Life Lesson

So, You Want To Start Blogging

Garth Beyer

I read a quote the other day after I published a post and it said “the first thing to do to become a blogger is to read other blogs.” I’m sure when you wanted to learn how to blog you have read and been told something similar. Everyone says to read blogs that get a lot of attention and that are in your niche of writing so you can get accustomed to the way your future viewers want to read.

But,

what is problematic is that they  suggest doing it BEFORE writing your own posts.

There are two points to this. The first is that if you want to write a blog on a specific topic of your interest, you better already be reading blogs, books, articles, blurbs, press releases, references, magazines and any other material related to your field of interest.

The second problematic point is that when you follow other people’s blogs, when you interact with the authors of the books, when you connect with the writers of the articles you read, they are going to want to see what you have created. For example, every time you follow a blog or “like” someones post on WordPress, they get notified that you are following them or liked their post. The writer gets a message like this sent to them: ” They thought article title was pretty awesome. You should go see what they’re up to. Maybe you’ll like their blog as much as they liked yours!” You don’t even have to tell the person who wrote the blog you liked to check yours out, it’s done for you, it’s common curtosy, it’s expected to read some material in return. Given, maybe the big blogs that are actually making an income will ignore the suggestion WordPress makes for you, but when you are starting up a blog you better try and connect with everyone possible. More so the blogs that don’t make a lot of income. That’s how you get to become a blog that makes an income.

More to the point, while you better be reading up on the information on your niche that other people are also writing on, it would be beneficial to start writing posts before really connecting with anyone else. Get your information out there, if you are starting a blog, you obviously have something powerful enough to say to everyone.

Don’t waste valuable time searching and following other blogs, seeing how they write and interacting with them. When you sit down at the computer, get to work on creating content that the writers of the blogs and articles you read, will want to read back and provide feedback. Blogging is a two-way street, you can’t expect to grow if you have nothing to show. You can’t expect to improve if you have nothing to present to the specialists you take a fancy to.

Stay Positive & Write First, Talk Later

Garth E. Beyer

Everything You Need To Know About Success – Through Literary Art (Poetry)

Garth Beyer

My life is the outcome of all the cigarettes never smoked, all the opportunities never passed by, all the people who never said “Hi” back and all the goals I never threw away.

I had to excogitate my life to get to where I am and to get where I want to go.

I had to mitigate the impact of failure, criticism and my own ignorance.

Now it’s time to publicize my life through words to the point that the power is heard.

The attainment of your wishes can only be made by lionizing each moment.              – Alate your membrane – Elevate your views above the clouds, above the stars and above your dreams.

Your life is the outcome of your mistakes made seen, of all your successes declared — Of the infinite possibilities being prehensible, grappled with and shared.

Ignore those who are impaired, who use their criminal knavery to bring you down — Of those whose jaundiced ambiance captures all that they surround.

You. You decide, direct, choose, make, give, determine, create, craft, and ordain every moment of your life. Every memorable second is related mutually to your strife.

If you capitalize the power of experience, personal illustrations and positive influence you manifest a life of compound interest.

If you philosophize the art of planning, the process of preparation and dexterity of failure you make future success prominent.

If you activate the progress meters, the social interaction receptors, the over achieving levers you will discover a metamorphosis of the stairs turning into an elevator.

Only you can work these words, these literary pieces of life, to discover what success truly means. However,what I can tell you is the definition of failure – doing less than you can.

 

Stay Positive & Maybe Success Is Doing More Than You Can

Garth E. Beyer

Asking For Assistance Pt.2

Garth Beyer

Another factor of the online community theme is that along with finding someone who is a professional that will help for free is that they expect nothing in return.

In the real world if someone  helped someone else move items from their shed into their basement, they would then say that they have some stuff that needs to be moved as well. (Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours)

But, in the world of electronic ethics, no one expects anything in return. Everyone knows that the only way to get respectably noticed is to give and keep giving without any intentions of receiving. The online writing community knows that in order to ever even think of being successful, you have to help others out as much as possible. (Something we need to practice off the web too)

I recently wrote a post that you need to prepare for the best and expect the worst because you are most blown away with joy when something positively unexpected occurs. In relation to the online community, if you prepare for the best to help all other people that you can and expect nothing in return, you will be surprised and ecstatic at how devoted those you help are to helping you.

 

Stay Positive and Maintain The Have-Someone-Else-Do-It Attitude

Garth E. Beyer

The “Let-Someone-Else-Do-It” Attitude

Garth Beyer

How often have you muttered under the earshot of others that “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself”?

Unfortunately, you hear that a lot more than “If you want something done right, ask someone who is a professional at it to do it”. Of course though, you, I, we, are all only human and humans take extreme pride in their ego and are ignorant that they cannot do everything to perfection. As a result, help is never asked for.

Now, it’s not so much a matter that other people can’t do something right, but more of a matter that you can do it better. Or can you?

Today I have asked a new good friend Hulbert Lee who wrote the eBook “How To Focus Better” to write a guest post. Without further ado, – Enter Hulbert –

The Value of Asking People for Help

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from starting an online business is not being afraid to ask others for help. I think when people first start out, they have a tendency of wanting to do everything themselves. Either they have grown up and have adopted that sense of “do-it-yourself” mentality or they’re simply just afraid to ask.

For me, I’ve always kind of adopted an attitude that I can do anything I want just as good as anyone else out there as long as I put in the time and effort to do it. This is a good mentality to have if you’re trying to build on one skill, but it can also have its downfalls if you’re trying to do too many things at once.

For example, when I started an online business specifically to help people focus better, I was told to create a product, create a website, get people to the website, and then market the product for the people to buy.

So I spent a few months researching and writing an e-book. After that was done, I remember spending months trying to experiment with designing my website or trying to write copy for my sales page. I spent a lot of money on software and books to learn all of this. But in the end, it just caused a lot of stress and wasted time.

It came down to the point where I realized that I was a writer — not a designer, not a copywriter.

So when I let these realizations go, I began to look for people who were experienced in these areas.

I remember when I first hired my designer to design the e-book layout (which was still in black-and-white document text back then) I was blown away by her results. Just the design made what could have been a bland text turn into something colorful and exciting to read.

I know not everyone will have the budget to hire a designer, but if you constantly seek help out there on the vast Web, sometimes you’ll get lucky.

Like when I was looking for someone to write my sales page copy, I remember digging through the forum pages, and surprisingly enough, found someone who was offering to do a free sales copy. I figured he was probably just starting out and trying to earn credibility as a copywriter.

I jumped on the opportunity and emailed him, and within only about 50 minutes, he had sent me a fresh, new copy for my sales page — all for free. Ever since then, my conversion rates have gone up for my business.

So my advice here for people, who want to succeed in the online world of business, is to always continue to ask people for help. There’s a good chance that another person, who is more experienced and talented than you, will be more than willing to help you out and offer you valuable feedback that will drive your business in the right direction and to where you want it to go.

By Hulbert Lee

After reading Hulbert’s post, I was reminded of the one great attribute that I love about the online community. You can ALWAYS find someone to help you if you search hard enough. It never hurts to do a little research to find who are professionals on the topic you need assistance on and ask them for their help.

Personally, I have even emailed Seth Godin whom I talked to before to write me a letter of recommendation. This was, of course, before he released his eBook Stop Stealing Dreams and if you have read it, you know why he did not write me one. This action made me realize why you don’t ask for help – you don’t like to take a risk. You risk getting rejected, you risk getting told your idea is unworthy of someone else’s attention (especially a professionals).

You need to know that this is not how the online community works. For example, Hulbert searched for experts that knew how to write and knew about “focusing” to read and write a testimonial for his eBook. Hulbert told me that 20% of those he asked, read and wrote a testimonial. Well, you know how they say 20% of the people have 80% of the money and success. Those people who fall under Hulberts 20% category know the power of, not only giving, but also how important it is for others to ask for help which is a main reason they choose to read and write a testimonial for him. As a result, the 20% of people are no doubt well on their way to success (whatever success means to them). The other 80% missed the opportunity to give, to connect, to learn the lesson and benefits of asking and giving help. What they, and you need to know is that when asking for help, people will not criticize you, they will help you.

All you have to do is take the risk.

 

Stay Positive and Use Your Ingenuity To Seek Assistance

Garth E. Beyer

I now call Hulbert a friend and surely he calls me one as well. It is the simple act of asking for help that will propel you to the direction of the success you want.

Positive Immortality

Garth Beyer

Time spent whilst in a positive attitude goes by as quick as if you were having fun. Yet, it  is not time wasted. It is life gained.

 

Stay Positive and Your Attitude Indestructible

Garth E. Beyer

Preparation & Expectation Reversed

Garth Beyer

Whoever said “Prepare for the worst but expect the best” was wrong, very wrong indeed.

However, something I agree with – that surely you do to – is that “Actions speak louder than words”. Wouldn’t preparing for the best, be best? Putting forth the effort and action required to prepare for something that will be in the top 10% of greatest accomplishments is what is important. You don’t want to prepare for the worst as discussed in an earlier post (Safety First: The Art Of Preparation) So why not prepare for the best but expect the worst? After all, our greatest moments of happiness arrive when something that was positively unexpected occurs. This means that when whatever you prepared for was a success, you will feel a billion times greater because you thought it wouldn’t turn out that great.

After this, it might be better to start saying that actions speak louder than thoughts too.

 

Stay Positive and Keep Doing Better Than Expected

Garth E. Beyer

Safety First: The Art of Preparation

Garth Beyer

While growing up one of the biggest influences in my life was my Uncle Chuck.  All I would ever hear him saying whenever we would do something together was safety first, safety first, safety first. Before we pull out in a car, before we lit fireworks, before we hiked, before we traveled, before we did anything it was safety first. This life lesson has been most prevalent in my life and I respect and admire my uncle for teaching it to me – even though it would often get annoying. Then again that just means it’s important enough to be repeated. And it was.

Knowing me, I have to improve every lesson I learn and change everything I listen to and try to incorporate it to fit my life just as you should do with everything you hear. However, this lesson I learned from my uncle of safety first has evolved itself into every aspect of my life in the form of preparation. The best process of safely succeeding and being safe if failure occurs defines preparation.

There has been no art more simplistic, straightforward and rewarding than the art of preparation.

“Let’s proclaim that art has no greater enemy than those artists who permit their art to become subservient to socio-political issues or ideals. In so doing, they not only violate art’s fundamental sovereignty, they surrender that independence from function that made it art in the first place.” – Tom Robbins

At the heart of “safety first” is preparation. At the heart of “preparation” is the transformation of oneself into an outlaw, a rebel. For the only successful artists are those who break the boundaries, status-quo and socio-pathetic expectations. Now, disaster disrupts thousands upon thousands of lives each week. What separates artists from the disaster is not preparing for the worst, but preparing for the best. Contrary to belief, in life there is always someone there to recover you when disaster strikes. The laws of the universe and connection to all things living incorporate “safety first” into all of our lives. This leads to the necessity of an  interrogation that will find out why so many people prepare for the worst case scenario when the safety net has already been placed. (It is beneficial to know that the safety net is placed as long as you accept the consequence of ill preparation)

As any art form that has ever been created, there are dozens of different ways to look at it. Preparation can compensate for lack of talent. Preparation creates confidence which results in the prevention of failure and assurance of success. Positive life impacts come when preparation meets opportunity. Know safety, no pain. No safety, know pain. By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail. Confidence is preparation, everything else is beyond control.

From now on, I expect and will hold you accountable to always prepare for the best. That is all your focus should ever be on.

Stay Positive and Safety First

Garth E. Beyer