Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
No clue how many people are actually watching you.
You have no clue how many people – whom you know personally – visit your blog, or look at your product, or ask others about how you are doing, or talk to each other about how you haven’t done what you said you were going to do, or are waiting to see what you create.
Whoever said to act as if someone is always watching, well, they were blind.
Someone is always watching.
Stay Positive & Get Lucky
Garth E. Beyer
There are two parts to everyone being scared.
The second is my favorite because it has the potential of making you feel better than you ever have before. At my work, I have evaluated applications from students that have put in more than 2,000 hours of community service over a span of four years. But when I think of the second part of fear, I can’t help but realize that more empowering results can be created by talking to someone for two minutes.
Online example
Despite Twitter’s popularity, it’s far from perfect. In fact, I gave their ads a try and was revolted. They gave me $50 to start running ads and I quit before it was spent.
They also required you to have a debit/credit card on file before they gave you the money. Once I quit my ads, I wanted to delete my debit card information. I could not find any place to do this. So, I emailed them.
Within a day I received an email saying that the feature I requested was not available and that they would work on it – in the mean time I would basically have to deal with it.
Since then, a few weeks have passed. The other day, I opened my email to find this:
There is always room for improvement
Whether the person, company, or client you’re talking to follows through with your suggestion – or in Twitter’s case, takes your unfulfillable request and turns it into something real – it’s still your responsibility to make that suggestion.
Out of the millions of Twitter users, I have no clue how many will be happy that they can delete their card from their account. I have no clue how many employees it took, how much red tape it had to go through, or how successful their actions really were. What I do know is that they took a request, an idea, and made it happen. And for that – although I still can’t stand the ads, – I will stick by Twitter’s side.
Personal examples
An old friend of mine wanted to start a blog about teen dads. I gave him roughly five lines of hard encouragement. I told him exactly what he needed to do. He never did. I didn’t let fear get to him, he did.
Another friend of mine was applying to law school and asked if I would review his personal statement. I gave him a few suggestions but explained more about human personalities and how those reviewing the application are real people. He understood, realizing that there was fear that the person reviewing his application might misjudge him. Because of fear, he wrote a safe statement. Once I called him out on it, he made some changes and while he has yet to hear back, I’m sure he will get in.
I shared a speech I wrote with a respectable entrepreneur. She critiqued the staleness and boredom out of it. Because of her, my speech became more remarkable. I also gave the original draft to a friend who said it was good, providing a couple grammatical corrections. You can guess which one had more of an impact.
Criticism is tough work
So is encouragement, accountability, and inspiration – all of which are required to back up another’s dance with fear. I’ve always thought that doing your own work is easy, well, maybe not easy, but always easier than helping someone else do their own work.
I suppose that’s why I love giving people feedback. Maybe, just maybe, they will see how valuable it is to them, that they give feedback to someone else.
Stay Positive & Let Others Know What You Think And Feel
Garth E. Beyer
The first is risk-free. It’s the type of art that you can destroy without second guessing yourself; the type of art you can return, get your money back, or just give away to someone else because you’re not attached. This type of art is noncommittal.
But it’s still art. In fact, it’s invaluable art.
This type of indefinite art is about expression as much as it is exploration. We can peck at it, flip it, and stick the end of our tongue to it to see what it tastes like. This art is about discovering through creating what we don’t understand. This art is to be played with.
The transition toward the second type of art is made through what all art shares: facing unresolved issues – the meaning of life, why this and not that, where do I belong.
Popular art – the second type of art – is when a creation contains answers.* The second type is about sharing findings, sharing answers, sharing your conclusions – egotistic or not. This is the most difficult type of art. To creat the first type, all you need to do is turn rumination into something tangible. For the second type of art, you have to commit, you have to accept all the criticism you will receive before you receive it. What ruins art creators is when they underestimate the amount of resistance they will have to face, internally and externally. The second type of art is simply art shared.
*[Right or wrong, they are answers. Popular art becomes such through connection, acceptance, and reality. It may not be the right answer for you, and it may be the wrong answer for her, but, essentially, it’s an answer for someone.]
Stay Positive & Create A Little Art. One Type Or Another
Garth E. Beyer
So what that you put hundreds of hours into creating what you did? Just because you went through all the pain of developing what you did, doesn’t make it yours. Even if you searched for every single piece of your creation and sold your sentimental belongings to afford what you made – it still doesn’t make it yours and it definitely doesn’t make it art.
Art is only art when it’s shared.
It’s the same with genius. Einstein wouldn’t have been a genius if he never shared everything he studied, ruminated, and experimented with. Or, a person can write a novel a year, but they will never be a writer unless they share it.
People might shout,
“This is not the time for metaphor! This is not the time for art! And this is certainly not the time for art about you!” But once you’ve shared your art and it’s resonated with a single person, it’s no longer about you — once you share it, it’s about everybody. And if your art is found by a single soul, shared with a friend who links it to a friend, and the response is whatever it is, you start to see how art becomes about everybody — just through the act of being shared.” – Amanda Palmer
I am stating that art becomes about everybody the same as it becomes everyones.
When I buy your art, I don’t see it the way you do. I don’t know how much money, time, sweat, blood, relationships, tears, mental exhaustion, late nights, and broken prototypes went into it.
When your art is in my hands – no, even when I see your art – it becomes mine too. It’s part of me. I put my emotions, my thoughts, my personality in and around it.
And let me tell you something. Art becomes so much more beautiful when it has amassed a variety of emotions, thoughts, and personalities.
Stay Positive & Sharing Always Makes It More Valuable
Garth E. Beyer
Back in the day, if you were sitting in a room with friends and you had to go to the bathroom, you would hold it. After all, if you got up, someone would take your spot!
Then an act of seat reservation was adopted. It was called “squaders.” Before getting up from your spot, whether it’s a log around the campfire or the one of few fancy chairs around the dinner table, you call “squaders!” and no one can take your spot while you are away.
Sitting with friends the other night, I got up and before walking forward, asked, “do we call squaders anymore?”
Of course we don’t. More people, specifically clients, are naturally mobile and resourceful. (If they are not, then maybe you don’t want them as a client.) We have to understand that the client can shop around, that they are okay not staying in their chair, that, sometimes, they go off and build their own chair.
Squaders is about attachment – and attachment is about vulnerability – and vulnerability is what the chair maker should feel, not the one sitting in it.
Stay Positive & Since We’re Talking About Chairs And Success
Garth E. Beyer
Why have they not made cereal bags that you can open without ripping the bag in half?
Or why have they not made spoons that prevent milk from trickling down your chin?
Because of some very important factors.
It’s not just cereal. As long as the real thing – whether it’s cereal or your own invention – is great, the trouble getting there is worth it. Think about your art as a toy at the bottom of a cereal box. It sort-of sucks to get it. It’s not convenient, but it’s an accomplishable and sometimes entertaining challenge.
It gets people talking about the toy without actually talking about the toy. By having them share their stories about how they got the toy (and almost vomiting while finishing an entire box of cereal in one sitting), your “toy” becomes part of a real, emotional, personal memory.
This is why perfect art is worthless. You can’t have remarkable cereal without the bag.
Stay Positive & Your Art Is Never Just Art To Someone
Garth E. Beyer
We’re all crazy.
I can say that because we love destroying things – rather, when we do destroy things, we have fun with it – a lot of fun.
Finally getting rid of your old desktop computer? Smashing it in the driveway sounds like a great idea. Stereo-system broke? Time to tear it to pieces and see how it works. Need room to build something? I’ll get the sledgehammer.
A few months ago my dad and I had to get rid of some wasp nests. Naturally we tried wasp spray, but it was ineffective. Then we bleached the nests. Still alive. So we poured gasoline and set it on fire.
A couple of months ago my dad and I took apart my original droid. (After five years, it finally broke.) This is the outcome.
It’s easy to break something, to dissect it, to experiment with what has already been created. It’s much more dangerous to build something from scratch, to experiment with your own creativity.
What puzzles me is how we can have so much fun destroying things, yet not be as insanely excited to create something.
There’s a few different ways to overcome this. All dangerous.
1. Build to destroy it.
2. Build to let someone else have fun destroying it.
3. Build knowing that you will already be building something new, thus, not caring whether it gets destroyed or not.
Bonus: If you want a real challenge. Build something new from the remnants of what you destroy.
Stay Positive & Whatever You Do, Just Have Fun With It
Garth E. Beyer
