Life Lesson

Quality Over Quantity Is An Antiquity

Quality Over Quantity Is An Antiquity

Garth Beyer

 

 

Quality

It’s expressed over and over that quality should always be over quantity. It is one of three factors to profiting most from a product.

1. Lowest Price

2. Best Service

3. Best Quality

But I am not telling you to choose quality over quantity.

Quantity

Sure quantity over quality had its spotlight at one time. But the light has since gone dim. It flickers from time to time and that is how we got generic brands or bulk items. There are times in life that we can forget the quality of something for the quantity. Do you really want to spend 60 dollars on one new quality toy for your four-year old? Or purchase 10 toys for 60 dollars? Especially when you know that if you paid extra for the one toy, the chances of a four-year old breaking it is pretty high.

But I am not telling you to choose quantity over quality again either.

So What’s The Q-Fusion

Why is it that you have to choose quality or quantity with a product? Why do we have to place one over the other?

You know what you can do? Put them on the same level and see what happens. Yes, I’m telling you to use both. If we are talking about importance then sure quality is the most important, but that doesn’t mean quality can’t be completed at a steady pace. Nor can you argue that a quantity of quality will always make you — not just A winner, but THE winner. A winner in sales, in business…in life.

 

Abraham Lincoln said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”  — Quality

I will add, “And don’t settle for a bit of life in each year, go all out” — Quantity

 

Stay Positive and Synthesized

Garth E. Beyer

 

Poetry Night 007

Garth Beyer

Tonight I want to share a poem that I read in Tim Ferriss’s “4 Hour Work Week”. I can say nothing more, this young girl who wrote the poem says it all. This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. It was sent by a medical doctor – Dr. Yeou Cheng Ma. Please do what you can to help fulfill this young girl’s dreams.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Stay Positive and Slow Dance

Garth E. Beyer

Discovering What LIFE Truly Is

Discovering What LIFE Truly Is

Garth Beyer

A girl once told me at the beginning of our relationship how she was not a gift to be had, or a reward to be won. It is the same with life — it is not a problem that needs solving, a game to be won, although it has challenges, it is not a challenge itself to be completed. There is not a completion to it and no rewards because there is no winning. In order to find out what life is, consider defining what life is not.

Although, your life CAN have an advantage, and there are benefits to that.

 

Stay Positive and Understanding of YOUR life

Garth E. Beyer

The Budget: A Priority Expense and Out-Of-The-Box Methods to Saving Money for it

The Budget: A Priority Expense and Out-Of-The-Box Methods to Saving Money for it

Garth Beyer

Hopefully you caught my post the other day about not being able to save money. In summary I inspired you to take the energy you use at focusing how to make your budget work and direct it at making more money. Now that you’re caught up, answer me this..

What  could happen today that would reap your budget meaningless? (Besides death, for you sarcastic followers)

Most Common Answers: Broken bone or hospitalization, House Fire, Broken down car

For the last 19 years of my life my mother has told me that “nothing lasts forever”. Yet this is true, can you pick one of the common answers that is the least likely to last a lifetime? Just by asking my friends, I found out the majority have yet to break a bone. Even older family members have told me they have never broken a bone. Next, I say that hospitalization happens maybe once every 25 years for a person and more likely to occur later in age. A house fire might happen once in your neighborhood of 20,000 people over the span of 10 years. I am sure you could agree with these estimates, its common sense that none of them occur too often.

Did I miss one? Oh right, the car

The number of occurrences of a broken down car is too many to count and far too many to give a number anywhere accurate to the truth.

So why is it that people still do not save money for it? To often people put the car as a separate category in their budget but they don’t prioritize it until “after the fact”. After something happens to it they end up going into their savings account, taking a loan, or begging parents and friends to help out. People rarely have money saved up specifically for their car, and if so, it is only enough for a car wash.

Why do we sacrifice our working budget and saved up funds for a car repair? Because we NEED our vehicles to get us places.

With the cold season upon us, I am certain you can agree with me that the most car breakdowns occur in the winter. Are you putting money aside to fund the unexpected need for a car repair?

Some quick out-of-the-box tips to lowering budgets in other categories so you prioritize your vehicle

  • Generic brands just started tasting better. A box of honey bunches of oats $4.45. Hyvee generic brand, $2.43
  • Instead of buying a new block building set for your kids, find something in the house to be creative with. For example
  • They call it junkfood, I call it junkfoold. Again, if you read my earlier post on saving money, you know that  I had to cut way back. I would not share this tip if it wasn’t effective enough to share.
  • Pull out that winter clothes bin and use it in the house. The average electricity bill in our apartment complex is 40-60 dollars. Typically 60 in the winter cold and 60 in the summer heat. I have spent as little as 20 dollars and as high as 46 dollars on our electricity bill. I am currently wearing her old black, white, and pink striped gloves to keep my hands warm instead of putting the heater on. *See above pic*
  • Cash for gold. I don’t mean just gold (Although my Dad and his lady got over 600 dollars from her grandma’s bracelet and a couple of earrings. They were creative with how to pay for their wedding) It’s time to let go of those items that you keep but never use. The sentimental value it may hold does not counter the terrible feeling of owing money and diving into your savings funds and having a budget you can’t keep up with.
  • Internet is not necessary at the home any longer (unless that is where your office is). I can bet that you can walk no more than 5 blocks from your house to get free wi-fi, as long as you don’t live in the country. I spent 16 dollars on a Droid application on my phone to get internet to my computer from my phone. That’s $16 dollars paid once compared to 40+ dollars paid each month for internet.
  • Stay following for a post on more out-of-the-box ways to save money.

Stay Positive and For those with a bike and not an automobile. Brownie points right to you. (Generic brand of course, but it’ll do)

Garth E. Beyer

Read This If You Feel That You Can’t Save Money

Garth Beyer

I have experience with a budget. I know various formats that can be used for a variety of people. I am 19 years old and have written at least 10 different budgets for myself alone and 20 with someone else. In addition I have reviewed others’ budgets and studied the art of budgeting intensely. When a person passes the point of giving themselves excuses to not write a budget, the next thing I hear is that they are not saving any money.

They write a budget and at the end it shows that they will be saving at least 200 dollars. Yet at the end of the month they are negative 20 dollars. Of course there were life changes during the month and as I always say about budgets, they are not constant, but they are a constant process. No budget will work two months in a row perfectly unless you do absolutely nothing with your life, make no income, and no expenses. Not the most sought after life.

After another attempt at adjusting the budget for the following month, the same results occur. They just can’t save any money.

As I corrected budgets, for a long time I would find ways to lower expenses and cut back. A little about my story, I moved to Madison WI with someone in Aug 2011. Being young and in love, you can guess that we did not have much money. We had saved enough to last seven months living at the lowest amount of expenses possible. We quickly got jobs. (Check my LinkedIn and you can know why, but don’t judge a book by its cover. I actually got the jobs I have because of what is NOT on my résumé) Now that we were set with employment, our goal was to keep saved what we had and save more from our paychecks. Hell no it’s not easy! Can you imagine spending 55 dollars a week on groceries for two people? We do it. We minimize every other expense as much as we can as well. Yet at the end of each month, we only save about 50-250 dollars a month.

Last month we sat down with the budget and tried to make more adjustments so we could save more. It just couldn’t be done unless we wanted to sacrifice all of our happiness. Then it hit me, kinda like a master craftsmen would slap his apprentice over his head once he figured out how to accomplish something he thought could not be done. It was almost as if the slap had a voice and said “You idiot, of course that’s the only way. Why are you spending all of your time on limiting yourself to save money!”

What I learned — If you can’t save money, EARN MORE

I and so many others are doing the right thing with creating a budget but were so focused on making the current monthly income we have work properly. If we could just take all that energy and focus on making more money… You can only imagine how much life would change and the money you would save.

We are a perfect example, we now save 300-450 a month and have only just began our approach at earning more since we couldn’t save more.

Stay Positive and Know Where Your Energy Is Going

Garth E. Beyer

You Get More Than One First Impression

Garth Beyer

Cliché’s are phrases that are so commonly used that they have lost their originality. Regardless, cliché’s are created because of the truthfulness of them and their ability to be used negligent of where you are. “You only get one first impression” used to be a cliché’. It used to be a nationwide truth. This cliché’ is now deceased. Whether you are aware of it yet or not,

You get more than one first impression.

It is hard to believe that people thought they could not change others’ original judgements of them. We have all evolved since the days the cliché’ was originated. We know each other on a deeper level and understand that each of us have our own lives that we may be having trouble with at the time. A first impression is appropriately defined as the first consideration or judgement one person has on another. That is how it is truly defined, yet those who still live by the original cliché’ define a first impression as the first time that a person meets.

Following the correct definition, it would be universally correct to say that you have a first impression each time you see someone, whether it is your first time meeting them or 100th.

While I agree that how you look, your behaviors, and actions create the first judgement on you when you first meet someone, your true first impression is how the conversation or meeting with the person will go. You have the ability to make a new first impression with each meeting by going in with a positive attitude, an open conscious, and the willingness to help the other person.

Stay Positive and Impressionable

Garth E. Beyer

The photo is of me participating in a Live Radio Talk Show about the Running Start Program in Belvidere, Illinois. Though I have met the other people I talked with previously, I had the opportunity to make a first impression that I was prepared to do the talk show. I was optimistic and energized to take part in the talk show and socialize.

It PAYS To Be Early

It PAYS To Be Early

Garth Beyer

Do you know that feeling of seeing the sun rise? How aesthetic and life-energizing it is? The sight of it transports you to a realm of endless peacefulness. It nearly makes you feel as warm as the sun itself. It reminds you the world is a beautiful place.  What if I told you that you could have a similar reaction by getting to work earlier than usual? What if I shared with you an idea that you would consider skipping watching the sunrise to partake in? Read On.

We generally don’t get paid for arriving at our jobs early. Or do we?

We never realize the perks and rewards for arriving to meetings, our jobs, or even friendly get-together’s early. We just think “I’m lucky I got a seat” or something of the sort.

Something so simple gives such greater rewards than a good seat. Do you notice them? Do you realize the difference between arriving early and arriving just on time?

Say… you have a meeting to attend this Friday and you already know your boss is going to be there early to set up the presentation. Are you one of the few that sees this as an opportunity? Or are you thinking “I have to make sure I am on time, I can’t let my boss catch me being late again”?

What you should be thinking is the next step to work, relationship, and financial progress. You may consider asking your boss if he or she needs help setting up. Don’t be a suck up.  Despite what movies suggest, successful CEO’s are not surrounded by suck-ups. They are connected with activators and those who take matters into their own hands and form them into successful creations. Don’t ask if your boss could use some extra help getting things ready, put yourself in the position. YOU can be the reason that the meeting went effortlessly and efficiently. A good deed never goes unnoticed. Whether you can see that your actions had a positive impact or not, your boss will be mentioning your name when talking to other CEO’s because of your simple contribution of time and energy. — And to think, all it took was getting to work 20 minutes earlier.

Just a thought,
In order to be first, you need to be first!

Stay Positive and remember the alarm does not go off to punish you. It goes off to let you know that an opportunity to succeed -further than you have already- is awaiting for you to grab hold of it.

Garth E. Beyer