Month: May 2012

Thinking Body, Dancing Mind

Garth Beyer
The Lessons You Need To Celebrate Being Alive

Thinking Body, Dancing Mind

TaoSports for Extraordinary Performance in Athletics, Business, and Life is the one sport that if you were to become a professional in, you should pick. Although, I would add or change the word extraordinary because the lessons taught and experiences shared in this book are the ordinary techniques that are used by the extraordinary. The way I am going to regurgitate this book to you is by first sharing everything that I actually wrote down while I was reading it. These items are the most important parts of the book that sparked the brightest ideas and concepts in my brain. Then I am going to list the chapters in the book to let you know of all the different lessons that you can learn and improve on. The reason for this process is that the book can be picked up and started from anywhere you choose: the beginning, the end, or a random page. My advice for you is not to go and purchase the book, but to go and flip it open to a chapter that you think you want to improve in your life, read it and see if you want to read the other chapters. Lastly, I will share some of my favorite affirmations that were shared in the book that hopefully you can use.

Garth’s Dancing Mind

Why fight your way to the top, when you can rise to it?  There is no such thing as a victory in an uphill battle; there is only a plateau and it’s never at the top.

Having a winning attitude is a defiance to the expectation of feeling the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.  Both of which are detrimental to any possibility of being successful in the future. To have a winning attitude is to break down the process to moments.  Thinking and feeling that you have won each moment. Success is relative to the quality of the process. There is more than one finish line in a 5k race, there are actually 6,200 finish lines. Every step is a victory and should be viewed as one.

What Not To Be –

  • Struggling for external recognition
  • Measuring self-worth on outcomes
  • Focusing on perfection
  • Establishing unrealistic expectations
  • Blaming others
  • Condemning yourself for mistakes and failure

“You don’t dance to get to the other side of the floor” – Alan Watts

There are three visualization processes that I have taken from the book (which probably has 30+ in it). The first is a visualization of your sanctuary that you can retreat to based off a trigger (mines putting my index finger and thumb together to create a circle). You get to create your own place of ritual and relaxation. My place was based off a picture of a monk sweeping in front of his hut that was cuddling the base of a mountain, the monk is my guide, as you will read more about when you open the book. The second visualization process was to imagine a steady beam of sunlight coming down on top of you, entering your head and circulating it’s power throughout your body, delivering energy, healing powers and enlightenment.

The third visualization example was actually the first in the book which goes like this:

“For example, close your eyes right now and imagine a juicy, sour lemon. In your mind, cut a big wedge from the lemon and place it in your mouth. Bite down, and let the sour juices permeate your entire mouth. Did you find yourself puckering or salivating?”

It simply goes to show how powerful visualization can be. With consistent practice, you can have the same trigger affect to visualizing winning a race, visualizing closing a deal or whatever will help you succeed.

While visualizations are confirmations for your mind, affirmations are confirmations to your heart. “Affirmations are not self deception, they’re self direction.” At the bottom of this post, I will list my absolute favorite affirmations from the book. It is loaded with them! You can also create a list of perfect affirmations for yourself by turning your favorite quotes into affirmations.

  • At every moment remember: Be positive, Be present, Be concise, Be rhythmic.
  • Adaptation is the hallmark of champions.
  • Remember to pace yourself. Progress is two steps forward, one step backward.
  • To trump fatigue, you can either focus on one aspect of the process or at the end result, ignore all else and let the fatigue bypass you.
  • Concentrate on what you have control over.
  • What you believe you become.
  • Handling a negative event in  a positive way is an experience that can become a touchstone for future encounters.
  • Fear: is a natural part of life. It can either paralyze you or give you an opportunity to assess the risk your facing and prepare for it properly. Fear can also make you respect your comfort zone.
  • When in a slump, go with the flow because you will slingshot back.

5 Stages of Injury:  – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. (When you read this section under the chapter titled Injuries, you will agree at first, but then you will disagree because when you finally realize the process you take, you are able to shorten and change it.)

Challenge: Find the book at the bookstore and read the beginning of the chapter on page 76. (Half a page) By far the most “Woa” moment in the entire book.

One of the most important excerpts I took from the book is that you, me, we – are never as great as our greatest victory or as bad as our worst defeat. We are above it all, we are apart from it because we have a winning attitude.

Reevaluate life while in downtime. Just because your body may be down, does not mean you can allow your mind to go down with it. You need to focus on what made you lose balance, what you are going to do to achieve balance again and what you will do to prevent from ever entering downtime again. Oh, and remember, laughter is by far the best medicine to get out of downtime, I suggest George Carlin.

Committed to truth no consistency – Buddha

“According to Mark, when you become totally engrossed in your sport, you over-analyze everything.” Contributing to the saying that analysis is paralysis. Ironically, I had just written a blog post about this called The One Quality You Need To Be A Successful Expert

I will top of my Dancing Mind with something I loved most about TBDM. At the beginning of each section, and sometimes within, a chapter of the Tao Te Ching is shared. The characters associated with it were so aesthetic that it made me want to study them. The reason being that the greatness of them is that they are meant to make you visualize and feel their meaning when you meditate on them. The Tao Te Ching inserts reminded me of a post I wrote a long time ago on a particular chapter:An Accord With Greatness

Tao Te Ching no.1

Thus, without expectation,

One will always perceive the subtlety.

And, with expectation,

One will always perceive the boundary.

TMDB Chapters – If you think a topic is appealing, pick up the book and just read the chapter

Visualizations, Affirmations, Beliefs, Positive Thinking, Relaxation, Vision, Focusing, Centering, Intuition, Reflection, Fear, Fear of Failure, Fear of Success, Slumps, Fatigue, Injuries, Expectations, Self-Criticism, Perfectionism, Confidence, Assertiveness, Courageousness, Detachment, Egolessness, Selflessness, Conscientiousness, Competition, Winning, Psychological Tactics, Motivation, Goal Setting, Self-Improvement, Synergy, Leadership, Integrity, Adaptation, Persistence, Balance, Simplicity.

Affirmations

Fixed minds detract from potential. Flexible minds are the essential.

My performance is a perfect mirror of my image of self.

To be in sync, use instinct.

The voice of fear is healthy to hear.

There is plenty of success for all of us.

What I resist will persist.

I don’t dominate – I demonstrate.

I risk temporary loss for the chance for permanent improvement.

When I’m detached, my play can’t be matched.

Helping others find their way gives me the chance for better play.

There is no home court advantage unless I give it to them.

If I persist each day, I’ll eventually get my way.

Stay Positive & One With The Tao

Garth E. Beyer

A Life Reminder

Garth Beyer

People want you to succeed.

Those who it may seem that they don’t, are just the ones who are better at preparing you for the success.

Anyone can show you the “right way” of achieving what you want, but you will not feel the power of having succeeded if you did not jump through the flaming hula-hoop that is spinning in air above a tank full of sharks.

 

Stay Positive & You Have My Support

Garth E. Beyer

So, You Want To Start Blogging Pt. 2

Garth Beyer
What Are You Waiting For?

The one piece of advice that most people give about starting a blog is to find your niche and then start writing all the content you can about it.

Find Your Niche

Write To Find Your Niche

What remains unseen in some of the most popular blogs that are written on a specific subject is the first or second post that was ever written on that blog. If you go to the back of Shel Israel’s posts you will find that before he began zoning in on his passion (Social Media), he had a blog where he covered everything that entered his mind. He started by writing on every idea that went through his brain and put it on his first blog, RedCouch before he truly discovered his niche and created his current website.

Tim Ferriss had a similar situation. What you see now is his 4 hour work week blog, but if you go to the last page you will find his reminder that you can catch older content on his previous blog Tim Ferriss: The Human Experiment Blog

This is nearly everywhere, you just don’t see it because it is rare that you go to the last page of any blog. Many”famous” bloggers such as Shel or Tim, keep their old blogs because it was their journey to finding their passion. It may be for you too. Then again, other well-known blogs choose to delete their old scribblings because they only want to be known for their niche content and respected for their passion, not the oddball ideas that got them there.

To be more direct, don’t wait to start a blog. Forget the advice to find your niche before you start writing. Just write… write on every idea you sort-of-kinda feel is worthy because that is how you will discover your passion.

You know what happens to people who wait to find their niche before they start writing a blog?

They don’t find it.

 

Stay Positive & Go Write Right Now

Garth E. Beyer

So You Want To Start Blogging Pt.1

Success Is Not Reached From A Single Ladder

Garth Beyer

Like many games, Super Mario taught us an important lesson. When you reach the top of the ladder, you can always jump to another and get even higher. – Success.

 

Stay Positive & Keep Climbing

Garth E. Beyer

The 6 Questions Every Business Needs To Answer Before Startup

Garth Beyer

1. What problem does your business solve?

If there isn’t a problem your business will solve, than it will be the problem and be dissolved. Elaborate on paper what your product/service is meant to help, improve or assist. The more important attribute to the question is understanding that you need to solve what is causing the problem, not just solve the problem. While many will make money by solving a problem, companies can make even more by preventing the problem because they will always need to be kept stable in order to keep the problem from occurring. If you are only trying to solve the problems as they arrive, you will go extinct when the source of the problem does.

2. Is the problem ready to be solved?

For years the advancements made in technology were held back because the human race wasn’t capable of making that big of a jump. Is it too early for your business? Are people searching for answers to their problem, or did you find the answer before they want it? For example, in a classroom setting, a teacher can teach a 4th grader trigonometry, but they don’t need it for another seven years. Evaluate your niche audience to ensure that the size reaches the tipping point in which they want their problem to be solved.

3. How is your solution unique?

Despite the emphasis on making businesses which offer unique ways to solve problems, the world of entrepreneurs are still falling short on making their signature solution. Being different from any other competitor or being a new problem solver is not acceptable. How are you taking it further and creating something full of passion and character that is still different from other options. Don’t just be different, be better.

4. How will your solution be profitable?

Every business seeks profit. Although, different business creators have different definitions for “profit”. Define your profit, whether it is simply customer satisfaction, personal achievement, monetary amounts or something entirely different. Develope insight into how your “profit” will continue to grow and what will need to be done in order to meet the goals you set.

5. How will your solution be sustainable?

People spend countless amounts of dollars to maintain their hobbies. The same is done with people and their business’s. Coincidentally, it is the group of hobbyists and entrepreneurs who create a hobby or business that becomes self sustaining which introduces the largest of profits and becomes subject to the longest life span. What are you going to do to implement longevity into your business? (If creating a business selling crystal balls, you can skip this step)

6. Are you passionate about the idea?

Are you?

 

Stay Positive & Turn Your Answers Into Actions

Garth E. Beyer

If The Shoe Doesn’t Fit

Garth Beyer

Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes can be life changing.

But what if the shoe doesn’t fit? Or rather, you just don’t want to wear them because you have a well enough idea about their life that you know you would rather keep your shoes on. It’s like the saying that if everyone threw their problems in a pile to exchange for someone else’s, you would grab your own back after seeing the problems everyone else has.

Fortunately, you don’t need to wear anyone else’s shoes – whether they fit or not. The significance of shoes is that you can judge a man by the bottom of his shoes, you do not need to wear them.

“If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?” – Gloria Steinem

No Gloria, despite the pressure to do so, you can learn more from looking at the bottom of the shoe than putting it on or changing your life so that the shoe fits. Meaning, you can see where the owner of the shoes has stepped. It is a waste and can often not be a pleasurable experience to live someone else’s life, but there is a significance to knowing where they have stepped rather than living their life. By seeing where they have stepped, you can discover either what got them into such a sour spot or such a sweet spot. Their history is written on the bottom of their shoes. Their legacy just so happens to be the piece of chewed gum that they stepped on.You don’t need to gain an understanding of where they are, you only need to know how they got there and wearing the shoes does not tell you that.

Stay Positive & Follow The Footsteps Of The Shoes That Stepped In Success

Garth E. Beyer

The Business Sport Of Soreness

Garth Beyer

Business is a lot like sports.

When you play a sport for the first time, you get sore, but through the soreness your muscles and body improve and grow in order for you to play the sport better. After a good few months of playing and practicing, your body no longer gets sore. Then what? The average activist would go on playing the sport only to find that they are making little improvement in their physique and skills. The intelligent activist would switch up the training routine whether it is by doing a different kind of sport (preferred) or merely working directly on separate strengths necessary for the sport. If you are not feeling the soreness, something is wrong. That means you are in your comfort zone, that you have plateaued and will develop very small improvements, if any.

In businesses, the soreness is called failure, often created from mistakes which were made because you are training and practicing. If you are not feeling any businesses soreness, then you are either not training hard enough or you need to change your routine to succeed any further. Don’t let your body or your business plateau, avoid habitual “sport” strategies.

In the Business Sport of Soreness competitors die standing still.

Stay Positive & Be The Winner, Not competitor

Garth E. Beyer