Life Lesson

You’re Not The Only One

Garth Beyer

You’re not the only one who is self-conscious about your work.

You’re not the only one stressing about a similar (or the same!)  project.

You’re not the only one pressured with a deadline.

Fear isn’t singling you out. It’s targeting everyone. Being afraid doesn’t make you special like I once thought it did.

No. You’re not the only one, and acknowledging it now offers you peace of mind. In fact, recognizing you’re not the only one facing a struggle gives you all the more reason to face it, not only for yourself, but for all those who are near giving up.

 

Stay Positive & Do It For You, But Also Them

Looking For Help

Garth Beyer

Crows look for certain gestures of other crows for signs of danger or food.

Prairie dogs pop out of their holes to find the dog on watch duty.

Dung beetles, when lost, look to the milky way for help.

I look to Seth Godin and local PR agency presidents and directors for help.

Where do you look?

 

Stay Positive & You Are Looking, Right?

Tracking Changes

Garth Beyer

tracking changes

I’m a sucker for the tracking changes function of a word document, who doesn’t love to leave their mark on something?

I wonder what would happen if you woke up 5 minutes earlier or exchanged your cooler-talk at work to leave your mark on the Internet instead. One blog post.One bread crumb. One foot print.

This is a bit out there, but you’ll get the point: People are fascinated by dinosaur foot prints. Did you think dinosaurs cared what people thought when they walked around leaving their giant, menacing, quite ugly foot prints around? No.

If they did, they would have likely made them look better, would have stepped a bit lighter, would have covered up the faults in their foot prints so no one could see one talon was longer than the others, but in doing so we wouldn’t care about dinosaur foot prints anymore.

In the long run, what makes people (you!) remarkable is two-part: you share what’s happening in your life in some form AND you don’t concern yourself with what people will think about it.

Hard to do… that is, unless you’re a dinosaur.

 

Stay Positive & Rawr

Photo credit

What’s Next?

Garth Beyer

I get giddy every day when I can ask myself the question. To me it’s like asking a cute girl to boogie with you at a high school dance (apologies for using the word boogie, I didn’t want to write “dance” twice).

But, instead of a girl, it’s really opportunity. Even better. It’s a chance to make sense of chaos, to refocus on something different and valuable, to own your next endeavor.

Those I see unhappy at the workplace are those who are petrified when they’ve got to answer the question of what’s next. Shouldn’t your boss be telling you? Where is she? You better go ask her.

Being faced with endless choices is tough, but exciting, no? Don’t sell your opportunities short. What you see in front of you may not be all there is to choose from.

If you’re not willing to face the abyss of choice, you will almost certainly not spend enough time dancing with opportunity. – Seth Godin

 

Stay Positive & Go Ask Her To Dance

The Problem With Target Marketing

Garth Beyer

It’s hard to curb the enthusiasm toward mass marketing for some business owners.

After all, the problem with targeting a specific market is that you’re excluding a lot of people who may be interested in the business.

What’s true in that statement is that everyone – the masses – may interested in the business. However, in target marketing, you’re not excluding them, rather, you’re prioritizing them. Why? Because a single message won’t resonate with all at once, but multiple messages targeted to specific groups over time can.

The problem with target marketing is not the marketing itself, it’s the way you’re looking at it.

 

Stay Positive & Priorities Will Out

Worth It?

Garth Beyer

“Was it worth it?” is a question we ask ourselves quite often. If you’re like Seth, then the answer can always be “yes” if you look at the effort you put in as the reward.

While I have that attitude most of the time, some things aren’t worth it and I can’t trick myself into believing the effort I put in was rewarding. So here’s my back-up mentality.

“Can I still make it worth it?”

I don’t give up until I do.

When you or anyone else asks you if it was worth it, “it” doesn’t need to signify an end of effort.

Just as you have the choice to look at effort as the reward, you can look at effort as an ongoing endeavor.

 

Stay Positive & It’s More Work…But It’s Worth It