Brain Improvement

Knowing People and The “Informal Credential” Fallacy

Garth Beyer

Though “time” is the only constant in life, it is also the largest change we must adapt to. It’s a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?

The farthest back that I have experience with the job market is when people walked into a business, asked for an application, filled it there, called them to check up on the application in a week, got an interview, and then got the job if their first impression and behavior was acceptable.This is just one process that was “the right way” at the time.

Though there are hundreds of different processes to acquire a job, job seekers are being grenaded with two specific processes.

1. Know Someone – No one cares about the olden days of apprenticeship and working for your parents. Kids grow up usually wanting to do the exact opposite of their parents. That leaves the fact that to get a job in an area of your interest, you have to know someone in the department. I don’t know why companies bother asking for references on the resume, the only reference they care about is word of mouth. The only opinion they care about is that of someone who they work closely too or that is already in the department. Your focus needs to be on people who love you and could talk about you all day THAT IS IN YOUR AREA OF INTEREST.  How do you do this? Well, I can answer that with a couple of options.

  • Don’t have the bachelor’s degree that’s required for the job you want? Apply free. Send the application in requesting that you would like to be the assistant to the person who gets the job you are after. Make sure that it is clear that you will work for free and help with whatever tasks that are assigned to you to help the person fulfilling the position. You are only after experience — to begin.
  • Anyone who types or writes a word can call themselves a journalist. So go to the business that you want the job at and request an interview with the owner or highest ranked person. You simply want to write a report on the company for your blog, school, website, etc. Sweet, you got your interview. Don’t let others tell you that your first impression is everything. It’s not. What you want to do is take your 15 minutes you got and turn it into a 30 minute interview. (Have enough questions prepared, but you should be having more of a conversation than an interview). You can talk about your interest in the field, but do not state your education or interest in a job. After you write your article and send it to the business, you can wait a week and call them back for a follow up interview. All of your visible or invisible readers want to know more and were interested in your content and the business itself. You are already on a friendly level with the owner and now you can focus the interview to bring out your knowledge of the business in question. Before you leave, have a card or contact information ready to give to the employer and bring up the idea of working for them for a pay check or for free. If you do not feel you are acquainted enough to accomplish this you can ask that you would like to interview some of the employees. Instead of winning over “the big-man”, win over the employees so they can put a good word in about you. They will only reassure “the big-man” of your qualities and abilities

2.  Informal Credentials – Who cares about a piece of paper, a few letters before your name, or how hot it is to be called Doctor “Smith”. What you can do to get a job without a degree is to surprise the employer with a list of different experiences related to the field. In the “education” area of your application write “Check out my experience in my Resume”.

  • The only way to get a job this way is to step out of your box and travel the world and to go after every experience in the related field. If you are into working for an Environmental group, start traveling to Australia and Ireland to see how they use their green bags and the politics around the topic there. Get acquainted with all angles of your interest from all the different parts of the world. An employer wont turn you down. Better yet, you may end up creating your own business instead.
  • For more on how to gain informal credentials, I will push you towards Tim Ferris http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/

My question to you is, why is it not pushed to do these two processes IN ADDITION to getting formal credentials? I’ll help you with the easy questions here..

The only way someone is going to be successful in helping others find jobs is if they focus on a niche area of getting people employed. I have just shared with you the two largest ones. People share these concepts with others because no  one will listen unless it is quick and specific. We have since passed the era of receiving all the information on one topic. We only receive all the information on one small piece of the grand topic.

I am not saying that this information is unworthy and not should be followed, I am proposing that you combine these topics to create the original knowledge base that they were taken and separated from. Only then can you truly achieve absolutely any job you want at the same time as being surrounded by incredible people with the same interest and traveling the world.

A person walks into a job interview with a master’s degree in the field required from an Ivy league.

The next person that will be interviewed has the same degree from Australia, has worked in a similar company in London, and created another similar company in Hawaii which made just enough money to make it self-sustaining.

Which one gets the job?

Stay Positive and Self-Credentialed

Garth E. Beyer

I say, ” If you can’t get out of your box, at least take it with you when you travel the world to get your informal and formal credentials.”

Knowledge Overdrive Leads To Burnout

Knowledge Overdrive Leads To Burnout

Garth Beyer

Showcasing your intelligence can only be done by gaining too much knowledge that you do not know what to do with.

On the other hand, you can overdue your schedule by reading too much only to end up as mentally shriveled as a trash-basket piece of paper.

I had 35+ bookmarks on my computer and at one time had 55+. I have a bookcase collecting various books I come across, and a longer list written down of books I want to get. Then there are the piles of Success, Mens Health, and other magazines being piled up. Not to mention the fact I spend a majority of my time in a bookstore. I surround myself with all of these informational resources because I want to learn as much as possible and become successful just as you are!

But I have come to find very quickly that you don’t learn first to be smart. You need to be SMART first, to learn.

What do you need to know before you start learning everything that you are passionate about?

S for Substantial – Define what is most important. What information are you really looking for?  Let go of the less credible websites and books and be sure of solid content. Stay focused on what you are out to learn and avoid being distracted by other information. Look at everything as a magazine — skip over the advertisements no matter how many girls they promise you.

M for Modest – The opposite of substantial, make sure that you are not overwhelming yourself with the toughest jargon-filled resources. Search for the middle ground to what you already know and what you have absolutely no understanding of. Too often people who want to learn jump the gun and it backfires. Modesty is also a reminder to find resources that remain free of vanity, bias, egotism and even boastfulness. Unless of course, that is your taste.

A for Allocate – Since you have observed what is most important to you, you can organize all of those bookmarks, books, blogs,  lists, etc. This allows you to focus on one subject rather than flipping through three different ones. I also call this Cleaning House. Go into your all your resources one by one and while you find the category for each, you can toss all the resources that do not matter or do not fulfill the substantial or modest requirements.

R for Relation – Now it is time to connect with your resources. Establishing a relationship requires much more work than simply following people on twitter, and “liking” something on Facebook. –It also produces a larger benefit– You need to expand your connections to communicating with other people who have the same interests. I have at least 4 blogs that I contribute to each day and 12-15 blogs that I give feedback on a few times a week. In addition, as I start a new book, I find the website or blog that goes with it so that I can connect even better and understand the information more clearly. What is even more clear is how quickly people will come to you for info, simply by participating in other people’s content.

T for Take Down – Originally I meant for “T” to stand for transcribe, since the best way to retain the most important information is to write it down. (Often in the form of your own blog or journal) But as I have gone through these processes multiple times, you need more than just writing your ideas and thoughts down. Save the fire crackers for the fireworks. I have never been a competitive person, but I cannot stand Journalists who go for the most posts, the most followers, the most “likes”. They are after numbers and these numbers are little fireworks. You want to TAKE DOWN these noisy competitors. CONTENT, CONTENT, and more CONTENT is the only way. Make sure each time you sit down to write your thoughts out that you EXPLODE with content. Let your competitors light off the kiddy fireworks. If you followed the previous four steps to the SMART process than I can guarantee you will have a much easier time creating firework information.

Stay Positive and Get SMART

Garth E. Beyer

Limit Yourself to be Unlimited

Garth Beyer

It was once only high-school students who waited until the day before a homework piece was due to do it. College students then adapted to these frowned upon practices. What do you know, now we see it in the work place. 10, 20, 30+ years of experience and people still wait until the last-minute to do projects, write speeches, create a game-plan.

These are the most successful people in the world. I do not even have to pull data to show you, I can tell you right here and now.

These people are true Pro-accelerators. That’s right, the title of Procrastinator will soon be obsolete as more begin to see the significance of limiting yourself.

Starting Off Simple

Those pursuing outrageous activities such as Parkour are always bombarded with warnings to “take it easy”, “don’t push yourself”, “are you sure you’re ready?”

By sending these warnings, it pushes the Traceur (Person who is involved in Parkour), to take a minute to evaluate himself before performing a dangerous acrobatic move. What are we doing? We are limiting them to be safe and make conscious decisions. Or are we?

As much as I believe that life should be lived like a sport– acted on impulse — this minute that the Traceur has to evaluate his situation is powerful. Not only because it can save his life, but because he can make the wisest decision in one minute than he could if he took an hour to observe, calculate, trace, and run smaller trials of his overall acrobatic jump.

He is already pumped and ready, the adrenaline is coursing through his body and every sense is focused, yet expanded to encompass all angels of the jump. His mind is the most acute and focused on creating a successful jump.

If he had taken that hour to observe, calculate, trace, and run smaller trials of his jump, he would end up nervous, afraid, and even if he still thinks he can make it. The adrenaline is long past, he has over-thought the execution and in the hour he was studying the move, he remembered about the holiday dinner he has with his family on the weekend. He called a couple friends to ask about the move and they ended up talking to him about going out that night to the movies. The whole hour he spent studying the jump, he used 5% of his energy on the task at hand and 95% on the rest of his life.

Limiting Yourself in School

I skipped my junior and senior year at high school and went straight to college thanks to the Running Start Program in Belvidere, Illinois. I took all college courses and received my associates degree with honors, two days before I received my high school diploma. During the two years I spent in college, I wrote over eight 5+ page papers, seven of which I wrote the night before or the morning of the day it was due. This is how I produce the best work possible, and it is the same for you.

Do you remember writing any papers for school that you wrote the day before or day of? You probably recollect the feelings you had about staying up until 3 or 4am in the morning to write it. Sure you can complain about how tired you are the next day, but it is rare to complain about how tired you are while you are completing the task. There is no time to so who cares.

You did it!

You were even an over-achiever and wrote an extra page to make it seem like you spent a longer time on it than most. You get it back and of course you received an A. You nearly pulled an all-nighter to write the paper, you damn well deserve an A.

What You Did When You Didn’t

That paper you received an A on was assigned nearly a month before you turned it in. Silly professor!

I can put an endless list here, right now, of what you could do in a 29 day period while you “procrastinate” on the assignment. That would be a waste though, you just had all that time to do whatever you wanted before the paper was due. So what are some things you do to enjoy yourself?

Can you guess what some of the other students did while you were using your imagination to mix mentos and pop together, play video games, and whatever other things you did in that 29 day period? Ah, of course they were preparing, they were in the..the..the LIBRARY!

That actually is not a bad thing, I saw you in there too. You were researching how to Parkour while the “other students” were reading ancient history  written half in Greek.

You get the point.

Alleviate your worry about the assignment and take part in activities that you can learn from, sports like Parkour or learning a new language with Rosetta Stone

Due = Do

When it is due, is when you should do whatever it is.

Do you get the life lesson of this yet? The task itself will expand to the time allotted for it.

I just came back from the bookstore where I read Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I got there at 9:45 and had to pick up someone at Starbucks at 11:05. Lucky for me, the bookstore and Starbucks are right across the street from each other. Before I arrived at the bookstore I told myself I had until 11 to finish the book completely — I have not even started it.

At 10:59 I turned the last page and saw a picture of Seth’s bald head, often the signature of both the beginning and end of his book. I did it, and it was no easy task. I read quickly and took from the book the most important factors, but I did not skip a single page. I have to thank Tim Ferriss for teaching me reading techniques to read quicker and still gain the same amount of knowledge.

Thoughts Become Things

Who knows how many great philosophers, great leaders, great activists, and even a common person has realized the power of their thoughts. The impossible has been done in life because one person thought it was possible. This is the only time you should NOT limit yourself.

When you set time limits to complete a task, you adjust your mind-set to complete it in that time. It seems we have forgotten the power we have even though we continue to use it. Now that you are aware of your pro-accelerating abilities you can break your worry of “procrastinating” and truly enjoy yourself.

Stay Positive and Unlimited

Garth E. Beyer

Long-Term Legacy and Short-Term Impact of a Writer

Garth Beyer

 My quick addition of Ch. 8 of “The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way” by Jeffrey Gitomer.

You are a fantastic writer. Well, maybe not. BUT I know you are a lot better than when you began writing. When I started writing, I was awful. My first story was about how my brother gave me a nickel for Christmas. There was not even a point to the story; I made it seem that the nickel was all I wanted to receive for the holidays. I was six years old and I definitely wanted more than a nickel. I fight myself to not burn the essay every time I take it out. Why don’t I set it to flames? Because you can always find something new to learn or notice when you review an earlier piece of writing. Although I do not burn it, I do “RIP” it.

A Gravestone Story

Gitomer touches on the necessity to use strong examples to get your reader shaking their heads in agreement. I have a bunch of stories and examples to share about particular life lessons, but when I type them; while the story may be strong to me, it would not be to someone else. You not only need to put on the audience members shoes when using an example of a personal story, but you have to wear their shirt, pants, and even the underwear with their name sewn into it. Understand your readers.

On the top of my essay about the Christmas gift of a nickel, I wrote “R.I.P.” When you are writing, you need to ask yourself a few questions.

1. Recognize – Are you winning over your readers? Make sure that you have them shaking their heads in agreement with your side.

2. Impact – Is every sentence pushing a lesson or feeling into the reader? Check again to see if you are persuading them to act, or simply telling them to do something because you said so.

3. Point – You may have heard that “math is everything, the rest is just fluff.” In the case of writing, “significance” is everything, and information is just the fluff. As you review your writing, are you learning more statistics than understanding the real message?

You Would Have Thought I Wrote In Red – I Didn’t

At first glance you would think that my essay was simply a white page of paper with red marker all over it. With further investigation, you will find actual words inside the red. When I edited my essay, I highlighted in pen everything that I knew was not leaving an impact. The less red, the more loved it will be by your readers.

NOTE: While in sociology class and studying on the topic of “education”, I read an article that was persuading schools to BAN the use of red pens in elementary schools. The author declared that using red pen to correct papers left too much of a negative impact on younger students. The sociologist concluded that the color of red is too harsh, powerful, oppressive, and negative. See for yourself by googling “the significance of the color red”. You do not have to click on a link, it will state right under the link how it relates to violence and warfare. While red can also signify “love”, it is less of an impact and does not support the imaginations of younger people as much as violence does.

I stated that editing in red was troublesome for the youth, but not for you, not for people who honestly want to be writers. The negative impact is all the more reason to grade yourself with red, because you need to be rough with yourself. No one else is there to watch over your shoulder, otherwise they would be writing for you. Let the red ink sink into your writing abilities.

4.5 Extra Steps to Writing Better

1. We all know that a persuasive piece of writing is to compel the reader to act! What we continuously fail to do is define what we want our readers to act on before we write. We figure on that if we write the article, we will just add the call to action at the end and it’s a done deal. NOPE.

2. I often read that the best way to market is to write, act, read, invest, spend, as if you were the prospect of the product. The same goes with writing a persuasive article, you must consistently remind yourself that you are not only the writer, but you are the reader as well. Would you share your paper or throw it away? Forward it in an email to a friend, or skip over it?
3. During Dale Suslicks last un-workshop, one gentleman stated how difficult it was to write. He believed it was so much easier to speak because it flowed better than writing. I began to tell him how I have the same problem, but it depends on who your audience is. Do you want them to read it as if you were speaking directly to them? Then check yourself by reading your own written work aloud for a conclusion. Similarly, you can read your work out loud to see how “speaky” it sounds to make improvements. Remember, keep that red pen near!

4. I am coming to find more and more that when an idea pops in your mind, it does not like to stay. Write it out. Do not just take a note, or think you will remember it. You won’t. But I also added that you should not write on a small note because when you go back to it, the feelings behind the idea are not as powerful and you will have a much harder time to write out a full article of complete thoughts. By writing less to begin with, you limit yourself when you go back to it. That does not mean you need to write pages upon pages about an idea, but enough so that YOU get just as inspired as your readers when you read.

4. 5 On the other hand, it is fortunate for you to keep notes of small ideas that may not have manifested immediately in your mind. You can use these when you are coming near a deadline, want to free-write, or when an opportunity arises for you to test some of the ideas.

Empower Yourself

Launch yourself into learning everything you need to know to get what you want, when you want it. Read up on blogs and articles of successful people in your area of interest daily. I hope that whether you have read “The Little Green Book to Getting Your Way” or not, that you have understood more of how to create a long-term legacy and a short-term impact with your writing and life. Gitomer says, “Writing leads to wealth.” Where is yours leading you?

 

Stay Positive and Write On

Garth E. Beyer

An Accord With Greatness

An Accord With Greatness

Garth Beyer

Today we focus on positive perspectives and cultural knowledge. What do you get when you combine the two? If you thought of the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), then you are correct. This incredible piece of literature has two to twenty lessons per Chapter and 81 chapters in all. Since there is so much knowledge to discover, I do not want to overwhelm you. Let’s read the second and third stanza of Chapter 63 and discuss how it can affect your life, business, and relationships.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63, by Lao Tzu

Second Stanza:

The difficult problems in life
Always start off being simple.
Great affairs always start off being small.
Therefore the sage never deals with the great
And is able to actualize his greatness.

Third Stanza:

Now light words generate little belief,
Much ease turns into much difficulty.
Therefore the sage treats things as though they were difficult,
And hence, never has difficulty.”

–   Translated by Charles Mueller, 2004

Can you visualize the power behind Lao Tzu’s words? In life we often take problems and set them aside, saying that we will deal with them later. We are all examples of this mistake. Before we know it, the problem has grown to a size we could never have fathomed. It then begins to come out of hiding and crush us. Can you think of a way or two that would prevent this from happening? Does being honest and strong come to mind? Be honest to yourself and others and muster up the strength to overcome the obstacle early on. By doing so, your reward is time and supplementary strength to strive for life success. For example, you have a couple of tasks to carry out for work. You have to write-up an introduction to the meeting you have tomorrow and file a summary to your boss of an interview you established. In regards to the second stanza, it would be in your best interest to follow through with these tasks early in your day. If you decide to contradict Lao Tzu’s philosophy, you will find yourself full of stress and pressure to complete the task before the following morning. Not only that, but your boss called you up hoping that you had a rough draft of the report done yet so that he could get prepared for the meeting as well. That was a lost opportunity for progress and greatness for you. To have the power to activate greatness, you must continuously distinguish the small tasks, duties, and callings of each day.

You may be feeling that this is irrelevant to your life. That you plan your day and you knock out all the simple tasks and to-do’s early on so that you can focus on your greatness the rest of the day. Whether this is you, or not, you might be interested more in what stanza three offers to enlighten you with. So I begin by asking you this? When you execute the small tasks, do you accomplish them? REALLY accomplish them? Or do you put forth just the right amount of effort to cross it off your list and move on? You will be more fortunate to discover greater success if you truly delve deep into the meaning that stanza three carries. Why don’t we extend the previous example to encompass the lessons from stanza three as well?  As Lao Tzu’s suggests, by taking the time and maximum energy to write an introduction for your meeting tomorrow and file a summary to your boss of the interview you partook in the previous day, you are paving your path to even further success than you deemed imaginable. Having put forth so much effort into such small tasks, your boss allowed you to run the meeting the following morning, allowing you to get on a first name basis of the CEO of your company. Not only that, but now your boss wants you to do a full-scale interview with other clients and he is going to your completed work to the Wall Street Journal. Does this inspire you and help you see the importance of putting forth your greatest effort even with the smallest of tasks? How can this relate to your career?

But wait, your success does not end there. I said at the beginning of this blog post that you can affect all areas of your life by following Lao Tzu’s factual philosophy. By executing the advice of dealing with small obligations, and dealing with them with all your effort — you show others that you are ready for the opportunity to excel in your business. In doing so, you become more prosperous. After becoming more prosperous by being an honorable hard-working person, you have more time and energy to devote to balancing your personal and family life. By using all of your will and effort to get tasks done, both small and large, you become wiser and stronger, you are able to do more of what you love, and have more time, energy, and money than ever before. The effort of positivity, honesty, encouragement, and success in daily tasks, is what you will receive in return from your accomplishments.

Stay Positive and be Sage-like

Garth E. Beyer

Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us

Garth Beyer

Tribes, by Seth Godin. Bestselling author of Purple Cow and The Dip.

Here are some short snippets of his book that I wanted to share. Enjoy.

1. “We’re embracing a factory instead of a tribe. The irony is that all of this fear used to be useful. Fear of change is built into most organisms, because change is the first sign of risk. Fear of change in a huge factory is appropriate when efficiency is the order of the day. Today, though, the fear that used to protect us at work is now our enemy; it’s now the thing standing in the way.”

– Even knowing this, I still have fear throughout my work day. I fear bumping into other employees in an awkward moment, I fear discussing the idea of receiving a raise, I fear being turned down and frowned upon when I ask for more duties since I am getting my one task done too quickly. We are nothing without fear, but only if we use the fear. Imagining what you would do if you did not fear the result is the best first step. The next step is breaking it down so you do not overwhelm yourself. You are in control, find a way to use your fear. And let’s face it head on; you may lose out, you may get pushed back, you may get fired, but there will ALWAYS be another spot to be filled! Always. And the next spot you fill, might just be the perfect one. Remember, challenging fears involves other people, and other people have fears too. Persistence and Patience.

2. “‘How was your day?’ is a question that matters a lot more than it seems. It turns out that the people who like their jobs the most are also the ones who are doing the best work, making the greatest impact, and changing the most. Changing the way they see the world, sure, but also changing the world. By challenging the status quo, a cadre of heretics is discovering that one person, just one, can make a huge difference”

– This is why I want to open a College of Passions. (Will be explained in a later blog post)

3. “‘Good Enough’ stopped being good enough a long time ago. So why not be great?”

4. Life’s too short to fight the forces of change. Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff. And almost everything that’s standard is now viewed as mediocre.”

5. “What people are afraid of isn’t failure. It’s blame. Criticism. We choose not to be remarkable because we’re worried about criticism. We hesitate to create innovative movies, launch new human resource initiatives, design a menu that makes dinners take notice, or give an audacious sermon because we’re worried, deep down, that someone will hate it and call us on it”.

– I only have one thing I want to say; Just because you think no one else is acting does not mean you shouldn’t. The absolute best way to become a leader is to be the first to TRY SOMETHING. Because when it’s a success, you begin leading. You bring out the best in others and this is something our globe needs. People to toss away their fear and start acting on their ideas and passions. Be the ignition!

6. “A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications. A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it. Curious is the key word. It has nothing to do with income, nothing to do with education, and certainly nothing to do with organized religion. It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope is interesting. Leaders are curious because they can’t wait to find out what the group is going to do next. The changes in the tribe are what are interesting, and curiosity drives them.”

– “If you don’t try, you fail.” is part of the tattoo I have on my back.. And it stands true for every “curious” person in the world. Can you recall a time that you tried something because you didn’t want to be the only one not trying it? (I don’t recommend falling your friends if they jump off a cliff) But, now all you need to do is take that same emotion and change the scenario where no one has tried it. Be the first, and be the best.

7. “Faith is critical to all innovation. Without faith, it’s suicidal to be a leader, to act like a heretic. Religion, on the other hand, represents a strict set of rules that our fellow humans have overlaid on top of our faith. Religion supports the status quo and encourages us to fit in, not to stand out.”

– What a new look at faith. LOVE it.

8. “A couple walks by, obviously on their way to bed, having pushed the idea of vacation a little too hard. The woman looks over to me , in a harsh whisper a little quieter than a yell, says to her friend, ‘Isn’t that sad? that guy comes here on vacation and he’s stuck checking his e-mail. He can’t even enjoy his two weeks off.’ I think the real question–the one they probably wouldn’t want to answer–was, ‘Isn’t it sad that we have a job where we spend two weeks avoiding the stuff we have to do fifty weeks a year?”

– What a remarkable view of the event. Overall, wonderful book. It is not something I would push to the top of your reading priorities, but it’s definitely near the top. I got my notes here so I will be sharing this book now with someone else. Exciting. Hope you enjoyed what I posted and check the book out. I’m always here to talk about it if you want.

Stay Positive and Embrace Fear

Garth E. Beyer