Author: Garth Beyer

All Or Nothing

Garth Beyer

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While I don’t think having the mindset of “all or nothing” throughout your entire life is the best way to live, it definitely benefits those who have extremely busy lives.

If you feel overwhelmed, your to-do list is too long or you have a habit of saying yes whenever anyone asks something of you, then try spending a couple of weeks with an all or nothing mindset.

This forces you to think critically about an opportunity and the results of it. The mindset  encourages priorities and immediacy. Best of all, it gives you a good reason to say no. It’s one thing to reject a request because you don’t want to do it. It’s a whole other thing to reject a request because you’ve committed to following all the way through with something else.

In a world full of multitaskers, those with all or nothing mindsets really stand out.

 

Stay Positive & Know What To Cut

Garth E. Beyer

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How I Do It (personal)

Garth Beyer

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About six months ago, someone really close to me asked me how I do all that I do?

That wasn’t the first time I was asked; almost anyone that cares enough to hear my story and ask what I’m up to ends up also asking me how I do all that I do.

And here is what I figured out this morning (six months after truly being asked how I do all that I do):

I am willing to invest my time in doing something that might not pay off.

That’s all it comes down to.

I used to be ignorant and think that people didn’t want to be successful, that they would come up with excuse after excuse to not become successful (including not knowing what success is to them).

Really it’s that they (you?) don’t want to invest the time in doing something that might not pay off. That scares the shit out of us.

So that’s how I do all that I do. And if you want a piece of advice on how to invest time in doing something that might not pay off? Decide that you want it more than you’re afraid of it failing.

 

Stay Positive & Hopefully Reading My Blog Will Help You Decide

Garth E. Beyer

Stories That Leave You With Goosebumps

Garth Beyer

As it goes nowadays, don’t ask where I saw what I’m going to tell you I saw because I don’t remember. All I remember is that I watched a video wherein there was a large glass phone booth placed in the city (likely NYC) and it had a cord running from it to a headset that was on a pedestal about 15 feet away.

There was a backdrop behind the pedestal and instructions that someone was supposed to enter the phone booth and speak into the phone and another person was supposed to listen 15 feet away. The point was to tell the other person how you really feel about them or thank them for something. What I heard people say to each other was touching and gave me goose bumps.

The group Improv Everywhere did something similar to this by placing a megaphone on a lectern that had a sign on it “SAY SOMETHING NICE.”

Then there is StoryCorps which combines the two, adds even more emotion to it by having the people right next to each other, and takes out the visual element of it. One particular story I listened to gave me even more goosebumps than when I watched the phone booth video.

The story of a kid, Brian Lindsay, who was struck by a van while riding his bike talked years later with the paramedic, Rowan Allen who was there at the scene.

The story was real, you can hear the voice, you can hear them say what was on their minds. Most stories that you read, they don’t tell you what they were thinking and if they do the emotion behind it is very narrow. With audio, it is more emotionally evocative and powerful because hearing the voices makes the story personal, human, and allows you to feel all the emotions – you can hear the laughter, you can hear the sarcasm, you can hear the passion in what they say.

Now think of reading a story or reading a text – you can’t register more than one emotion. “Is this person being sarcastic?” “Are they serious?” It leaves so much of the emotion to interpretation and if there’s one thing that’s difficult to put into words, it’s how people feel.

The main point on that is this: if you read a story wherein a person writes “I can’t put into words how I feel.” Then it’s a contradiction because they just did. But if you hear a story wherein a person says “I can’t put into words how I feel.” They really can’t, you get the emotion from it, you get the sincerity.

There’s a reason why it’s suggested that you write like you would speak. So people can hear you.

Before You Cut It

Garth Beyer

Ask yourself if you can create, provide, develop or be something better.9608313839_cd579fc4d3

If you can’t then you have no reason to cut it.

If you can, then you have every reason to create, provide, develop or be it.

Most ideas don’t need to be cut, they need to be made into better ideas.

Whole loaf bread is the only exception. Cutting it actually was a better idea.

 

Stay Positive & Carbohydrates For Thought

Garth E. Beyer

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Run!

Garth Beyer

I saw a brilliant sign at a race that read: “Run like someone just called you a jogger.”

At first glance, it was a silly motivational poster.

At second glance, the real truth of it all set in.

  • Work like someone just called you lazy.
  • Swim like someone just called you slow.
  • Paint like someone just called you a starving artist.
  • Write like someone just called you fake.
  • Run like someone just called you a jogger.

When you run, you don’t think. The sign was a reminder that you can use frustration as energy, but it was a better reminder that you forget about frustrations when you run. You don’t acknowledge your fear, you don’t worry, you forget the ankle pain, you forget about criticism, you forget about the time.

When you run, that’s all that you do, you run.

I’m writing a novel right now and the only way I can get through it each day is to sprint through it. If I don’t, then fear eats at my motivation as if it hadn’t eaten anything in months.

If you haven’t sprinted before, go run and give it a try.

 

Stay Positive & Do What You Love Like Someone Just Said You Couldn’t

Garth E. Beyer

The Tragedy Of Practice Makes Perfect

Garth Beyer

The more you do something, the better you get.

What they don’t tell you is that the more you do something, the better you expect from yourself to do.

It’s bittersweet, really.

I’ve written 1,700 words a day for my novel. I think it’s turning out really great, but every time I sit down to write my 1,700 words, I have to remind myself that just because I get better when I write more, doesn’t mean what I write today will be better.

When we forget to remind ourselves of that – whether it’s writing, painting, making calls, or whatever – then we make ourselves vulnerable to disappointment and defeat.

How you did yesterday might have been great. How you will do today, though, can only be determined once it’s done and you can’t use it as a prediction for how you will do tomorrow. Doing so only makes giving up easier.

Pick Your Costume, Path, Hat…

Garth Beyer

Halloween is over but I still see people trying to find the perfect costume, path, hat…

(This post is choppy with a purpose. Bare with me.)

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Not everyone is cut for a traditional education, not everyone can look good putting on a hair-net and flipping burgers, not everyone can be the all-star jock. Simple fact is that different people are looking for different costumes.

My favorite part about Halloween is seeing people who think they are wearing the same costume as someone else. Two people can dress up as a cat, but the makeup is different, the ears are different, the tail is different. We all have something special to offer even if we wear the same costume, walk the same path or put on the same hat each morning.

There’s a reason most agencies need multiple coders, PR people with different personalities, and a variety of people answering phones.

My SO gets me to watch Cupcake Wars and while the bakers are all professional cupcake makers, their finished cupcake products are different from one another.

Starbucks can hire five people who can make a perfect brew, but they all make it their way. The speed they complete an order is different, what they write on the cup is different,  how they hand it to a customer is different.

And when it comes to designers, I have never seen two designers that design the same. Not even when one designer tries mimicking another.

Doing It Right

You’re getting a lot of variety thrown at you here and I appreciate you reading through the choppiness of it all. But there is a point to it.

No matter what you do, you get to invest yourself in it, add your style, put part of you into it. Unfortunately, so many people give up following their interests because what they create is so different.

I still remember one day a few years ago that I thought of melting crayons on a canvas to make art. I never did it because I thought people would say it was stupid, no one would like it, and it was just too different.

A few months after my decision not to do it, a classmate did it and her piece got showed in a glass case in the school. Then I was surfing the web and saw that she wasn’t even the first one to make something by melting crayons on a canvas.

Turns out what I thought people would think was just too different to like, they actually loved.

Doing It Wrong

You’re going to have a lot of people tell you that you’re doing something wrong because it’s different. Worse yet, you’re often going to tell yourself that you’re doing it wrong because you have never seen anything like it before.

The harsh truth is that you (and they) might be right. But it’s better to be wrong and learn from it than not do it at all and never know.

 

Stay Positive & Remember, It’s About How You Deliver

Garth E. Beyer

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