There are two types of majority students. There are the ones that have no clue what they want to do and ones that do, but don’t do it. Whether the reasons are family based, fear based, or fund based, I use one question to truly get students to think about what they authentically want to do or what they could be doing with their passion.
If school was taken from you, what would you do?
Stay Positive & Ask It. You Will Be Amazed
Garth E. Beyer
My mom dislikes her birthday. She doesn’t like celebrating it, she doesn’t even look forward to it. The same goes for Mothers day. I usually have to remind her that it’s around the corner. And it’s because of this, through her, that I’ve learned how to be one of the best marketers at my age.
If birthdays are days you’re meant to celebrate being alive. What are you to do the other 364 days of the year? If Mothers day is the day you’re meant to celebrate all that your mother has done and continues to do (let’s face it, they are always putting up with your crap whether you’re delivering it or not). What are you doing the other 364 days of the year?
What about the thank you letter you write to your new boss for hiring you. Or your friend who you treat to dinner after they lend you some money for your project that turns out to be a success. Or your dad who lets you reel in the big fish. Or the random stranger who does a good deed.
If there is one thing Mothers day should remind you of, it is the importance of celebrating it and every other event the other 364 days of the year as well. Sure, it’s okay to do a little extra on these days – it’s hard not to when it’s such a heavy tradition. Saying every day is Mothers day is a bit overkill when we have so many people to celebrate being in our lives.
As it goes with your mom or your customer, your appreciation when it’s least expected is often the most effective.
Thank you mom for giving me the foundation to be everything I could and for filling in the holes that I miss. You’re the best. Miss you.
Stay Positive & Live As If There Was No Calendar To Tell You The Significance Of The Day
Garth E. Beyer
Making art, as opposed to having made art, is what everyone wants. The making of art is what catches the eye, draws people in, and fascinates the audience you never knew you had until you made yourself vulnerable.
I just watched a Cadillac commercial. As opposed to only showing the car speeding on roads with a beautiful background of wheat fields, blue-grey skies, and a sunset; I saw the crew, the camera set-up on the vehicle, and the helicopter used to record scenes from above.
Does it make me want to buy a Cadillac? No. But it makes me appreciate them more, it made me write about them, it satisfied a curiosity that I never knew I had (to know how they record all of these slick car advertisements).
This isn’t new, but how you deliver is one of the largest aspects of this artistic revolution.
Stay Positive & You’re Not The Only One To Enjoy Making Your Art
Garth E. Beyer
You’re faced with a huge project. Or you’re trying to face one. Fear is eating at your gut. The saying now goes: No gut. Nothing to follow. But you try your hardest to not let it.
Gumption isn’t so much about putting up a fight with fear and pressing forward; actions and emotions are only half of it. The first half is having a project for fear to work on.
For me, I’m putting together a team to make ideas happen, for Robert Pirsig, it’s repairing a motorcycle, for you it may be starting a blog, showcasing your art, deploying a new business strategy, deploying a new business, talking to people who are different from you, or simply tackling the list of to-do’s you’ve put off.
Gumption isn’t associated with the tough decisions you hear CEO’s having to make, nor is it connected to those wearing hooverflags. No. Gumption doesn’t follow guidelines, restrictions, or limits. It doesn’t care how you were raised, what school you went to, or whether you skipped breakfast or not.
L. M. Montgomery said, “Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn’t can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.”
I suppose Maud never tried repairing a motorcycle. But now, everyone has to repair a motorcycle at some point during their life… or at least something similar to repairing a motorcycle.
Puzzling to acknowledge is that there are a lot more meaningful predicaments similar to repairing a motorcycle than not. Pirsig would agree with me that, yes, repairing a motorcycle takes courage, spunk, guts, initiative, aggressiveness, and a high altitude of resourcefulness.
It also takes fear and dances with it. When you go to repair a motorcycle, you know you’re going to have one hell of a time. Bolts won’t fit, parts will be stripped, dents will be accidentally made, you’ll have to repeat tasks, and – my favorite part – you will deviate from instructions.
If you ask me, Maud was partially right. Gumption can’t be defined.
However, it can be felt.
“I like the word ‘gumption’ because it’s so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t likely to reject anyone who comes along. I like it also because it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with Quality. He gets filled with gumption.
A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.
If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good.”
Stay Positive & Go Find Your Motorcycle
Garth E. Beyer
Whether you’re the one asking or being asked, the answer has little to do with the mind.
You can analyze, strategize, and organize a project so that the results you want are surely the results you will get. But you never actually know.
Boy asks girl what her favorite color is. Girl says purple. Five years (or five months, or five minutes later - it doesn’t really matter) go by. Girl asks the boy what her favorite color is. Boy says purple. Girl frowns. “It’s blue,” she says.
Everything is networking and networking involves connecting with people and people change their minds more often than their clothes. What needs to be understood, though, is that despite these changes (e.g., fear based step-backs, road block detours, juxtaposed worldviews, popped filter bubbles.) the results aimed for can still be attained.
When you are at the phase of “how do YOU know,” you are immediately the authority, the leader, the one looked up to.
Truly, what they want to know is if they can trust you. If they can benefit from following you. And if you answer with “I just do,” you’re answering with your heart, not your mind.
And THAT is how you know.
Stay Positive & If You Don’t Feel It In Your Gut, Aim For Different Results
Garth E. Beyer
What if I told you the most unknown fact about life is that you end up putting in the same amount of effort to do as little as possible as you would if you had the bar raised and hopes high?
And all that fills the divide is passion.
And passion is the single best indicator of whether you are on the right path or not.
Makes you wonder why you considered the easy route in the first place.
Stay Positive & Life Gets Simple When You See The Facts
Garth E. Beyer
