Life Lesson

Repairing Motorcycles

Garth Beyer

You’re faced with a huge project. Or you’re trying to face one. Fear is eating at your gut. The saying now goes: No gut. Nothing to follow. But you try your hardest to not let it.

Gumption isn’t so much about putting up a fight with fear and pressing forward; actions and emotions are only half of it. The first half is having a project for fear to work on.

For me, I’m putting together a team to make ideas happen, for Robert Pirsig, it’s repairing a motorcycle, for you it may be starting a blog, showcasing your art, deploying a new business strategy, deploying a new business, talking to people who are different from you, or simply tackling the list of to-do’s you’ve put off.

Gumption isn’t associated with the tough decisions you hear CEO’s having to make, nor is it connected to those wearing hooverflags. No. Gumption doesn’t follow guidelines, restrictions, or limits. It doesn’t care how you were raised, what school you went to, or whether you skipped breakfast or not.

L. M. Montgomery said, “Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn’t can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.”

I suppose Maud never tried repairing a motorcycle. But now, everyone has to repair a motorcycle at some point during their life… or at least something similar to repairing a motorcycle.

Puzzling to acknowledge is that there are a lot more meaningful predicaments similar to repairing a motorcycle than not. Pirsig would agree with me that, yes, repairing a motorcycle takes courage, spunk, guts, initiative, aggressiveness, and a high altitude of resourcefulness.

It also takes fear and dances with it. When you go to repair a motorcycle, you know you’re going to have one hell of a time. Bolts won’t fit, parts will be stripped, dents will be accidentally made, you’ll have to repeat tasks, and – my favorite part – you will deviate from instructions.

If you ask me, Maud was partially right. Gumption can’t be defined.

However, it can be felt.

 

“I like the word ‘gumption’ because it’s so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t likely to reject anyone who comes along. I like it also because it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with Quality. He gets filled with gumption.

A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.

If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good.”

― Robert M. Pirsig

Stay Positive & Go Find Your Motorcycle

Garth E. Beyer

How Do YOU Know?

Garth Beyer

Whether you’re the one asking or being asked, the answer has little to do with the mind.

You can analyze, strategize, and organize a project so that the results you want are surely the results you will get. But you never actually know.

Boy asks girl what her favorite color is. Girl says purple. Five years (or five months, or five minutes later – it doesn’t really matter) go by. Girl asks the boy what her favorite color is. Boy says purple. Girl frowns. “It’s blue,” she says.

Everything is networking and networking involves connecting with people and people change their minds more often than their clothes. What needs to be understood, though, is that despite these changes (e.g., fear based step-backs, road block detours, juxtaposed worldviews, popped filter bubbles.) the results aimed for can still be attained.

When you are at the phase of “how do YOU know,” you are immediately the authority, the leader, the one looked up to.

Truly, what they want to know is if they can trust you. If they can benefit from following you. And if you answer with “I just do,” you’re answering with your heart, not your mind.

And THAT is how you know.

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Feel It In Your Gut, Aim For Different Results

Garth E. Beyer

Unknown Fact

Garth Beyer

What if I told you the most unknown fact about life is that you end up putting in the same amount of effort to do as little as possible as you would if you had the bar raised and hopes high?

And all that fills the divide is passion.

And passion is the single best indicator of whether you are on the right path or not.

Makes you wonder why you considered the easy route in the first place.

 

Stay Positive & Life Gets Simple When You See The Facts

Garth E. Beyer

Examples Of Awesome

Garth Beyer

In case you were wondering, here are some examples of awesome. I’ve seen too much in the last week to let them go by. These are remarkable (Obviously. Here I am telling you about them.)

Feed

“Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we’re not resting on our laurels,” said Mark Rubin, executive producer of Infinity Ward.

Below is a picture of the letter and gift card I got from H&R Block. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that most people don’t expect their tax information to be processed in one day. It’s not really the money that matters, it’s really not even their apology. What is remarkably awesome is the simple fact they took the time to construct a letter, set up the mailing, invest their time and energy (still in the middle of tax season, I might add!) to send the letter.

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And to top it off, Nicholas Hanson is my professional photographer. He’s incredible, but for more reasons than just his photos. The other day I got a txt from him saying that he noticed that the pictures I have on my website still have his watermark and that they didn’t need to. (He gave me a collection of photos with and without the his watermark.) Naturally, I told him that it was an honor to have them on there but the noteworthy part is on his humble and professional end.

There is awesome everywhere and if you don’t see it… go be it.

 

Stay Positive & This Must Be Here

Garth E. Beyer

Life Is Like A New Pair Of Shoes

Garth Beyer

You want to break them in, but not ruin them.

You’re meant to make mistakes, take risks, bend over backward, scrape your knees, face your fears, stumble, and get a little bruised up.

Shoes are meant to be run in, bent in a way they’re not supposed to and be held there for awhile. They’re meant to be ran in on different turfs. It’s called breaking them in.

Most importantly, though one is meant to do all of this, you don’t want to break, rip, or destroy the shoes completely.

Similarly, neither do you want to become jaded, pessimistic, or immobile.

 

Stay Positive & Note, It Takes A Lot More To Break Yourself In Than It Does A Pair Of Shoes

Garth E. Beyer

The Real Inconvenient Truth Of What Matters

Garth Beyer

It won’t be easy. In fact, it will only ever get harder.

You’re going to be knocked down. Repetitively.

And you will always get back up. Because one day you will break through and bask in glory. You will laugh or cry – or both – while you look back at all you had to go through to get where you finally are.

Will the pain ever be convenient? Of course not. It will never be.

Will it be worth it? Of course. Always.

 

Stay Positive & Collapsing Doesn’t Cease The Pain

Garth E. Beyer

 

Repeating Levels

Garth Beyer

They say life is a game, so why not continue with the analogy?

Life is a game that many people just repeat levels. They do the same work (their best) at different locations. Becoming a professional has been entwined with producing the same amount of value across the board.

Ruckus makers, the artists, those who make the most out of life, though, don’t repeat levels. They just so happen to complete each level in a different way. No, maybe it’s not their “best” work. No, maybe they took too big of a risk. And, yes, maybe – just maybe – they failed.

Beauty of it though, is you just pick yourself up and try a different way.

There’s no “replay” button, but there is always a “restart.”

 

Stay Positive & Most Artists, Though, Never Have The Need To Press It

Garth E. Beyer