Shipping

The Catalogue Effect

Garth Beyer

There’s a problem with overserving, with overshipping, and with overcreating.

Do you know what a catalogue is? They used to be extremely popular because every week, month, or year, the catalogue would present everything new that is being sold. Yes, they would contain older products, but companies don’t send out catalogues to show you their old products, they send them to show you the new products.

A catalogue is the greatest 18th and 19th century way to overserve, overship, and demand overcreation. I’m going to let you in on a secret. The secret why catalogues have died off – it’s not because of the internet. No.

When people would receive catalogues, they looked at them to see what was new, but contrary to the seller’s belief, the consumer wasn’t looking to see what was new to buy it. The catalogue became a news source. All the consumer was left with after receiving a catalogue was wonderment with what the next catalogue could possibly contain.

Where does that leave the seller?

It’s neither positive or negative. The seller makes money as she always does.

The real person you should be questioning is the creator. Where does that leave her?

It’s a positive thing to serve, create, and ship with some form of regularity. However, when you overserve, overcreate, and overship, you produce the catalogue effect. Yes, people will value your work, but merely appearance wise. After you begin to deliver excessively, they will only be interested in what you will concoct up next. (Not what they will pay for next.)

 

Stay Positive & Creating More, Makes Your Audience Want More, But Not Spend More

Garth E. Beyer

Taking Inventory

Garth Beyer

I’ve written a bunch about starting fresh this new year. This post is by far my favorite

Ship or Delete

Taking Inventory

Nah. It’s more like getting rid of your inventory. Very cut and dry.

Go through all of your lists right now: your projects, your folders, your notes, your journals, your goals, and either ship or delete them.

Simple right?

Well you’re going to come across a project and think to yourself, “Well this is something that I can’t ship right now because it’s unfinished and it’ll take time to be finished.”

Decide right now whether you will actually finish it within the next two months. If yes, then do it. If no, then either delete it or ship a short version of it. Put it out there for someone else to work on.

There are a couple of concepts at play here.

The first is that if your idea was remarkable enough, you would be working on it constantly or would be passionate enough to complete it within two months.

The second is that if you can withhold one of your ideas, one of your projects, then you are saying it’s not important enough to be delivered right away. (If it is, then now I’m mad that you’ve made me wait so long and won’t buy into it when you finally deliver it.)

The new year is about starting fresh. You have 21 days to go through all you have and either ship or delete. Ship or delete. Ship or delete.

In order for a door to open, you must close one. Actually, the cool thing about life is that when one door closes, a million open for you. How many will you have opened for the new year?

 

Stay Positive & Make Room For New Inventory

Garth E. Beyer

 

New Years. New Goals. I Don’t Think So.

Garth Beyer

Start now.

There are millions of people around the world, right now, that are thinking about the new years resolutions they will write for themselves at the end of December. Are you one of them? Are you thinking how you are going to finish that book next year, ship that art piece next year, finish your project next year, make a change in your life next year? There are 744 hours left of this year. Have you any clue how much you can do with 744 hours? That new years resolution list you have been thinking about? Make it now.

Then do it before the end of this year.

“The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life-preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life-preserver which sinks them. Nobody can drown in the ocean of reality who voluntarily gives himself up to the experience.” Henry Miller

Quit holding on to things and ship them. Ship yourself. Strive to make next year a fresh slate. Write a new book next year, build a new non-profit next year, but for right now, finish what you started. Create a blog, finish (not perfectly) all of your next year goals this year, and throw them on your blog. Get them out there. Start again. This next year, is about showing that you can follow through with good ideas and you have so many more on the way that they can’t wait.

By the way, have you ever thought that if you can hold back from sharing something of yours with the world, that it just may not be worth sharing. Or are you telling me that you have held out on something I’ve wanted for more than a year?

The next 744 hours are about delivering everything you thought would be your one-hit-wonder, your  zipline to stardom. You’re better than that, the world (and myself) want more from you than one perfect project that’ll be old news in a week.

Make that new years resolution list now.

Complete it by new years.

 

Stay Positive & Start New

Garth E. Beyer

Shutting Fear Out … In New York

Shutting Fear Out … In New York

Garth Beyer
We may have liberty, but we still have a lizard brain

Who has heard about the lizard brain? No one? Well I’ll have to change that.

The lizard brain is what makes us not do what we say we are going to do. It’s what stops us from checking tasks off our to-do list, it stops us from writing the book we want, stops us from sending that application in, it stops us from living a meaningful, adventurous, exciting life. The lizard brain can also be referred to as the Amygdala, the part of our brain which registers fear. This fear has a voice and it tells us to compromise, to play it safe, to stay where we are comfortable. This reference to the lizard brain was coined by Seth Godin, author, marketer, and revolutionary starter.

During this mass media age, I believe Seth Godin to be one of the most insightful and helpful authors to us digital natives. Seth Godin has written more than 14 books that have all been best sellers and translated into over 30 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. Even if a five-mile wide meteor struck the earth today, you could still say that Seth Godin has made a larger impact on society.

You may think this author is important because you imagine him to be the motivating type. He is no more motivating than a rock. He is however a person who can bring you to understand why you do what you do, rather, why you don’t do what you don’t do. He explains in his most infamous book, Linchpin¸how the closer you get to delivering something, to accomplishment, to taking a risk, the harder the lizard brain works to stop you.  This ability, to make us aware, is what makes Seth Godin so important.

If it’s not clear already, Seth is an idol of mine. Heck, I flew out to New York to see him and wrote about that experience here. Seth has taught me how to build a tribe, inspired me to keep shipping, and has helped me realize the inner workings of my brain and ego in such a simplistic manner. I continue to read his books and build off his ideas and will do my absolute best to get a one-on-one interview with him over the holidays because I am planning a trip to NYC. I truly owe it to Seth for getting me to where I am today. (HT to Seth Godin)

Side note: If anyone has someone they can introduce me to through email/phone/person that either lives in New York or has other contacts in New York, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan on spending the summer in New York to find an opportunity to become more of a writer and to connect with some of the most brilliant minded people. Michelle being one of them, she’s something special! Thank you!

 

Stay Positive & People Help People, Who Help People, Who Help Other People, Who Help More People …

Garth E. Beyer

25 Life Lessons You Need To Know To Succeed

Garth Beyer
  • Begin taking responsiblity for everything in your life, even if you had nothing to do with it.
  • Implement an everyday attitude check: Are you believing in yourself?
  • Just do it… yourself. Don’t waste time telling others to do it. Do it yourself, take responsiblity. The more adapt you get to taking responsibilities, the more successfully you can handle your dream job.
  • Mistakes teach you what you should have prepared for. Learn them and appreciate them.
  • Invest in yourself.
  • Write a plan even if you never look at it again.
  • Stick with it until you win.
  • ^ Quit quitting. Finish. Ship. Just freaking complete it!
  • Do as much self teaching as you would learn from others.
  • The world doesn’t just give luck to anyone. Only to those with a positive attitude and who work hard.
  • You are the best, take people’s time, you deserve it.
  • Until we change what school is for, no one is going to stop and make sure you get your daily dose of inspiration.
  • Don’t wait for someone to come to you.
  • ^ People die standing still.
  • Procrastination is more expensive than the resources it would cost to achieve your goal.
  • Everyone believes they deserve better. At some point in your life, the only way to receive better is to quite complaining and do better.
  • The things you give for nothing can never be replaced.
  • The goal is new ideas and approaches, not consensus.
  • It will always be “the best time in all of history”.
  • Everything is dynamic.
  • If someone isn’t willing to buy, it’s not a loss, it’s a chance to improve.
  • Success is relative to the quality of the process.
  • Always seek to be surprised.
  • Trying gives you the right to try again.

 

Stay Positive & Share Your 25 Life Lessons In The Comments Section

Garth E. Beyer

How To Make A List And The Order To Do It In

Garth Beyer

How To Make A List: Write the list, right now. Write down everything you need to do and ship. Order, size, time, length, color, priority, distance, meaning and result doesn’t matter. You don’t need a list of things to do and not do just to write a list. A list is a list, write it.

The Order To Do It In: Now start doing the things you have written from the top to the bottom. The ones you placed first are the ones that are on your mind the most and the ones you are already focusing more of your energy on. Why take that away to put on something else and have to go back? The first items you put on that list are also the ones that will make you feel the best about completing because they are obviously urgent enough to write down so their achievement will relieve stress, to make you feel peaceful, set and accomplished.

There is no momentum in hopping to different tasks, but there is plenty of momentum in going down a list. Complete what is there and do it fast. It doesn’t matter if it’s ugly, what matters is that it is shipped.

 
Stay Positive & Don’t Worry, Things Will Always Be Added Onto The List

Garth E. Beyer

Early Urgency

Garth Beyer

Sometimes guilty myself, I always hear people say “I need more time”.

Those who mutter these words are likely the ones doing, acting, creating and following through. When you feel that you need more time it ignites a sense of urgency, hectic-ness, and haste. It is what needs to happen before you accomplish and ship anything valuable.

There is a way to just let time flow and “enjoy” yourself. Only through mediocre, dull and banal achievements can you do this. It’s easy. You do less and you get more time to do even less. No need to worry about haste making waste.

However, there is a way to have both and that is through Early Urgency. It’s a talent that can be attained by anyone willing to take control of their efforts, initiative and mind-set and who want more time to enjoy themselves and their accomplishments.

Early Urgency is making yourself flail (sometimes confused with fail), early. It is expediting your efforts before your deadline to ship. By doing so, you have all that time, from when you finished early to the deadline, where you can relax and enjoy yourself.

Warning: For some reason, the side effect to Early Urgency is that there are more phenomenal products being shipped early, never a peep about needing more time, and rarely ever, does someone want to just let time flow to enjoy themselves. They get all the enjoyment they need out of the frequent act of shipping their creations.

 

Stay Positive & Quicken Your Pace To Win The Race (To The Top)

Garth E. Beyer