Writing

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