understanding of YOUR life

Garth E. Beyer

The Budget: A Priority Expense and Out-Of-The-Box Methods to Saving Money for it

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Hopefully you caught my post the other day about not being able to save money. In summary I inspired you to take the energy you use at focusing how to make your budget work and direct it at making more money. Now that you’re caught up, answer me this..

What  could happen today that would reap your budget meaningless? (Besides death, for you sarcastic followers)

Most Common Answers: Broken bone or hospitalization, House Fire, Broken down car

For the last 19 years of my life my mother has told me that “nothing lasts forever”. Yet this is true, can you pick one of the common answers that is the least likely to last a lifetime? Just by asking my friends, I found out the majority have yet to break a bone. Even older family members have told me they have never broken a bone. Next, I say that hospitalization happens maybe once every 25 years for a person and more likely to occur later in age. A house fire might happen once in your neighborhood of 20,000 people over the span of 10 years. I am sure you could agree with these estimates, its common sense that none of them occur too often.

Did I miss one? Oh right, the car

The number of occurrences of a broken down car is too many to count and far too many to give a number anywhere accurate to the truth.

So why is it that people still do not save money for it? To often people put the car as a separate category in their budget but they don’t prioritize it until “after the fact”. After something happens to it they end up going into their savings account, taking a loan, or begging parents and friends to help out. People rarely have money saved up specifically for their car, and if so, it is only enough for a car wash.

Why do we sacrifice our working budget and saved up funds for a car repair? Because we NEED our vehicles to get us places.

With the cold season upon us, I am certain you can agree with me that the most car breakdowns occur in the winter. Are you putting money aside to fund the unexpected need for a car repair?

Some quick out-of-the-box tips to lowering budgets in other categories so you prioritize your vehicle

  • Generic brands just started tasting better. A box of honey bunches of oats $4.45. Hyvee generic brand, $2.43
  • Instead of buying a new block building set for your kids, find something in the house to be creative with. For example
  • They call it junkfood, I call it junkfoold. Again, if you read my earlier post on saving money, you know that  I had to cut way back. I would not share this tip if it wasn’t effective enough to share.
  • Pull out that winter clothes bin and use it in the house. The average electricity bill in our apartment complex is 40-60 dollars. Typically 60 in the winter cold and 60 in the summer heat. I have spent as little as 20 dollars and as high as 46 dollars on our electricity bill. I am currently wearing her old black, white, and pink striped gloves to keep my hands warm instead of putting the heater on. *See above pic*
  • Cash for gold. I don’t mean just gold (Although my Dad and his lady got over 600 dollars from her grandma’s bracelet and a couple of earrings. They were creative with how to pay for their wedding) It’s time to let go of those items that you keep but never use. The sentimental value it may hold does not counter the terrible feeling of owing money and diving into your savings funds and having a budget you can’t keep up with.
  • Internet is not necessary at the home any longer (unless that is where your office is). I can bet that you can walk no more than 5 blocks from your house to get free wi-fi, as long as you don’t live in the country. I spent 16 dollars on a Droid application on my phone to get internet to my computer from my phone. That’s $16 dollars paid once compared to 40+ dollars paid each month for internet.
  • Stay following for a post on more out-of-the-box ways to save money.

Stay Positive and For those with a bike and not an automobile. Brownie points right to you. (Generic brand of course, but it’ll do)

Garth E. Beyer

Poetry Night 006

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Lifetime, No More

If there was one law that could be created with my mind,

It would be that of one without consequential design.

As for all before have threatened to define,

That the most invaluable factor of life is time.

Time is not money, it is life – that’s why we call it lifetime –

All time is lost when our unconscious remain confined.

We cannot know what would be best after all,

Until we make mistakes and thus refine.

So I beg of you to put this one law to all of mankind –

That we may never swing with our mistakes and bind;

To have the ability to rewind.

After all, rewinding to not have to live the experience does not mean that we leave the lesson behind

- Everett

As I said, I would share my transition from the original poem I began writing to the final one that I published at the beginning of this post. If I have learned one thing from poetry or all writing, when we write we are on a constant search to find ourselves. But we rarely find our true selves because writing allows us to recreate ourselves, destroy ourselves, erase the past, embrace the future, and above all else, change ourselves. When we do find ourselves, we cease to be writers.

If you wish to see the first thing I wrote down before I truly thought about the poem and myself, continue reading. (All feedback always appreciated!)

One law can change everything, but everything cannot change one law.

Fray to the one who to this remains unseen

Three cheers to our imagination that doesn’t see what we saw

For when we are down it is up a bendable bond by law

Aw, what a shame we cannot control the borders around us

For fear that a man without a cage will be nothing less then a lion in a rage

But there are people on earth that must

Explore the connection of the world

For what they belive and trust

Only then can you realize the one  law you could create

That no laws could be created in the first place

I encourage you as well to write a poem based off the prompt of “If you could create one law, what would it be and why?” and share it with me.

Stay Positive and Lawsed

Garth E. Beyer

3 Ways To Going Green and Your Uncontrollable Office Space

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Of course you know various ways to make your workplace Eco-friendly. Recycle, purchase Eco-friendly products, shut all electronics off before you leave, use both sides of paper, etc. These are all simple minded. When you Googled ways to become more environmentally friendly, these actions were just reminders, they were nothing new.

With my experience in working in an office, I began thinking outside of the box. Can you guess what is outside your box? Everything you cannot control.

I noticed that each morning my trash basket would be emptied and a new plastic bag would be placed in it. Everrry morning. All I tossed in it the other day was a tissue and piece of chewed gum. It is ridiculous that whoever cleans the office at the end of the day puts a new bag in. What a waste of plastic!

Here are a few un-thought-of actions you can take to make your office more environmentally friendly.

1. Hide or place a note on the garbage requesting that they do not take the garbage until it is full or if there is no note on it.

2. Snoop in other offices or cubicles and find items that other people are tossing instead of recycling. If you do not think confronting them about making the change to recycling will do anything, stick a recycling bin in their area and make it an effortless action for them.

3. Paper towel diver. If the bathroom at your workplace still uses paper towels, check to make sure all the ones in the garbage are wet and used up. I can’t tell you how much paper towels I have saved by using the dry parts of the ones in the waste basket.

4. Bring plants into the office space. This makes a perfect co-worker gift as well. Not only will the greenery be another step to giving co-workers and clients a gentle reminder of the environment, it also calms the mood of the office. Aesthetics in the office make it a peaceful environment.

Do you have a few tactics to making your workplace environmentally conscious?

Stay Positive and Take A Green Initiative

Garth E. Beyer