Tracking Changes

Garth Beyer

tracking changes

I’m a sucker for the tracking changes function of a word document, who doesn’t love to leave their mark on something?

I wonder what would happen if you woke up 5 minutes earlier or exchanged your cooler-talk at work to leave your mark on the Internet instead. One blog post.One bread crumb. One foot print.

This is a bit out there, but you’ll get the point: People are fascinated by dinosaur foot prints. Did you think dinosaurs cared what people thought when they walked around leaving their giant, menacing, quite ugly foot prints around? No.

If they did, they would have likely made them look better, would have stepped a bit lighter, would have covered up the faults in their foot prints so no one could see one talon was longer than the others, but in doing so we wouldn’t care about dinosaur foot prints anymore.

In the long run, what makes people (you!) remarkable is two-part: you share what’s happening in your life in some form AND you don’t concern yourself with what people will think about it.

Hard to do… that is, unless you’re a dinosaur.

 

Stay Positive & Rawr

Photo credit

What’s Next?

Garth Beyer

I get giddy every day when I can ask myself the question. To me it’s like asking a cute girl to boogie with you at a high school dance (apologies for using the word boogie, I didn’t want to write “dance” twice).

But, instead of a girl, it’s really opportunity. Even better. It’s a chance to make sense of chaos, to refocus on something different and valuable, to own your next endeavor.

Those I see unhappy at the workplace are those who are petrified when they’ve got to answer the question of what’s next. Shouldn’t your boss be telling you? Where is she? You better go ask her.

Being faced with endless choices is tough, but exciting, no? Don’t sell your opportunities short. What you see in front of you may not be all there is to choose from.

If you’re not willing to face the abyss of choice, you will almost certainly not spend enough time dancing with opportunity. – Seth Godin

 

Stay Positive & Go Ask Her To Dance

The Problem With Target Marketing

Garth Beyer

It’s hard to curb the enthusiasm toward mass marketing for some business owners.

After all, the problem with targeting a specific market is that you’re excluding a lot of people who may be interested in the business.

What’s true in that statement is that everyone – the masses – may interested in the business. However, in target marketing, you’re not excluding them, rather, you’re prioritizing them. Why? Because a single message won’t resonate with all at once, but multiple messages targeted to specific groups over time can.

The problem with target marketing is not the marketing itself, it’s the way you’re looking at it.

 

Stay Positive & Priorities Will Out

Worth It?

Garth Beyer

“Was it worth it?” is a question we ask ourselves quite often. If you’re like Seth, then the answer can always be “yes” if you look at the effort you put in as the reward.

While I have that attitude most of the time, some things aren’t worth it and I can’t trick myself into believing the effort I put in was rewarding. So here’s my back-up mentality.

“Can I still make it worth it?”

I don’t give up until I do.

When you or anyone else asks you if it was worth it, “it” doesn’t need to signify an end of effort.

Just as you have the choice to look at effort as the reward, you can look at effort as an ongoing endeavor.

 

Stay Positive & It’s More Work…But It’s Worth It

In The Box Podcast

Episode 19: Interpretation, Delight, Place Of Anger And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we talked about the concept of forgive and forgetting. We also chatted about handling situations where someone interprets a situation differently than you, why it’s hard for businesses to delight customers, what it means to be a professional and if it’s possible to do good work when you’re angry.

Download our podcast here.

Forgiveness – Forgive and forget?

Interpretation – How do you handle a situation where someone interprets something completely differently than you?

Delight – Why is it so hard for businesses to delight customers?

Expert/Pro – What does it mean to be a professional or to go pro?

A place of anger – Do you find you do good work when you’re angry, fed up or frustrated?

 

Stay Positive & Focus On The Passion

Thinking Worker, Working Thinker

Garth Beyer

It’s often thought that there are thinkers and then there are doers. Moreover, that which thinkers think should be produced by workers and not the thinkers themselves.

A PR pro thinks of a new brand positioning strategy and calls the doers to see it through while she goes back to thinking, planning, strategizing. Is it right for their to be a divide between thinking and doing?

I came across this statement by art critic John Ruskin, “It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy.”

Thinkers may come up with good ideas, but it’s really only when they themselves see the idea through that they naturally turn it into something remarkable.

Just as the thinker falls short in their thinking when they don’t do, the worker falls short when they don’t think. That’s why there are so many products, services, business that don’t work; there is a disconnect between thinking and working.

 

Stay Positive & Can We Change This?