Tag Archives: Experience

Give In. No, Really.

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There’s a million reasons why we surround ourselves by loved ones. Some obvious. Others, not so much. One reason in particular is to allow us to admit defeat but benefit from it.

Let me explain.

From time to time, our loved ones who support us, who helps us, and even, at times, look up to us, turn sour. Our loved ones are often “more knowledgable and experienced,” leading them to have a “realist” opinion of our decisions. In other words, sometimes those closest to us can be downright negative and even hurtful.

They will tell you that you are getting yourself in too deep, that you’re jumping the gun, that you can’t handle something, or it’s too much for you to chew. Now, I suck at math, but I ace’d statistics. If people who care about you – enough of them – are suggesting that you take a step back, take a breather, go with the easier option, if they tell you that you are pushing yourself too hard. Listen.

If you have one, two, or three loved ones suggesting it, maybe you should at least consider their option. If you have four or more loved ones advocating that you take that step back. Listen.

Yes, people who love you most are also those who worry more than they should. But this is as much of a reminder to listen to your loved ones as it is to make sure they hold you accountable.

Nothing is worse than letting loved ones down. But there’s a difference between that and having them being happy that you let yourself down.

 

Stay Positive & Sometimes People Look Up To You More When You Give In

Garth E. Beyer

Until You Stumble

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Keep on going and you will stumble on to something remarkable. Notice how I didn’t say that you will find a treasure chest. Notice how I didn’t say you would stop in front of and look up at your reward. Notice how I didn’t say that you would meet your goal face-to-face. No.

We race so quickly to our goals, that when we fall, we never notice the X on the ground. We get back up and keep racing, leaving whatever reward (which often comes in the form of a lesson – at least at the early stages -) on the ground.

 

Stay Positive & Look Where You Stumble Before You Get Going Again

Garth E. Beyer

You Don’t Have The Experience

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That’s the biggest problem with people looking to start at any rung of the ladder beside the bottom. It’s a universal problem that prevents us from doing the work we know we can do well.

Why is it then, that although you know you can do something, you’re still not allowed to do it? Because you don’t have the experience. And why is that?

Because experience doesn’t mean that you know how to do something or even do it well.

I think it’s a fair moment to share a quote from Oscar Wilde,

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes“

It’s actually easy to start half way up the ladder and even sometimes closer to the top. The only way to be granted that spot, though, is through humility, through sharing all the mistakes you have made and what you learned from them.

I could write for the New York Times, easily. They have editors,  I don’t have to worry too much about the details, just write as best I can. Why don’t they hire me then? Because I don’t have enough “experience.” I haven’t made enough mistakes, don’t have enough stories, I wouldn’t be a good enough teacher because I have yet to learn everything (the hard way).

It’s the mistakes that make the experience and the experience that delivers you to your dream job.

I guess that means there’s only one thing for you to do if you want what you want. You have to do the hard stuff, the humiliating stuff, the emotional labor. You have to make more mistakes.

Stay Positive & No, It May Not Be The Only Way, But It Is The Best Way

Garth E. Beyer

You Can’t Go Through Life Thinking

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that the one occupation you want is the only one you can ever have.

Nearly every day I walk down E Gilman Street and am mesmerized by the view of the city between two apartment complexes. It’s something I know not a single architect, when designing any brick of Madison had thought of. Who would care that someone walking down a street could see a piece of the Capitol and nine other buildings, all beautiful architecture, between two apartment complexes? I’m fascinated by it. Every time I see it I think how I want to be an architect; that I can design – really, truly, passionately design. I catch myself thinking that if I were to restart my life, architecture and free style dancing would be my two passions I would build my life from.

Of course I mentally slap myself right after thinking that I can’t do those things during my life, this life. Despite my ambitions to become a well-known published author, Pulitzer prize recipient for my journalism, and world-renowned PR specialist and creator of the worlds best PR agency, there are still plenty of years in my life to study architecture and dance and to become really good at it.

We all get stuck with this preconception that the career we have is the one we have for life. There is no turning back, it’s too late to become great at anything else. We also think that to become great in one thing involves focusing on it, and only it, all our lives, and maybe, just maybe we will die a professional and be remembered for what we did.

Let me tell you how it is. If you want to be a professional, you must have experience, and experience comes from doing, not from reading a book. When you first start off down the road of your passion, you read books, then you take actions. Why do we not think that while we are taking actions, we cannot also be reading books on something else?

You can’t argue that it’s damn near impossible to study marketing, study skateboarding, study a second language, and study family sustainability and expect to be a professional in every area in a year. You can, however, study skateboarding then when you are finished researching and reading up on it, start doing it and gaining experience instead of studying about it. Then, you start to study a second language. Once you are done studying the second language, you keep skateboarding, you start using the second language (gaining experience) and then you begin studying your next interest.

We can do a lot in one day but we can’t study a lot in one day.

I’ll be a pretty good architect someday, a great freestyle dancer too.

What else will you be?

 

Stay Positive & Dream Big

Garth E. Beyer

A few days after writing this post I was walking home from the café and found someone standing off the sidewalk in the spot with the best view of Madison. She was taking a picture of this view, my favorite. I told her how remarkable it was that she was capturing the view and we both agreed it was a breathtaking sight and close to the best in all of Madison. I’ll have to snap a pic for you next time around.

“It’s Too Hard To Learn”

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In school you learn through memorization. In life you learn through experience.

In both though, life and school, everyone finds themselves muttering from time to time that “it’s just too hard to learn,” and so you don’t pursue it.

Everyone – even myself, who is advocating something important here – forgets that learning is about making mistakes, being wrong, asking stupid questions, and getting a “D”.

There is only one exception to this rule: when you say “it’s too hard to learn,” you are wrong and you learn nothing from it.

 

Let’s grow, learn, and progress in life together and someday we can laugh at the irony of being such a success from so many failures.

 

Stay Positive & Cheers To Those Who Will Go Straight For Attempting The Impossible

Garth E. Beyer