Life Lesson

How To Get A Second Meet Up

Garth Beyer

We meet a lot of important people: Idols, Influencers, Administrators, Deans, and so on…

Typically, after meeting them, we fly on the cloud quote of, “You won’t believe who I met!” And that’s it. Rarely does one continue to say, “and I am meeting them again for lunch in a couple of weeks!”

To get that second meet up with someone, all you have to do is ask a question – and no, it’s not “would you like to meet up again?” [insert “ain’t nobody got time for that” meme]

You want to ask a question that the other person won’t be able to answer right away. Not only that, it must be one that they will want to think deeply about and get back to you on.

It seems simple, but it’s devilishly difficult to 1. Put in the emotional labor in such short of time to understand what the person is truly passionate about and 2. To craft a question that they have never thought about related to their passion.

In achieving this task, you create an instantaneous bond. People who are of high influence are always more attracted to those who give them more challenges than they are attracted to their supporting fans.

 

Stay Positive & It Works Out Best When You’re Both

Garth E. Beyer

Questions are a big deal.

The Possibilities

Garth Beyer

People live, not in their concept of what is true, but of what is possible. Repeating: of what they think, see, and feel is possible.

This is what makes it damn difficult to encourage people and communicate to them their potential. Not only that, but it interferes with all forms of learning and communication. For example, one reason for the change in what is reported in the newspaper industry is the inability for people to associate so closely with facts.

We now base our knowledge sources by their relatability, their story, and their entertainment. Is this wrong? No, but we need to acknowledge the altercations it presents. We are growing up with a worldview of what is possible, not what is true or proven.  We may now believe what is false, is still possible. A sure sign of this complexity is your current inability to follow it. For that reason, let me simplify it the best I can.

There is a saying that once you have eliminated all possibilities, all you have left is the truth. The thing is, we now have an infinite number of possibilities

It’s a lot to live up to and understand. But in order to build a connection with someone, you have to understand what they believe to be possible, not true.

In longsight, as Mark Twain famously stated, “Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.”

 

Stay Positive & Fiction? Possibilities? Truth? What’s The Difference, Really?

Garth E. Beyer

Baby Steps

Garth Beyer

When things get to be too much, break them down. It’s all about baby steps, right?

Wrong.

There’s a complete misunderstanding of what baby steps are. We can take big projects and break them down into small steps to make the overall task easier.

That’s just it though: to make it easier. Not easy, which is the majorities general concept of baby steps. Short tasks can motivate us more, but cutting tasks down to a small size to where it becomes easy, does not excite, passion or promise.

 

Stay Positive & Cut, But Don’t Crop

Garth E. Beyer

What May Be Interesting To You

Garth Beyer

is extremely likely to not be interesting to others. That’s the largest problem that aspiring marketers, writers, artists, speakers, and storytellers alike are faced with.

Yesterdays story about running with the UW Womens rowing crew may have only been interesting to me and I felt like it needed to be shared. That doesn’t mean that it was interesting to others (you).

I went out with friends last night and you would think everyone had attention deficit disorder because no one would finish listening to someone tell their story, no matter how excited they were to tell it.

When you are trying to reach people, connect with people, win people over, you have to discover a way that your story is interesting to them.

And that requires a lot of emotional labor. Well worth it though.

 

Stay Positive & Interested

Garth E. Beyer

How To Grow A Tribe (Not Numbers, Quality)

Garth Beyer

It’s 6 degrees out and I decided to go for a run. While out, running through town, I saw a cluster of black, red, and white colors moving up Bascom Hill. Heading that way myself, I came to find that it was UW Madison’s Women’s Rowing Crew.

When I go out running, I always hit Bascom Hill once. This time, I found myself trekking up it 3.5 times with the crew. After 3 times some of the crew were stopped while others were finishing up. As I was running past those standing, I shouted, “You guys [should have said ladies] are kicking my butt!”

After that, a few girls hollered and a stampede started. They all started running with me and with all the other girls who were finishing up. The pride these girls had, the encouragement they handed each other, and the determination each had to finish as a team was insurmountable.

That alone is a less than good tribe.

They didn’t stop there though. What makes a good tribe is being open to the influence of others, connecting with like-minded individuals (me) or tribes. Even more so, what makes a great tribe is placing yourselves where you can have a challenges from inside and outside the tribe.

Building a tribe isn’t about unity, about definitive togetherness, or about exclusion. The best way to grow a tribe from within, is to grow from out, from the surroundings, from all the people around you. You’ll never know what challenges you’ll get … or give.

 

Stay Positive & Inclusion Isn’t Vital, But Awareness Is

Garth E. Beyer

One Big Thank You

Garth Beyer

—

Many of you are showing up on my website today because of what has transpired on Facebook. Even taking the moment to transition from there to my website means a lot to me. Dare I say thank you again? Of course. Thank you.

—

I’m not one for mass, if you read my work, you definitely know that. However, I owe all of my past time readers that have gone off and made a ruckus and no longer read my material, all the regular readers, and all the new ones maybe stopping by for the first time today, one huge thank you!

I wouldn’t be able to find it in my soul to write as much as I do, to risk as much as I do, to fail as much as I do, if none of you were there for me. If we could break down the box that makes GarthBox and turn it into a road, it would be a two-way road. For all that you give to me, I will do my ultimate best to give back 10fold.

GarthBox is a place for people to step in and step out whenever they would like. What I’m grateful for are all the impacts each of you make when you step in the box. I don’t even need to have met you for you to have made the impact. As a reader, you make an impact.

As much as I can go on, I just want to thank all of you for your continual support, your constant encouragement, and for giving me a reason to write.

 

Stay Positive My Friends

Garth E. Beyer

We Want…

Garth Beyer

We want what when we want it. The real trouble is that it’s extremely hard to convince ourselves that we really want it now when it’s so easy (and illusively harmless) to put it off till later.

People think the problem is choosing what you want. It’s not. We can always find somethign we want. The real insight and issue lies in that there’s never as much risk in wanting something than in wanting it now.

Which is supposed to be a good enough reason to want it at a later time.

It’s not.

 

Stay Positive & Hold Yourself To The Now, Not The Later, Soon, Or Sometime

Garth E. Beyer