Procrastination Is Easy

Garth Beyer

That’s why everyone does it.

Don’t confuse procrastination with “waiting for inspiration.” Procrastination is an action in and of itself; it’s not that you’re lazy, it’s not that you’re putting off doing something, it’s that you’re doing the easiest thing right now.

Easy rarely translates to remarkable. Easy rarely has a reward. Easy rarely makes a journey one you want to share with your friends.

For most procrastinators, doing anything but procrastinating is hard. It’s still progress though.

Beating procrastination doesn’t mean doing what you don’t necessarily want to do, it’s just making sure you don’t do nothing. May I suggest productively procrastinating?

 

Stay Positive & Enjoy This (And This)

Giving Whenever Asked

Giving Whenever Asked

Garth Beyer

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If I signed up for everything my friends and acquaintances asked me to, I would be spread out, seriously vulnerable and broke. If I gave whenever asked to give, I’d have nothing left to give. Out of time, of money, of resources. I have to say no to people I care about more often than you may think. I’m not necessarily a hard sell. I’m just selfish. I have to be.

For those I say no to, I wish I could help, but I can’t. For those I say no to, let me suggest something new and give you a newsflash. Newsflash first.

Newsflash: You don’t need my help, my tribe, my resources to be successful. You have the power to gather your own tribe and create a strategy for success.

Something new: Do the hard work. Don’t seek out the people who can make your success happen with a wave of their wand and don’t seek people out who you can piggyback off their success. Do the hard work of developing your one page marketing plan, the hard work of seeing it all the way through, the hard work of starting out small and growing over a long period of time.

If you’re not in it for the long run, why are you in it?

 

Stay Positive & Enjoy The Journey, Really, Enjoy It

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Exercising Your Lizard Brain Pathways

Garth Beyer

In short, the prefrontal cortex part of your brain controls your reasoning and logic. Your amygdala, often called the Lizard Brain controls your fight or flight response. When you feel nervous, anxious, and start thinking of all the “reasons” not to do something — that’s not the prefrontal cortex speaking up, that’s the Lizard Brain.

Interestingly, research has shown you can outlogic your Lizard Brain by using your prefrontal cortex. Richard Davidson touches on it in his book The Emotional Life of Your Brain. 

It’s difficult, but yes, you can reason with your Lizard Brain. You can exercise the pathways between the two so you can eventually decide for yourself if you want to listen to your Lizard Brain or not. (Unless you’re facing serious danger, I’d choose not.)

Monks, daredevils, public speakers — they’ve all exercised those pathways and that’s why they can do it, but you can’t…yet.

 

Stay Positive & Start Practicing

 

You’re Not All Over The Place

Garth Beyer

You’re evolving regularly, you’ve implemented fast feedback loops, you are focused on representing significant changes. I’ve got your back. The entire market does, actually.

I’ve taken enough looks at businesses thinking they were all over the place in their strategy and checked back in with them months later to find they are at the forefront of a trend.

They evolved into trend-makers rather than trend-followers.

 

Stay Positive & What Are You?

 

Waiting For The Perfect Moment

Garth Beyer

If you knew the perfect moment to start a project, to pitch an idea, to start your own business is 40 years from today, would you still wait?

When you commit to waiting for the perfect moment, are you truly willing to accept it may not come for years and years?

Turns out the perfect moment comes when you make it.

Perfect moments always arrive (typically years down the line) because you get tired of waiting and set out to do something about it yourself.

The choice is yours. Not fate’s. Not god’s. Not your boss’s.

 

Stay Positive & Make The Moment Perfect

Rewarding Conversations

Garth Beyer

The rewarding conversations aren’t often found online.

The challenge of any storyteller is how to carry out the conversations offline.

Online interactions: voice, responsive, there

Offline conversations: (potentially) personal, meaningful, to the root

True, you need both, but I still see so many businesses and startups focusing solely on online interactions and failing when they give offline conversations a try. Google Hangouts, Skype calls, coffee dates — often times people measure what they got out of them rather than what the other person got out of them. That’s when offline conversations flop. Think of what’s in it for them. What do you have to offer? People will always listen to that… and share it.

 

Stay Positive & Word Of Mouth Starts With You

Remarkable Work

Garth Beyer

doesn’t have a schedule. Remarkable can happen any time of the day. The old 9 to 5 plan is just that, old.

The calendar of an artist is messy, clustered, and generally, all over the place. There are work meetings and social coffee meetups spotting throughout the week. The frantic-ness, the hysterics, the last-minute changes of plans perpetuate remarkable work. Why?

Because the lack of true routine allows you to connect with everyone better, allows you to attack a problem from multiple angles, and allows you to maintain an open mind about everything.

It should go without saying here that time needs to be made to relax, to be with close friends and family and to have some real reckless fun. However, these activities become greater memories when they’ve got to be fit into your day. You enjoy them more, you look forward to them more, you get lost in them – often finding the solution to a work problem. Go you.

A real artist is always on.

 

Stay Positive & Laugh When You Are Asked What An Average Day Is Like