Except, there are no trophies or awards for killing a bird with one stone. It’s expected, if you don’t then you starve. Killing one bird with one stone is survival, it’s both work and life survival. If you can’t do it, someone else will, leaving you with just the stone. That’s not much of a keepsake.
There are however, small benefits to killing two birds with one stone. Often it gives you a slight advantage by freeing up your time or saving some other resource. There is no need to search around for two stones. For some reason though, in the real world, exchanging a stone for two birds will give you a bit more to eat at dinner but it doesn’t qualify you as a successful hunter.
So I ask, why kill two birds when you can get an entire flock with one stone? The stone throwers who take down an entire flock are the people who can take the 20 tasks of the week and finish them in one day. These people can go to a board meeting and instead of making the boss happy, can make every attendee and the company as a whole happy with the progress and achievement that they bring to the table. Getting an entire flock with one stone is possible and only the most successful do it.
That one stone you hold – ONE stone – can either land you searching for food or provide you with enough food while you take your time and enjoy your flock before you get another stone.
Stay Positive & Avoid Throwing At The “V” Formations, Those Are The Hardest
I am all about designating a theme for each year. In 2010 it was “my” year, simple as that. 2011 was “our” year because during “my” year I found a girlfriend. In 2011, her and I traveled to Canada and took other road trips together and moved in together. Now 2012, we have made it the year of career advancement. I had started to truly pour my passion into my website, I also got another ghost writing job and a huge promotion at work (making almost twice as much as I made before the promotion). She will be getting a promotion at Starbucks and has recently gotten a personal training job at Anytime Fitness. And we are only four months into the year! If you are not one to write new years goals, or like so many others, have relinquished your 2012 goals from your mind, it’s not too late to declare this year yours!
If you can even remember where you put your new years resolutions, if you even wrote them down, toss’em. Many don’t really stuck to them anyway. Even me, as a big goal achiever, I sometimes stray away from some goals that I made at the beginning of the year. Maybe your goals have changed and some goals no longer seem reasonable to keep. Maybe you didn’t’ even make any. That’s okay, you don’t have to. This isn’t a post about making goals for this year, its bout taking the 12 tips I am going to give you to still make this “your” year. You don’t need determining goals to make it your year. While I had goals (over 250 currently), I never had specific goals that would make 2010 my year, or specific goals for 2011 or 2012, yet I accomplished so much and my life improved drastically. I learned that to live the life you want, you just have to evaluate how you live now and begin implementing the following 12 tips to make this “your” year.
1. Beginning now and at the start of each month for 30 days in a row, commit to doing something new that you have thought about doing, but have not done.
If you wait until the first of the next month or the first of the week or if you wait until you finish something else before you do something new, you will never get anything done.
I suggest reading Zig Ziglar’s affirmation sheet or make your own. Wake up each morning and create the habit of complimenting yourself and reminding yourself of all your strengths. What I have learned about doing this is that it is not necessarily the affirmations that changes your world (though they play a large part), it is the development of a habit. It is the feeling that “hey, I did it today.” It makes each day complete. It makes you feel like you can stick to your word. It creates the image of reliability and persistence. Anyone can say they are improving every day in every way, but very few have the skill and talent to do it everyday.
Pick a habit to develop each month, whatever you like, just pick and follow through.
2. Write emails/letters to three people in life to let them know what they mean to me.
Sure gratitude is great (we will get to that) but no type of gratitude is stronger than “thanks” being given to people who have touched your life. This may require you to think back and check who has affected your life. Try to find all the people who have and simply thank them; send them a friendly message or write a paragraph to them explaining your thanks. Since snail mail is nearly obsolete, I encourage you to either send emails or Facebook comments (not messages, you want other people to see how grateful you are and that the person your commenting on means a lot to you). You can even send a random txt message, just make sure you make it personal, meaningful and from your heart. Who knows, you may even get one back!
3. Start a business plan regardless if you have a business idea
It doesn’t matter what it is. Some ideas are dumb… think back to my post about my two business ideas. First, you never know. As you work on the business plan ideas might be created to improve your original concept or you may think of one entirely different. Either way, get in the habit of creating and making a plan to follow through. A small plan or a big plan, a plan is a plan. If you don’t have any business ideas, that doesn’t mean you get to skip this tip. Get creative and think of one, what product or service could you do or create to serve others and make people happy? By all means, have fun with this.
4. Schedule family time
I’m human. I’m guilty of not doing this, but when I do, my world changes: stress is relieved and the weights I carry feel lighter. Not only that, but when I talk to family members, I often talk about things that I normally wouldn’t have thought of. It takes you out of the moment and brings you to a place you can feel comfortable. As you know, making a year YOUR year really means you have to step out of your comfort zone and shake and move your brain. Always schedule family time to center yourself and make sure those who know you best see that you are on the right path. Tell those who matter most about your goals and aspirations because they will be able to hold you accountable and by saying it with confidence, you are one very large step closer to achieving your success. Warning: The trouble with family time is deciding what to listen to and what not to since they want to put all their evaluations on what you are doing. Some family members may not support your ideas and may talk you down. Take it as a challenge. Prove them wrong. Take what they say and find a way to prove them wrong. By doing so you are not only showing them you know what you are doing, but you are creating a way around any future skepticism.
5. Record what I say
Every day is a constant flow of information. You receive input and provide output constantly through reading, listening, speaking and thinking. Begin recording your thoughts and what you say to evaluate the language you are using. By doing so, you can find where you need to begin making improvements. Are you thinking negatively about work each day? Do you look into a mirror unable to see your beauty? Do you speak before you think to your friends and family? You need to start recording what you say and think and feel so that you have a better understanding of what effects you negatively and what you are negatively affecting. No improvements and changes can be made until you know what needs to be improved and changed.
After gaining a deeper insight into what you output, begin evaluating what is input through your daily routine. Are you reading the news (95% negative information) every morning or do you view blogs such as mine or others to keep learning new information on the topic of your interest? Do you surround yourself by negative people? Or worse, do you enable them? Pay close attention to what is taken in throughout the day and begin to set aside and walk past those things in which are detrimental to your daily positive attitude.
6. Find a mentor
I know how difficult it is to get a mentor that you really want. I understand the difficulty to capture the attention of great and widely known people and have them act as a mentor toward you. That does not mean you cannot connect with them and learn what they have to teach through the information they provide whether it is in books, blogs or audio presentations. Think of what you really want this year and begin following those who are most well known for teaching that. In doing so, you will discover under-noticed and under-deserving people who know just as much and are more willing to assist you. In essence, begin connecting with those that you have related interests with. It is also key to note that mentors come and go. Accept this transitional flow and keep seeking authoritative figures that you can learn from.
In addition, I need to add that becoming a mentor is far greater than having one. If you go out searching for friends, you will find very few. If you go out searching to be a friend, you will find a countless number of takers. As you learn from mentors and begin changing the information you digest each day, share it with others. Rather than complaining that Seth Godin won’t take you up as an apprentice (guilty), become like that idol and turn into a mentor for others who want the same as you.
7. Discover the 20% of work
You may know about an app for the Droid phone called “task killer” that kills processes that are running but are not being used and are depleting the energy (battery life) of the phone in order to maximize performance for what you are using. The first step to discovering the 20% of work is to kill the 80% of apps that are consuming your brain and your life but are not priorities. This also includes cutting out any of the negativity in your life. Begin un-friending people who complain and spam your social networking profiles. Begin cutting out the bad eating habits. Begin cutting out the people you meet each day that upon seeing them, bring you down. A person doesn’t need to be holding a thousand balloons to float, they only need to stop the gravity that is holding them down.
Once everything that is holding you back is let go, you don’t even have to search for the 20% of work, it finds you. Your thinking and focusing abilities will be 10x stronger which will produce 10x better results. You will be able to manage your time better to complete a task further than its potential in 20% of the time. By eliminating the 80% of “apps” holding you back from your potential, it will allow you to have 10x more success because you have discovered the 20% of energy needed to succeed in each task. In simple terms, devote yourself to something completely by getting rid of everything else that is not worthy of your attention and you will be able to create miracles.
8. Gratitude
Start a gratitude journal. It doesn’t matter if you write one thing in a book or you list things throughout the day on your phone or on sticky notes. Personally, I type 5 things I am grateful for in a notes app on my phone each night before sleep. By writing in a gratitude journal of everything you are thankful for, you are putting power in the present which sets the stage for the future. It keeps you consistently happy, gives you peace of mind and allows you to go to sleep with a smile on your face. There are absolutely zero negative side effects to being thankful.
But don’t stop there. Also aim to be the one other people are grateful for. How did you help someone today? How did you serve? Did you give everyone you saw today a smile? Maybe you were the jokester at work and made everyone laugh? Constantly work to be what others are grateful for. Not only will it make their day, and you’re name will go on their gratitude list, but you are giving yourself a distinguished type of respect seldom held. In addition to positively impacting the people you meet each day, find an organization to volunteer at. My current volunteering consists of running races where the funds go towards a specific charity. I am also looking into Habitat for Humanity and Big Brothers Big Sisters to continue my volunteerism. The general rule of volunteering is at least two hours a week. The benefits of volunteering are so incredible that they deserve a blog post to themselves. Look at all the benefits by giving it a Google if you’re interested.
Come to think of it, it may not be a bad idea to also list the contributions and volunteering you’ve done along side your list of things you are grateful for each day.
9. Plan a trip for 4 months from now.
Figure out where you want to go and start looking into it now. Whenever you seem to have some free time, begin searching on the internet for things you can do at the destination you chose and start planning for it. Think how you are going to save for the next four months or how you will use the money you already have to take the trip. It does not have to be anything huge but don’t let it be too little either. Having something major to look forward to as it is necessary to maintain a continuous positive attitude and outlook. If anything goes wrong through the week, just remember that you are taking a trip soon and will be able to get away from everything and enjoy yourself. The point of this is to stop putting celebration off, enjoy life, YOLO and always have something big to look forward to in the long run.
10. Say yes
Simple. Start saying yes to everything (with thorough judgement of course). Take every opportunity and option and work with it, create something productive and positive with every choice you make. In essence, try new things. Begin to experiment and experience everything you can. Heck, go sky diving. If you see a flier for a free event, go to it. If someone asks you to join them for an activity, do it. If the Botanical gardens or some other place is free on Wednesday, give it a visit. Saying yes is about you agreeing to living your life to its fullest potential by exposing yourself to all the world offers.
11. Schedule a date night
With yourself, with your life partner or with the girl/guy you met because you said “Yes” to an invitation to an event. Adding the previous 10 tips to your life on top of all your responsibilities and duties already, you deserve a night of pure enjoyment. Use this time to do everything, do nothing, or only do what you want to. She and I have Origami nights and other nights we stay in and play Farkle and Scrabble. (I’m unbeatable at Scrabble). Other times we go out to dinner and a movie. The options are endless but the point is purely to enjoy yourself. Relax, meditate, reminisce on the highlights of the past week, think about all you have to look forward to and practice living in the moment. Forget all tasks, all obstacles and all affairs that are up in the air. Schedule a date night where you stop time and live.
12. Complete the following: Stay ________
Just do it. If you are only going to do one tip to make this “your” year, let this be it. Get optimistic, improve your attitude, change the outcomes and Stay Positive. Nothing will make “your” year greater than if you Stay Positive. The reason I end every post with this reminder is because it is the most important trait to living the successful life you want. Staying Positive is the basis of everything that has made you happy, everything that is making you happy and everything that will make you happy. By all means, devote all you have into Staying Positive.
Brian Tracy said in Global Competition, “A recent study said more than 90% of everything you know about your job or field today will be obsolete in 5 years. It will be irrelevant and have nothing to do with your work. It will have to all be replaced with new information, ideas and understanding.”
That was said more than 13 years ago.
In 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.4. To apply it differently, the average number of workers would change jobs before their fifth year in the same position. The most obvious explanation is that the job changed, not them. After more than a year, very few workers do the same thing as they did the day they began the position. The rate at which a job changes by means of information replacement, idea improvement and administrative direction is so high that the job you entered will be completely different a year from now.
It is now 2012, would you agree with me that this information still stands true, but the number of years until the information you know about your field becomes obsolete is now only two to three years? Four years tops.
The answer behind it is that only a select few go into a position with the hope to climb the success totem pole. Not to mention, the average number of jobs that allow position advancement (promotions) with reasonable ease is 4/10. The reason for the number being so low is that those who continue to gobble up new information, form the improvement concepts and devote themselves to further understanding of the occupation, not only take the higher positions in the workplace, but they keep them.
If you’re not constantly devouring new information, if you’re not consistently getting better, you are getting worse. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people die standing still.
For me, I would prefer that instead of changing jobs nearly every other year, we incorporate an aggressive “success” mindset. It’s also wise to consider the fact that when you start a new job, you have to learn all new information anyway. New information and the same low wage and respect? Or new information and a higher wage and more respect? Both of which require the same amount of effort.
Stay Positive & Keep In Mind That Changing Jobs To Keep Yourself Low On The Totem Pole Is The Same As Standing Still
In reflection, it has been a long five months full of successful change and improvements. Originally my hopes were to write five blog posts a week. Although some weeks had fewer and other weeks more, the average actually comes out to five posts a week. Isn’t it incredible how things can manifest, especially when they are not in the way you originally thought or hoped for?
As with any habit, in my case writing, you have the ability to increase and improve that habit. In fact, that is exactly what I plan to do with this blog. Beginning now, I am shooting for a minimum of six posts a week, with a goal of one a day. With this effort I am asking you to push me to write even more and stronger posts, including posts that answer questions you have.
Which leads me to announce a big improvement to GarthBox. In two days I will be creating a separate page for you to contact me with a question and I will write a post answering that question. But this will be unique, there is a trick to it so make sure to check the page out for details.
Back on track, just as the content I provide is meant to hold you accountable to incorporate what you read into your life and to push yourself. The way you can push me to do much more than I say I will do is to post comments, pose questions and give me and everyone else your own thoughts about each post, “like” a post on Facebook, tweet content and simply make a ruckus out of what I write.
By extension, you deserve the credit for anyone who is helped by the posts I write if you are the one who shares it. In fact, all I did was make you aware of your own success and life-improving abilities. You have all the knowledge and power to begin changing and creating the perfect life you want with all the positive relationships, passive income, persistent motivation and much more.
With that being said, I will be retiring the motto that GarthBox is a place for you to find all the resources that will “Get you out of your box one life lesson at a time”. While I fully believe that everyone needs to step out of their comfort zone, including me (that’s how I get my content), I also believe that we all have the tools inside of us. I simply write to make you aware. GarthBox’s motto is now “Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What’s In It?” With this change, it calls upon me to increase the strength and amount of content I provide. Rather than the 80/20 rule, I will push myself for the 90/10 rule, the GarthBox law. Because after all, no one needs (or wants [referring to Occupy movement’s anger toward]) to be in the top 1%, you can be just as happy, maybe happier, to be in the top 10% percent. It also puts the (positive) pressure on you to use what you have been given to get yourself where you want to go.
Besides all the improvements, this 100th post is about giving my thanks. I am extremely grateful for every person that has viewed a post, shared a post and decided to make a change in their life after reading any of my material. If there is one thing I have learned from blogging, it is that people are busy. No. They are overloaded – incapacitated with busy-ness. With my life experience, the one detail to this busy-ness that I have learned is that often people are so busy doing nothing that they don’t have time to read a post that will encourage them to do something to improve their life. So with that, this 100th post is to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and even more thanks if you took more time out of your day to apply what you learned to your life. It is also a reminder to step back from life from time to time, to center yourself, to direct yourself and to fuel yourself to go after what it is you truly want. And of course all of this can be done by simply taking less than 6 minutes a day to view one of my posts.
Stay Positive & Live On
Garth E. Beyer
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Bonus:
I’ve been asked “What do you think we ought to do about education?” and my answers take much more time than a person is capable to stand and listen to. The reason being is that my answer, or rather, answers, incorporate thousands of other students’ responses because I have asked them, I have grown up with them and I am one of them. I have heard every improvement idea and route a student would rather take than what is placed in our education system now. My question to them, to parents, to taxpayers and other ruckus-making educators…”Why don’t we do anything about the way school is taught?”
Instead of waiting for the answer, I am one of few that is standing up and taking action. Anyone who comments below with their email address or likes this post will receive the earliest edition of my eBook “Start Schooling Dreams”.
but the New York Empire State Building was built in 13 months.
I don’t know of a single goal (in this case, of building something) that does not have a setback – some type of challenge that you have to overcome in order to accomplish it. After all, if there wasn’t a challenge to it, then it wouldn’t be a goal, it would be done.
Nor do I know of a single goal that you haven’t had to work hard for. It could be a small daily goal or a life goal, either way you have to work hard and keep working consistently, day after day, if you want to make something of your goal, yourself and your life.
Another key: The workers who were building Rome had persistence. They never lost faith in their vision even though it took them hundreds of years to “finish”. If anything, each day, each small improvement, gave them more faith despite the fact there was no immediate noticeable and worthy advancement. People lived to work on building Rome and died before it was completed. But,
Living the sutra “Rome was not built in a day” is a trap.
If you know it’s going to take a while to accomplish a certain goal, don’t step in the roman trap. The trap makes it seem okay to post-pone work, to do a little, and to take breaks. To use the excuse that “Rome was not built in a day” to express that you have not yet completed your goal is connerie. It’s the same as saying that you haven’t gotten around to it yet, but when you do, it will be incredible, it will go down in history, and be a milestone to your life. *spits*
To that mindset, I have to say that the New York Empire State Building was built in 13 months because they worked every day possible and always did extra to stay ahead of the weeks quota. They didn’t let time, a budget or mindset kill their goal from completing it that quickly. In fact, the concept of time, budget and mindset is exactly the killer of all goals and the reason the saying “Rome was not built in a day” began. Sorry John Bartlett, Ceaser, John Heywood, or whoever deserves the actual credit for coining the phrase, but you were lazy and did not understand the power of motivation, determination, and leadership. Rome is incredible, but imagine what it would be if the Vatican City was built with the vigor, effort, dedication and willpower that was put into creating the Empire State Building in record time.
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
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.
