The promises you keep make you who you are and show others what they too, can be.
Stay Positive & The More You Keep The Better
Garth E. Beyer
Author: Garth Beyer
The One Quality You Need To Be A Successful Expert
Doctors, fitness trainers, entrepreneurs, marketers, writers, you name it, they all have a similar problem when they become experts on their muse. The problem is that the more you know, the more exposed you are to the harms, negatives and possible downfalls of the topic. This happens as a result of learning all you can about your muse in combination with that fact that in order to be successful in any work place, you need to know as many failures as possible and how to solve them. I am going to give you a few examples of what happens when these muse workers don’t maintain this one quality they need and see if you can guess what the quality is.
- A doctor begins seeing a small rash on his arm and diagnosis it as skin cancer.
- A personal trainer assesses her leg soreness and comes to the conclusion that she has severe shin splints.
- An entrepreneur knows the expected outcome of a plan so she doesn’t follow through.
The trend with these examples – and you can find the same trend in any expert field – is that they let their knowledge, fears and expectations combine to assume a terrible outcome. A regular person, having little knowledge about playing doctor just thinks they have a rash that will go away in a few days if they take care of it. It does. A person going to the gym for the first time and upon exiting, realizes that their legs are sore. They will shrug, call it a good workout and go ice them without the thought of any terrible condition. It never turns out to be. An entrepreneur upon his first time creating a business, follows through with the plan and the outcome turned out successful, against what other “experts” thought.
The fact is that as you gain knowledge about your muse, you gain power over the outcome and in order to have a positive outcome, you have to maintain a positive attitude. The one quality you need to be a successful expert is to Stay Positive (sound familiar?). You can’t let what you now know, limit yourself. The rules, the outcomes, the results are all based on your attitude.
The more you know, the more you have to fear.
Stay Positive & Become An Expert In That First
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Playing The Game Differently
Basically the same game as Kickball, only with huge mats as bases. It was in 8th grade that whichever team I was on became unbeatable. Not because I was a great kicker (I did happen to hit someone in the groin because they thought I was going to just tip the ball and run. I sure showed them!). The fact my team was undefeated was from my talent in getting the other players out. It seems logically fun that I would get them out by hitting them with the ball before they reached the base.
The trick to my success was that I did not throw the ball normally. Most people would aim, step and throw directly a the opponents chest. No, I couldn’t be normal, average or expected. Once a teammate would toss the ball into my hands I would step, spin to gain momentum and catapult the ball towards the direction I thought the opponent would be. The aiming was done at the last split second before release.
That reason the spin-and-throw move became my strategy was that the first time I did it, I was successful in getting the opponent out, which happened to be the last out we needed. I’ll admit, everyone did look at me weirdly after that, but they continued to cheer and thought “Hey, if it works.” Now it wasn’t necessarily talent that made me successful, or the fact I may have enjoyed hitting people with the ball more than I should have. No, really I was successful with it because I had support, approval and people cheering me on to use my signature move.
Let’s back step. I used to throw the ball normally but I would often miss, decreasing my confidence and my teammates expectations. Since my success rate was less than 90% it seemed right to switch it up. Adding my twist and launch, having been successful the first time, rebooted the confidence. I started at 100% again with the excitement of the other 15 teammates and the awe of the 16 opponents.
The purpose of this story: When success rates go below 90%, change something, do something differently, throw the ball uniquely, because when you do and it works the first time, you start at 100% again. From then on, the confidence and the assurance by all of your teammates that you will be successful gives you the talent you need to continue throwing the ball in a way that defies adversity.
Had I played long enough to experience my success rate drop below 90%, you would have seen another new enticing move that allowed me to strike the opponents out. Change, continuous change, that is key. Those who suggest that by doing the same thing you get the same results are either joking or don’t understand that by doing the same thing, the results weaken and expectations from your peers shorten. But when you switch it up, do something unexpected and do it successfully the first time, not only do you win, but your team does too.
It also distinguishes who your teammates are and who are your opponents.
Stay Positive & Change It Up
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Stone Throwers
The world needs more of them.
Except, there are no trophies or awards for killing a bird with one stone. It’s expected, if you don’t then you starve. Killing one bird with one stone is survival, it’s both work and life survival. If you can’t do it, someone else will, leaving you with just the stone. That’s not much of a keepsake.
There are however, small benefits to killing two birds with one stone. Often it gives you a slight advantage by freeing up your time or saving some other resource. There is no need to search around for two stones. For some reason though, in the real world, exchanging a stone for two birds will give you a bit more to eat at dinner but it doesn’t qualify you as a successful hunter.
So I ask, why kill two birds when you can get an entire flock with one stone? The stone throwers who take down an entire flock are the people who can take the 20 tasks of the week and finish them in one day. These people can go to a board meeting and instead of making the boss happy, can make every attendee and the company as a whole happy with the progress and achievement that they bring to the table. Getting an entire flock with one stone is possible and only the most successful do it.
That one stone you hold – ONE stone – can either land you searching for food or provide you with enough food while you take your time and enjoy your flock before you get another stone.
Stay Positive & Avoid Throwing At The “V” Formations, Those Are The Hardest
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Getting It Of Your Chest
You know that feeling you get when you really have something on your chest? That weight you have held on to for too long by not doing or saying something. And of course, you know that the longer you hold it in, the stronger the pressure on your chest gets. That terrible feeling that continues to build until you can no longer bear it and you choose to finally get whatever it is off your chest.
So you do it. You get it off your chest.
Finally! Now the great sense of relief sets in and you feel free again. You enjoy a huge breathe of air and breathe out all that troubled you. By far it is one of the greatest feelings in the world to get something off your chest.
Well…
Deciding to start doing what you love and acting on your passion is a lot like getting something off your chest except that it is the greatest feeling in the world.
In addition to the feeling of relief, you feel excitement, joyousness, accomplishment, positive stimulation, and success among other phenomenally enlightening feelings.
Stay Positive & What Do You Need To Get Off Your Chest And Out To The World?
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Be A Human. Be A Fool. Be One Of Them.
CEO, Administrator, Associate, Client, Friend, or Acquaintance, it doesn’t matter what position in life you hold, the only way to get sponsors (referencing example from The Hunger Games), the only way to climb the success totem pole, and the only way to acquire all the support you need in life and on your success journey, is you have to get people to like you.
While this is fairly well known to anyone who is trying to improve themselves and are striving for success, there are still thousands of people going about it the wrong way, getting discouraged and giving up. They get to a point that they are putting forth so much effort to get the attention and help they need, that they burn-out and do more damage to themselves and the people they are pitching to.
The reason is that they are pushing perfection, creating every event to showcase themselves and quite simply, trying too hard to be what they think others want instead of remaining true to themselves. The need to make an adjustment to the process is why the following three variables are the keys to getting people to like you which is directly connected and influential on your attitude, your income, your daily reflection and above all, your success.
1. Get personal!
Despite all attempts to only focus on listening to others and holding our tongue it’s nearly impossible. In fact, I encourage you to not “just listen”. A conversation is an interaction and the connection you can make by replying to what you listened to is most crucial to getting the other person to like you. The problem is that people try to solve problems too much and tell others what to do after listening to them. The trick to make that acceptable and beneficial is to share personal stories. You can incorporate this throughout a conversation when something you hear brings back a memory or lesson and also at the beginning of a seminar when you tell the audience what you want them to learn. Make the story light and half-applicable to their situation and half-enjoyment. By opening yourself to others through storytelling, they will open up to you and thus you have a bonded personal relationship that will benefit your life success. Remember, the spread of new inventions through word-of-mouth is as strong and abundant as a reference for you and your character.
2. Make a fool of yourself!
We have all grown wise enough to pick out who is just extremely charismatic, and who is really charismatic because they are excited about what they have to share. Obviously, the latter is the best choice if you are trying to get people interested in you and what you have to say. But this component requires you to express your other emotions too. You need to show others, your audience, that you have made mistakes in life. In fact, make mistakes when you are interacting with someone. It shows that you are human and humans connect better to other humans rather than a robot that has never made a mistake. Laugh with the audience when you stumble or forget something. Enjoy yourself and your mistakes because it resonates perfectly with others. Misery loves company, but humility loves it more.
3. Participate!
Above all, you can’t make a connection with anyone if you don’t get involved with them. Keep a mental tab of the topics they discuss and questions they are asked or bring up for discussion and toss in your two cents. Quit acting like a mentor and begin discovering answers with them instead of teaching or answering them alone. Become socially and personally interactive with office conversations, phone conversations and any other daily interaction. Make a contribution to face time and always act as a student to everyone you meet because you both have a lot to learn. Even I have a lot to learn, so how are you going to participate with this? (You can leave comments below)
Stay Positive & Stay Human
Garth E. Beyer
This post was originally dictated for public speakers as a way to gain a connection with the audience, but as many lessons, they are prevalent throughout all areas.What do you plan to apply these three steps to?
Enlighten Others
12 Tips To Still Make 2012 Your Year
I am all about designating a theme for each year. In 2010 it was “my” year, simple as that. 2011 was “our” year because during “my” year I found a girlfriend. In 2011, her and I traveled to Canada and took other road trips together and moved in together. Now 2012, we have made it the year of career advancement. I had started to truly pour my passion into my website, I also got another ghost writing job and a huge promotion at work (making almost twice as much as I made before the promotion). She will be getting a promotion at Starbucks and has recently gotten a personal training job at Anytime Fitness. And we are only four months into the year! If you are not one to write new years goals, or like so many others, have relinquished your 2012 goals from your mind, it’s not too late to declare this year yours!
If you can even remember where you put your new years resolutions, if you even wrote them down, toss’em. Many don’t really stuck to them anyway. Even me, as a big goal achiever, I sometimes stray away from some goals that I made at the beginning of the year. Maybe your goals have changed and some goals no longer seem reasonable to keep. Maybe you didn’t’ even make any. That’s okay, you don’t have to. This isn’t a post about making goals for this year, its bout taking the 12 tips I am going to give you to still make this “your” year. You don’t need determining goals to make it your year. While I had goals (over 250 currently), I never had specific goals that would make 2010 my year, or specific goals for 2011 or 2012, yet I accomplished so much and my life improved drastically. I learned that to live the life you want, you just have to evaluate how you live now and begin implementing the following 12 tips to make this “your” year.
1. Beginning now and at the start of each month for 30 days in a row, commit to doing something new that you have thought about doing, but have not done.
If you wait until the first of the next month or the first of the week or if you wait until you finish something else before you do something new, you will never get anything done.
I suggest reading Zig Ziglar’s affirmation sheet or make your own. Wake up each morning and create the habit of complimenting yourself and reminding yourself of all your strengths. What I have learned about doing this is that it is not necessarily the affirmations that changes your world (though they play a large part), it is the development of a habit. It is the feeling that “hey, I did it today.” It makes each day complete. It makes you feel like you can stick to your word. It creates the image of reliability and persistence. Anyone can say they are improving every day in every way, but very few have the skill and talent to do it everyday.
Pick a habit to develop each month, whatever you like, just pick and follow through.
2. Write emails/letters to three people in life to let them know what they mean to me.
Sure gratitude is great (we will get to that) but no type of gratitude is stronger than “thanks” being given to people who have touched your life. This may require you to think back and check who has affected your life. Try to find all the people who have and simply thank them; send them a friendly message or write a paragraph to them explaining your thanks. Since snail mail is nearly obsolete, I encourage you to either send emails or Facebook comments (not messages, you want other people to see how grateful you are and that the person your commenting on means a lot to you). You can even send a random txt message, just make sure you make it personal, meaningful and from your heart. Who knows, you may even get one back!
3. Start a business plan regardless if you have a business idea
It doesn’t matter what it is. Some ideas are dumb… think back to my post about my two business ideas. First, you never know. As you work on the business plan ideas might be created to improve your original concept or you may think of one entirely different. Either way, get in the habit of creating and making a plan to follow through. A small plan or a big plan, a plan is a plan. If you don’t have any business ideas, that doesn’t mean you get to skip this tip. Get creative and think of one, what product or service could you do or create to serve others and make people happy? By all means, have fun with this.
4. Schedule family time
I’m human. I’m guilty of not doing this, but when I do, my world changes: stress is relieved and the weights I carry feel lighter. Not only that, but when I talk to family members, I often talk about things that I normally wouldn’t have thought of. It takes you out of the moment and brings you to a place you can feel comfortable. As you know, making a year YOUR year really means you have to step out of your comfort zone and shake and move your brain. Always schedule family time to center yourself and make sure those who know you best see that you are on the right path. Tell those who matter most about your goals and aspirations because they will be able to hold you accountable and by saying it with confidence, you are one very large step closer to achieving your success. Warning: The trouble with family time is deciding what to listen to and what not to since they want to put all their evaluations on what you are doing. Some family members may not support your ideas and may talk you down. Take it as a challenge. Prove them wrong. Take what they say and find a way to prove them wrong. By doing so you are not only showing them you know what you are doing, but you are creating a way around any future skepticism.
5. Record what I say
Every day is a constant flow of information. You receive input and provide output constantly through reading, listening, speaking and thinking. Begin recording your thoughts and what you say to evaluate the language you are using. By doing so, you can find where you need to begin making improvements. Are you thinking negatively about work each day? Do you look into a mirror unable to see your beauty? Do you speak before you think to your friends and family? You need to start recording what you say and think and feel so that you have a better understanding of what effects you negatively and what you are negatively affecting. No improvements and changes can be made until you know what needs to be improved and changed.
After gaining a deeper insight into what you output, begin evaluating what is input through your daily routine. Are you reading the news (95% negative information) every morning or do you view blogs such as mine or others to keep learning new information on the topic of your interest? Do you surround yourself by negative people? Or worse, do you enable them? Pay close attention to what is taken in throughout the day and begin to set aside and walk past those things in which are detrimental to your daily positive attitude.
6. Find a mentor
I know how difficult it is to get a mentor that you really want. I understand the difficulty to capture the attention of great and widely known people and have them act as a mentor toward you. That does not mean you cannot connect with them and learn what they have to teach through the information they provide whether it is in books, blogs or audio presentations. Think of what you really want this year and begin following those who are most well known for teaching that. In doing so, you will discover under-noticed and under-deserving people who know just as much and are more willing to assist you. In essence, begin connecting with those that you have related interests with. It is also key to note that mentors come and go. Accept this transitional flow and keep seeking authoritative figures that you can learn from.
In addition, I need to add that becoming a mentor is far greater than having one. If you go out searching for friends, you will find very few. If you go out searching to be a friend, you will find a countless number of takers. As you learn from mentors and begin changing the information you digest each day, share it with others. Rather than complaining that Seth Godin won’t take you up as an apprentice (guilty), become like that idol and turn into a mentor for others who want the same as you.
7. Discover the 20% of work
You may know about an app for the Droid phone called “task killer” that kills processes that are running but are not being used and are depleting the energy (battery life) of the phone in order to maximize performance for what you are using. The first step to discovering the 20% of work is to kill the 80% of apps that are consuming your brain and your life but are not priorities. This also includes cutting out any of the negativity in your life. Begin un-friending people who complain and spam your social networking profiles. Begin cutting out the bad eating habits. Begin cutting out the people you meet each day that upon seeing them, bring you down. A person doesn’t need to be holding a thousand balloons to float, they only need to stop the gravity that is holding them down.
Once everything that is holding you back is let go, you don’t even have to search for the 20% of work, it finds you. Your thinking and focusing abilities will be 10x stronger which will produce 10x better results. You will be able to manage your time better to complete a task further than its potential in 20% of the time. By eliminating the 80% of “apps” holding you back from your potential, it will allow you to have 10x more success because you have discovered the 20% of energy needed to succeed in each task. In simple terms, devote yourself to something completely by getting rid of everything else that is not worthy of your attention and you will be able to create miracles.
8. Gratitude
Start a gratitude journal. It doesn’t matter if you write one thing in a book or you list things throughout the day on your phone or on sticky notes. Personally, I type 5 things I am grateful for in a notes app on my phone each night before sleep. By writing in a gratitude journal of everything you are thankful for, you are putting power in the present which sets the stage for the future. It keeps you consistently happy, gives you peace of mind and allows you to go to sleep with a smile on your face. There are absolutely zero negative side effects to being thankful.
But don’t stop there. Also aim to be the one other people are grateful for. How did you help someone today? How did you serve? Did you give everyone you saw today a smile? Maybe you were the jokester at work and made everyone laugh? Constantly work to be what others are grateful for. Not only will it make their day, and you’re name will go on their gratitude list, but you are giving yourself a distinguished type of respect seldom held. In addition to positively impacting the people you meet each day, find an organization to volunteer at. My current volunteering consists of running races where the funds go towards a specific charity. I am also looking into Habitat for Humanity and Big Brothers Big Sisters to continue my volunteerism. The general rule of volunteering is at least two hours a week. The benefits of volunteering are so incredible that they deserve a blog post to themselves. Look at all the benefits by giving it a Google if you’re interested.
Come to think of it, it may not be a bad idea to also list the contributions and volunteering you’ve done along side your list of things you are grateful for each day.
9. Plan a trip for 4 months from now.
Figure out where you want to go and start looking into it now. Whenever you seem to have some free time, begin searching on the internet for things you can do at the destination you chose and start planning for it. Think how you are going to save for the next four months or how you will use the money you already have to take the trip. It does not have to be anything huge but don’t let it be too little either. Having something major to look forward to as it is necessary to maintain a continuous positive attitude and outlook. If anything goes wrong through the week, just remember that you are taking a trip soon and will be able to get away from everything and enjoy yourself. The point of this is to stop putting celebration off, enjoy life, YOLO and always have something big to look forward to in the long run.
10. Say yes
Simple. Start saying yes to everything (with thorough judgement of course). Take every opportunity and option and work with it, create something productive and positive with every choice you make. In essence, try new things. Begin to experiment and experience everything you can. Heck, go sky diving. If you see a flier for a free event, go to it. If someone asks you to join them for an activity, do it. If the Botanical gardens or some other place is free on Wednesday, give it a visit. Saying yes is about you agreeing to living your life to its fullest potential by exposing yourself to all the world offers.
11. Schedule a date night
With yourself, with your life partner or with the girl/guy you met because you said “Yes” to an invitation to an event. Adding the previous 10 tips to your life on top of all your responsibilities and duties already, you deserve a night of pure enjoyment. Use this time to do everything, do nothing, or only do what you want to. She and I have Origami nights and other nights we stay in and play Farkle and Scrabble. (I’m unbeatable at Scrabble). Other times we go out to dinner and a movie. The options are endless but the point is purely to enjoy yourself. Relax, meditate, reminisce on the highlights of the past week, think about all you have to look forward to and practice living in the moment. Forget all tasks, all obstacles and all affairs that are up in the air. Schedule a date night where you stop time and live.
12. Complete the following: Stay ________
Just do it. If you are only going to do one tip to make this “your” year, let this be it. Get optimistic, improve your attitude, change the outcomes and Stay Positive. Nothing will make “your” year greater than if you Stay Positive. The reason I end every post with this reminder is because it is the most important trait to living the successful life you want. Staying Positive is the basis of everything that has made you happy, everything that is making you happy and everything that will make you happy. By all means, devote all you have into Staying Positive.
Stay Positive & Make This “Your” Year
Garth E. Beyer
