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

You Know What They Say About People With Big Shoes

Garth Beyer

Odd connection here, but I was fortunate to have ordered big shoes with my tuxedo for my best friend’s wedding this weekend. Who would have guessed I would jam my toe the night before the wedding and be in pain with my nicely-fitting gym shoes? (I’m still not convinced it’s not broken.) I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to bust a move on the dance floor because my toe would be pressing against the side of the dress shoe. As I said, fortunately the shoes I ordered were big and gave my foot space to move and slide around without the pressure leading to pain.

The experience made me think how it really pays off when we have big shoes to fill: when we put ourselves in positions above what we believe we’re capable of, when we take on more than we think we can handle, and when we put ourselves in large uncomfortable situations.

I’ve taken a freelance job that requires more skill than I have, that someone older or with more years of experience could do better, and that has made me a bit nervous. Big shoes to fill.

Yet, I’ve got space to explore, room to stretch (and grow), and nothing to lose. Great thing about big shoes to fill is no one expects you to fill them. Great thing is you now have a great source of motivation to fill them. It’s not so much about proving them wrong as it is proving yourself right.

 

Stay Positive & Remember, You’ve Got Room To Breathe

Downtime

Garth Beyer

It’s very unlikely your business will be finished if you don’t have a sale today or a bare minimum number of sales throughout the week. When you’re having a rough start or there’s downtime when it comes to sales, you have an incredible opportunity. You have time to make your business remarkable for a few, rather than trying to gain the attention of the mass.

It’s far better and more fun to take that time to reach out to the few people who made purchases and make their experience better. You’re better off spending the down time focusing your message on the people who matter. Forget the mass. You can’t please everyone.

Instead of rushing to get as many messages about your business in front of everyone, begging for attention and asking all your friends to give your website a shoutout on their social networks, you have the privilege to find the few sneezers who will make your business grow. You have time to make your business something worth sneezing.

 

Stay Positive & ACHOO!