Life Lesson

Get Your Popsicle Stick

Get Your Popsicle Stick

Garth Beyer

Popsicle Stick Marker

I’ve given you a popsicle stick and a marker. I want you to, right now, think of what you really want to do in life, what you love, what you want to invest in that you haven’t already. I don’t care if it’s hang-gliding, asking your girlfriend to marry you or starting a business.

I’m not in the business of getting you to create a business, but I am in the business of turning your ideas into reality. So take a moment right now and write what that idea is and write it any way you want. If it’s a name, a number, a symbol or a paragraph if you can fit it on there, it doesn’t matter how. What matters is that you do.

Now let me tell you about my popsicle stick. First, if you were standing before me, you would notice I don’t have one anymore.

This is a short story of why I don’t.

In middle school, two of my closest friends and I put valuables in a hard case and put it underground. We created a time capsule. The capsule contained a picture, Pokémon card, mini-hand cuffs and a number of other items. Importantly, though, it contained my popsicle stick.

It wasn’t mine to begin with, though. It was a popsicle stick with a girl’s name on it that our teacher used to pick students at random to answer questions. At the end of the school year, I asked the girl if I could have her popsicle stick. She agreed.

I treasured it. I treasured her. I held onto that popsicle stick until my friends and I decided to create a time capsule. I thought it would be romantic that if I ever ended up with this girl that I would dig up the popsicle stick and give it back to her.

That day happened. I dug up the box without telling my friends. This is what I learned:

What you have written down on your popsicle stick right now is down there because you’re not ready to do it – and that’s okay. One day though, you will dig up your popsicle stick and actually do what it says. For some, you might only need to wait until that time comes. For others, you might need to work hard at it – digging that popsicle stick up becomes a goal.

The girl and I didn’t last long at all. Can you guess what I did next?

I went out and got a new popsicle stick.

 

Stay Positive & Shh, My Friends Still Don’t Know

Photo credit

Initiating Scared

Garth Beyer

Scared, Change Your LifeIt’s really quite simple. Just come up with a way to change something in your life, large or small. Are you going to drink more water each day this year? Are you planning to make a big move later this year? Are you wanting to write more on your blog this year?

There’s a lot you can do that is easy this year, but nothing is easier than initiating scared, so why not do it?

Do something easy so you can focus more on doing something that’s difficult, say, perhaps, overcoming scared?

By doing something easy, you create more time to focus on setting your expectations for the difficult, on building confidence for the difficult, on actually doing the difficult.

 

Stay Positive, But Not Scared

Photo credit

 

Assorted Links

Garth Beyer

1. Striking truths (short short read)

2. Russian commuters win free Metro travel if they can prove physical prowess (read)

3. The fist bump manifesto (read)

5. How Netflix reinvented HR (read) (reference to core values from earlier post)

6. Just plain worth the read

Important Questions Of 2014

Garth Beyer

There are a lot of important questions that need to be asked year after year. There are some important questions that are unexpected, others, unnecessary.

I could create a list (a longgg list) of important questions that you will need to ask yourself at some point or another.

Instead, I’m going to tell you the important questions that I’m asking myself this year and hope they resonate with you and give you insight of what you can expect from me this year.

1) How can you bite off more than you can chew and stay ahead of the competition without crashing?

2) Your voice, your story is out there somewhere. What are you willing to try and do to find it?

3) What are your core values and how do you present them?

4) What happens when you leave your comfort zone (job, house, school) and go after what you’re passionate about?

 

There will be more questions as the year progresses, but this is a firm place to begin. I encourage you to bookmark my blog and catch the answers throughout the year.

Funny, if you remember, last year was a year full of questions. I suppose it’s time for more answers.

 

Stay Positive & Pick Me Pick Me Pick Me (Pick Yourself)

 

 

What’s Your Speed

Garth Beyer

5724113830_eee219ed68_z

Are you a sprinter? A pacer? A walker?

Imagine that you work at a bookstore and someone asks you to help them find a book. You know exactly where it is. How fast do you walk to it?

Walk slow and they perceive you as not caring about what you’re doing. Go too fast and they perceive that they are a nuisance to you. Walk at their pace and they won’t perceive you at all.

The big go getters in life, the real big ones, they don’t make it. I’ve tried each of the paces. I’ve gone too fast and crashed. I’ve gone to slow and disappointed people, including myself. I’ve done things at a mediocre rate and went unnoticed.

I’m writing to tell you that the right pace is different for you than it is me because we’re likely trying to please a different group of people. However, we all have our competition. The right pace can be simplified to slightly faster than your competition, than those trying to please the same group of people as you. We all have our audiences and average pace for pleasing that audience.

The best become so by being slightly better.

Selling, consulting, making people happy. It’s not a race. The quickest don’t win. Those who push themselves just past the average are the ones who win.

And in the world we’re in, winning is everything.

 

Stay Positive & Get Out There, Be Better Than The Rest

Photo credit
The Thing About Advice

The Thing About Advice

Garth Beyer

There’s a lot of advice out there. Really good advice. Advice because other people took risks, learned from them and don’t want you to make the same mistakes.

That is all good and fun, but it’s partly wrong.

I remember a time when I was younger and living with my dad. He was trying to tell me to not do something that he did when he was my age. I turned to him and asked if he regretted the choices he made. I said to him, “What if. What if I do everything exactly as you tell me, that I do everything you suggest the way you suggest it. Then what. Am I supposed to be happy? It won’t be my life then.”

True advice is when someone suggests you do something a certain way but doesn’t resent you if you don’t. This is what I want you to keep an ear out for with this new year.

I want you to take the risks, make the mistakes, fail, but fail fast. If something isn’t clear that it’s the wrong choice, then it’s up to you to see whatever choice you make as the right one and not let anyone else make that judgement for you.

 

Stay Positive & This Is YOUR Life

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit