Author: Garth Beyer

People like me don’t handle downtime well.

I need to always be moving forward, pouring my heart into something, and thinking about how I can put twists on other people’s (and my own) thinking. Not being active in something makes me feel like I’m rotting, that I’m standing still, and that’s not acceptable.

Maybe your clients are taking off for the holidays, maybe your work is a seasonal thing, maybe your partner has gifted you with taking some extra weight off your shoulders –  whatever the reason may be, we all have to deal with downtime.

Here’s how…

1) Connect with people who are better than you. When work and life is busy, we miss out on a lot; events, friends parties, and networking. Downtime is an opportunity to reach out to people who can make you a better version of you, putting you ahead of the race once things pick up again.

2) Read about other people doing what you want to do. Fiction or non-fiction, there are so many books out there that are interesting, captivating, and make you feel like you’re taking work-related risks in a safe way. Books are a way to get smarter about your profession so you’ll be better at it when things get moving again.

3) Focus on getting more work down the line. This ought to be a given, but so many see downtime as a time to take a break. Those who succeed in the long run are those that use their downtime to ensure they don’t have any more of it in the future. (Not saying you ought to exclude from personal time, vacation, spontaneous activities, etc,.) What can you do to ensure more work a month from now, three months, a year? Do that.

4) Get away from your specialty and try something different. Early on in our lives we’re trained to specialize. The big trip of it is success in your specialty ultimately involves connecting with people from other specialties. Downtime is your chance to take a class, a workshop, a seminar on something different and potentially who will open your eyes to how your work can impact their industry.

I think of my downtime like a pinball machine before the ball is placed in front of the launcher. Am I standing there and waiting for the ball? Or am I pulling the launcher as far back as I can for when it’s time to release?

 

Stay Positive & Make Downtime Work For You

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Completing our task list gets us in a rut more often than it gets us a raise.

What happens when you’re done? When your inbox is empty? When you’ve gone through all your task notes? When you’ve checked all the boxes? Then what?

Many just wait. I’m guilty of it.

We stand still and wait for the next assignment to be handed down to us.

I’m not sure this factory mindset will ever leave completely, but I am sure those who settle, who stop, who don’t take initiative to fight back will be the ones at the back of the line, who won’t get the raise, who will be the worker instead of the entrepreneur.

Will you rise up to not only ask what’s next, not only answer what now, but to do it without being told, to move forward without your job description entitling you to?

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not About Doing, It’s About Being

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It’s easier to call motivation forward when you are facing the right challenge.

I’ve tested out challenging myself, I’ve tested out having my heroes challenge me, and I’ve tested having strangers challenge me. Here’s the breakdown.

Challenging Yourself

It’s a great initiator. Challenging yourself brings forth the motivation to start. Challenging yourself is a personal win, not often shared by others. Unfortunately, playing against yourself is only fun for a short while. Then it’s time to lean on the next challenge.

Heroes Challenging You

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, that’s a given, but to get better than the people you surround yourself with you have to blow their expectations away. I find asking your idols, mentors, teachers, heroes to challenge you. Ask them to give you something that goes over your head. The motivation heroes’ challenges creates is enough to get you a level up and often through any rough patches.

Strangers Challenging You

I once got a birthday card with a man cliff diving on it. The quote beneath the image was from Walter Bagehot. “The great pleasure in life is doing something that others say you cannot do.” When strangers challenge you, they call forth the motivation to prove yourself right. You’ve used the positive powers of self-motivation and inspiration with the first two challenges – this one is about using the more…”passionate” we’ll say, side.

Go forward and use these challenges to motivate yourself to reach your wildest dreams, especially the ones no one thought you would.

One last thing, notice how I didn’t specify that those who challenge you ought to also teach you.

 

Stay Positive & Artists Are All Self-Taught

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I’ve noticed a trend in every business, self-help, marketing, financial, biography, auto-biography, interview I’ve read, watched or listened to involving someone successful.

Every single person who has obtained great wealth has said that “it is the greatest time to be alive” or “there’s never been a better time to get out there and make a difference, take a risk.”

These videos and books I’ve read date back to the earliest of civilizations. Successful people were saying the same thing then as they are now.

Yesterday I wrote about selling attitude. As I study and experience more, I’m realizing how much in the world hasn’t changed. Those who won in the past, in the industrial age, in the agriculture age were the ones who sold attitude.

And what is attitude?

It’s really just a matter of perspective.

Do you believe this is the best time in all of history to start, to make a difference, to try something new? Ought you?

 

Stay Positive & Pick Your Perspective

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More and more you’re selling your personality, your attitude, your smile, your gut-feeling, your self-“insert word like reassurance, motivation or esteem here.”

In the past, and still in some places, but even those are withering away, what mattered was your pace, your productivity, your input to output ratio. You were a number and all you did had a $ attached to it. At the end of each day you were graded by the “progress” you made.

It’s not that way anymore. That was a physical and mentally exhausting labor.

Now the economy is rewarding the emotional laborers of the work place. The ones that arrive and energize those around them.

I’ve told marketing colleagues, business colleagues, and laypeople alike, that when you walk in a room you set the energy. Let me disclose a quick story.

A friend wanted to share a TV segment he landed with a group of agency-touring students, but was concerned they would find it lame. When he shared the idea with me, he was excited, he was moving, he made it interesting. I told him they would love it if he went in there with the same energy he came to me with.

After the students gathered in the conference room, he shared the segment and the class was enthralled. Partially with how cool the segment was, but more importantly with the energy of the person who landed it.

What you want to sell, share, give, take or create becomes wildly easier once you’ve made your energy, your level of engagement, and your attitude clear and captive. This goes for even the most conventional and bureaucratic of places.

 

Stay Positive & What Energy Are You Setting?

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There’s an expectation at my workplace that if you’re in a room, you better speak up.

You’re expected to contribute, to ask a question, to make a difference.

I used to think the expectation would result in a lot of noise, dumb questions, and people struggling to speak just to check the box.

Fortunately, it’s also known that if you’re in the room, you’re there because you matter, people believe in you, and, if anything, they want to help you grow smarter.

The real challenge then isn’t coming up with something that moves the team or an idea forward. No. The real challenge is being missed if you’re not in the room.

And that goes for any room, not just the ones at my work.

 

Stay Positive & Make A Difference, Not Just Noise

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