Starting With Shirts

Garth Beyer

A startup in town started by handing out shirts with their logo and website on them to people who have never used the startup’s service.

A summer camp in my hometown started as a summer camp and got t-shirts the second year of camp.

The difference is critical to recognize. The former sought advocates without converting strangers into customers – a sort of blind advocacy, if you will.

The latter promoted inclusivity by providing a way for camp attendees to label themselves as part of a tribe that has gone through the same experience together.

Let’s not confuse handing out t-shirts, online badges, and bracelets with building a tribe.

 

Stay Positive & Tribes Connect On Experiences, Are You Offering That?

They Did The Work

Garth Beyer

I’m not sure why so many people seek out shortcuts to being successful in the field they’re interested in when it’s so obvious there isn’t a shortcut.

“How did you become such a great writer?”

“How did you become such a successful improv actor?”

“How did you become so muscular?”

They read and wrote. They practiced improv on a regular basis. They lifted a lot of weights.

The closest thing to a shortcut you will get is figuring out how to be more passionate than others, more willing to fail than others, more motivated to write, to act, to lift.

There are no shortcuts to being great at some form of art, but there are shortcuts to being more passionate about it.

 

Stay Positive & Ask How They Got Passionate About Their Practice

If You’re Going To Do It…

Garth Beyer

I grew up with my dad telling me that if I’m going to do something, I better do it right.

I’ve since expanded on it, and began sharing the view with others.

If you’re going to do something, do it so it exceeds expectations. Do it better than right. Do it in a way the receiver, viewer, client, customer wouldn’t have imagined you to do it.

You can make something right, but you can also make something wrong for all the right reasons.

 

Stay Positive & Take The Chance To Do Things Better, But Differently Too

Make Friends And Be A Better Marketer

Garth Beyer

It’s easier to make friends when you be a friend.

Easier to sell to a prospect when you’ve been in their shoes.

Easier to experience the world  of marketing when you permit yourself to be wrong.

 

Stay Positive & Do The Uncommon Thing

The Voices In Our Heads

Garth Beyer

Are not the ones we want to let do the handwork, the grunt work, the creative work for us.

Caring a lot about doing good work doesn’t mean you need to listen to the voices in your head critiquing your work, constantly whispering that it could be better, that you might as well give up because you won’t get it perfect, and it should be perfect.

Real creative work – the valuable stuff – comes from shunning the voices in your head and speaking as a human, just putting yourself out there.

You may not create something remarkable on your first shot, but it gives you a better place to work from than if you think too much about it (and people who think too much are really saying they’re talking with the voices in their end, trying to reason with them, and there simply is no reasoning with the lizard brain).

We have 60 seconds before the lizard brain speaks up when we’re faced with a decision to purchase a product or not. I’ve noticed the same time frame when pitching on the phone and writing creative posts for clients.

60 seconds before we begin to lose our human touch and the lizard brain takes over.

Follow your heart when purchasing. Don’t think about all the scenarios that can happen once you dial the phone, just pick it up and go. And most importantly, write right away. You can always return the product, give someone else a call, and revise your writing.

The point is to start and speak from the heart, not the head.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Let The Voices In Your Head Stop You

Workplace Dilemma

Garth Beyer

To build an organization up, you’ve got to do remarkable work for your colleagues, for your boss, for your clients, and I’m sure a few others. You always have to be ON.

To build yourself up in an organization, it’s likely you’ll put things for your colleagues and clients on hold because your boss (who has the ultimate decision power on if you’re promoted or not) has asked you for something.

Here’s the dilemma: do you stop doing great work for everyone involved to do slightly greater work for one person?

Street performers have this dilemma every time someone stops to listen or watch them. Do they focus on entertaining that one person, building up the show to an eventual climax or do they try performing a constant jaw-dropping performance so all who pass by toss some change in their bucket?

Here’s my view: we give too much power to our bosses and the individuals whom we stop everything for to devotedly please. Why? Because the boss will ask colleagues and clients what they think of you before deciding to promote you and the one person who the street performer singles out, might not have any money on them.

This isn’t a matter of appealing to the masses, it’s a matter of performing holistically. It’s a matter of caring about your work and your tribe.

 

Stay Positive & No One Said It’s Harder (That Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Worth It)

A New Kind Of Game Show

Garth Beyer

Think of The Price Is Right. Now, imagine if a contestant guessed a price wrong, that they got to try again, perhaps with a different product, a different price, a different strategy. Those who win are those who stick around through all the wrong choices, not those who gets things right again and again.

Our society puts a lot of currency on being right, but social currency comes from being wrong and not walking off the stage, which takes audacity.

It took me awhile to realize it, but our lives aren’t like The Price Is Right. We win when we give ourselves permission to suck from time to time, when we take risks, when we shun the audience in our mind that’s booing us when we do things wrong.

 

Stay Positive & When Was The Last Time You Permitted Yourself To be Wrong?