Life Lesson

Enjoying The Journey

Garth Beyer

Have you tried non-resistance?

It’s much like the old simile of water flowing down the river. The water doesn’t force itself to try to push the rocks out of its way. The water simply flows.

I don’t like it. Those who live by the motto, “go with the flow,” aren’t living life. It’s a tacky way of going about. These are the people who fail to realize something massively important about living, loving, and learning.

You can live stronger, wilder, free-er, love more passionately, more intimately, more loyally,  and learn differently, zen-ly, interestingly when you are lost and confused than when you know where you are and want to be, when you’re single or even broken-hearted than when you’re on a date or moments away from asking your special one to marry you, when you’re broken and failing than when your right on track.

The only determination whether what you’re going through is a better lesson than what you would rather be going through is you. And the only decision you have to make is to be non-resistant.

 

Stay Positive & Learn From The River: Rifts, Waves, Stillness, And All

Garth E. Beyer

Self Delivered Progress

Garth Beyer

My co-worker dropped a great one liner the other week. She mentioned that you need to, “under promise and over deliver.”

I couldn’t have agreed more at the time. It encompasses a positive view of expectations. If you get someone to set low expectations and you proceed to blow them away, the person will be shocked, amazed, and grateful. In addition, by under promising, you are casting the safety net. If you can’t seem to deliver, it’s okay because you never promised that much to begin with.

–    –    –    –    –

Part of the statement here needs to be revoked. While I still hold to the attributes I’ve stated, I completely disagree with one part of the statement to under promise and over deliver.

Eliminate under to create the saying “promise and over deliver.”

If you need to under promise something, then it’s likely that it’s best you don’t promise anything to begin with. Promising something that you’re worried you can’t deliver, or fully deliver, is not a smart promise. Smart promises is what gets us places. Smart promises say exactly what you will do with the guarantee of it being completely done.

If you’re interested in progress though, if you want to move up the ladder, if you want the recognition and admiration from the people who you fulfill promises for, then you need to promise and over deliver.

Before any skepticism is launched, let me say without any wiggle room, that there is always a way to over deliver. It’s this performance of searching for a way to over deliver, and then following through with it that creates progress. Self delivered progress for you through over delivering on promises for them.

 

Stay Positive & Who Knew Progress Was So Easy

Garth E. Beyer

The Greatest Life Lesson From Getting A Job

Garth Beyer

After the struggle of searching for places to apply at, applying, and going through the interview process, you arrive at your new job. As crappy as it is, most will say, “a job is a job.”

While there is plenty to learn from the process of acquiring a job, what I would like to point out is in regards to the training that everyone must go through. Once you’re hired, the next step before you start – beside the paperwork – is to train, to learn what you will be doing.

You may be handed a small manual. You may be told to shadow someone. You may be shown what you will be doing and asked to run through it once or twice. Other than that, there isn’t much more to the training. In fact, I would bet that after training for any job, you will be nervous about not doing what you need to do right, efficiently, or flawlessly. Simply because you weren’t trained well.

You won’t master anything even with a manual. You won’t master anything by watching someone else do it. (How great would that be if we did though!) You won’t master anything by doing it once or twice. In fact, I wouldn’t even call any of that training. Training for something results in a sense of preparedness which this doesn’t produce.

No employers care about that though. They shouldn’t. Actually, they’re smart not to!

Employers – and now you – know that there is no better training than training on your feet. By that I mean getting thrown into what you need to do and being expected to do it right even with the haunting lack of preparedness.

As people, the best way to learn is to do. We can read, we can watch, we can shadow, we can even give something a shot or two, but the most effective and quickest way to learn anything is to jump in and do it.

For the next time you have an interest in doing something, catch yourself when you begin to “train” for it too long. And to simplify it for you, I can even tell you how long “too long” is. If training for something as important as a job only takes a few hours (maybe a day), then whatever you are training for better be more important than a job if you are training longer for it.

I could have told you from the beginning to not spend much time researching stuff and instead, do. But that would be an insult to the way the world works. The same way that skipping the barely helpful training for a job would be.

 

Stay Positive & For Best Results, Do

Garth E. Beyer

You Hate What You Do, But Your The Best At It

Garth Beyer

I would beg to differ. If you are comparing yourself to the hundreds of other people who don’t like what they are doing, but do it anyway, than maybe you are the best at it.

But generally speaking, there is no way you’re the best at it. If I found someone (which I’m sure I could) that really wanted to do your job, that actually enjoys it, that may even say they love it, then I would put all my money on them doing a better job than you.

Just because you’re great at something, doesn’t mean you’re the best at it.

Especially if you don’t love what you’re doing.

 

Stay Positive & Stop Using That As An Excuse To Not Go Do What You Love

Garth E. Beyer

Brain: Open. Brain: Closed.

Garth Beyer

It’s a lot like leaving the lights on in the house.

When pondering a problem – or my personal favorite, pondering how to create a new problem – our brain needs to be in open mode. Open to new thoughts, different ideas, a world of change.

In other words, the lights are on.

However, once we reach a solution, we must put our brain in closed mode. Turn the lights off and leave the room. They say when you learn something new, it only sticks if you apply it. Putting the brain in closed mode is the application part of our mind; it begins putting to action the thought or concept that was created when our brain was in open mode.

Having a closed mind is about being decisive, thorough, and corrective. The manifestations of all great ideas occurred when the brain was in closed mode.

Too often we forget to turn the lights off; our brain is consistently on, running, filtering, savaging way more than the average 60,000 thoughts per day. To that I have to say,

“If you’re not in the room, go turn the lights off.”

Stay Positive & It Lowers The Electricity Bill Too

Garth E. Beyer

How Thoughts Become Things

Garth Beyer

Have you ever thought of a song you wanted to listen to and then you turned on the radio or Pandora and the song was on? It’s an example of the incredible power your mind has on the universe.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

But let’s put this in prospective.

Yes, as human beings with brains, we are powerful. We may not have complete control over our future, but we have a lot of control, especially with our thoughts. Have you realized though, that the song you wanted to listen to, is a song that would be played on that station regardless if you thought of it or not?

The song wasn’t playing by only chance or because of what you believe, becomes. You would never hear a heavy Metallica song – no matter how much you thought about it – if you only ever had on an old country radio station.

It’s true that we have control of our thoughts and our thoughts have a certain degree of control on what is created in our life. Let’s apply this to something beside music.

It is extremely unlikely that you will become an artist if you never put yourself in the position of an artist, no matter how much you think about it. Taking this even further, you won’t become a famous artist – that you imagine daily being – if all you ever do is paint and stick your work in the closet. The possibility of someone from the art museum ending up in your closet is pretty low.

We can think about what we want as much as we want, we can visualize, we can imagine the life we want. We can do all of that. But none of it will exist unless we step in the box that makes what we want, able to occur.

Have a song you want to listen to? Put on a radio station that is likely to play it.

Want to become an artist? Put yourself (and your work!) where people can see it.

Want anything? Go to where you can be handed it.

 

Stay Positive & Thoughts Require Movement

Garth E. Beyer