Being A Leader Is Fricken Hard

Garth Beyer

Allow me to be personal, blatant and a bit motivational.

If there’s one thing I work the most hard at, it’s being a leader. I subject myself to more trials and obstacles than many others my age because I have a dream of being a real leader. I start by biting off more than I can chew. I continue by making promises that keep me busy day in and day out. I manage all this by believing that I don’t have a choice but to manage it all. Today I’ve experienced the famous quote that you will likely recall from Spider-Man,

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

My superpower is leadership and with it comes a lot of responsibility. The beautiful thing about leadership is that 90 percent of the responsibility is pleasurable. (Part of me would argue this same ratio goes for any superpower. It’s what makes it super!) Most leaders enjoy stress, take pleasure in daily deadlines and play with the difficulty of leading 10, 50, 10,000 people. Leadership is fun, but there are times – like Peter Parker – I wish it wasn’t my superpower. When I’m coughing, aching and chasing my running nose all day, I don’t want to be a leader. When I miss the friends closest to me, I wish I could drop everything and go see them immediately.

There is, however, one thing that helps counter this sorrow. When someone thanks me for my leadership commitment, when someone reminds me that the group won’t function as well without me, that, like Peter Parker, people need me, well, the unfortunate 10 percent of the superpower disappears. Sick and weary, I lead a group today because someone reminded me my leadership was needed, that it did not go unnoticed. Without that someone, I would have let the group down.

So I’ve got a task for you. Go remind someone that their superpower is needed, that it doesn’t go unnoticed. There are people all around us who make sacrifices because their great power makes them responsible to do so. There are people who need the recognition. Let’s work on bringing the superhero out in everyone.

1 person, 1 message, 1 compliment or reminder of their superpower

Everyone’s got a superpower. Your compliment might just remind someone of what theirs is.

Stay Positive & Perhaps You’ll Rediscover Yours Along The Way Too

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Garth Beyer

Not knowing.

That’s the business we’re all in.

We don’t know if it will work, we don’t know if our long-term investment will pay off, we don’t know if our competitors will be around tomorrow, we don’t know if we will be around tomorrow.

No matter what analytical software we use, we don’t know if our campaign will stick, we don’t know if our video will go viral, we don’t know if the investors will like our pitch.

Not knowing is not a good enough excuse for not trying. If anything, it’s the only reason we need to try. In fact, all the good stuff comes from what we do to find out what we don’t know.

Doing what we know over and over again and expecting the same results is a death wish. There’s a point when repetition goes from helpful to annoying.

 

Stay Positive & There’s A Reason We Always Round Up

All Sorts Of Advice About Writing

Garth Beyer

Writing is hard.

Writing is easy.

You’re bound to get writer’s block.

Writer’s block doesn’t exist.

You need to write at least 2,000 words or a chapter a day.

As long as you get one sentence down, it’s a successful day.

Connections don’t matter at first, focus on content.

Content doesn’t sell, connections and personality do. Content comes last.

 

These are all pieces of advice I’ve gotten from successful writers and I’m sure they are also pieces of advice you’ve read online too. You know what? Believe in the one you believe in. They all work as long as you believe in them.

If you believe writing is hard, don’t take suggestions from someone who thinks it’s easy. If you don’t believe in writer’s block, how do you plan to apply the tricks to overcoming what you don’t think exists? It doesn’t make sense, confuses you and breaks your momentum.

There are a hundred different paths to follow to become a successful writer. You only need to take one. The one you believe the most in.

 

Stay Positive & Remember There’s No Shortcut*

*Not in doing what you believe in and not in doing what you don’t believe in. It’s more about which one you can enjoy more and be more passionate about.

 

Step Into Your Artist Pants

Garth Beyer

You’ve got to flip the switch on, you’ve got to bully yourself into it, you’ve got to step into your artist pants and walk with confidence. You can’t expect to do remarkable work if you don’t feel it, if you’re not in love with what you’re doing.

The most common thread in all the writers’ institute workshops this weekend is to do only what you will really love doing. If you don’t love the novel you’re writing, scrap it. If you don’t like a particular social media outlet, avoid it. If you don’t love what you need to sacrifice to go the route of traditional publishing, don’t try to traditionally publish.

Yes, you need to try each pair of pants on, but when you find the right ones, the artist pants, don’t exchange them for any other pair no matter who holds up a different pair and says “you need to wear these if you want success.”

 

Stay Positive & Stride With Passion

Being On The Edge Of Your Seat Matters, But Where That Seat Is Matters More

Garth Beyer

As a journalist and avid conference-goer, one of the best suggestions I can give is to take an edge seat wherever you go. You may be at a press conference and have to chase after someone who holds the real story. You may be in a workshop that is nothing like you expected and you want to leave to check out a different workshop. If you’re sitting in the middle, boxed in, you’re not very likely to get up and leave. You’ll miss the real story, the better experience, the things that make a writer’s belly flip or set it on fire.

 

Stay Positive & Always Be Ready To Chase After Something

How Is There So Much Crap In The World

Garth Beyer

Crappy television series, crappy hyped up box office movies, crappy books, crappy food, crappy insurance plans, crappy businesses, crappy ordinances, crappy cars. There’s a lot of crap out in the world. How did it get there?

You can’t tell me you haven’t seen a movie that you wondered, “How the hell did this ever make it to the big screen? Who would buy this?” Let me tell you.

People know how to sell their crap. Producers, companies, publishers, they all buy crap from time to time. The thing is, they don’t know they are buying crap. What they think they are buying is a really great idea. And you know what, it’s not their fault. If someone has mad sales skills, mad storytelling skills, mad ethos-persuasion skills, then heck, they deserve to have their crap bought.

A well-known publisher in Madison just told me today she knows one author who has had a handful of books published, but never any of them really selling well. She said, “He will come into a meeting and say to the agents ‘Yea, that one didn’t do very well on the shelves, but here’s this other book idea.’ He would go onto pitching [selling] this new book and would end buying that one too.”

You can make it big in this world, but you have to know how to sell.

The same publisher also told me she had read hundreds of books that were exceptional, but the author just couldn’t sell them to the agents.

Only when everyone learns how to sell well, will the real content of any art be taken as serious as it deserves.

 

Stay Positive & This Is Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Me When Someone Says Their Work Isn’t Good Enough, It Can Be If You Learn How To Sell It. Bittersweet Isn’t It?

Who Are Your Sponsors/Investors/Donators

Garth Beyer

My SO and I listen to the same radio station. She mentioned to me the radio station is asking for $2,000 donations. The two grand donation can be given at once or over a period of a year. She thought it was a lot to ask of people to donate. Why not ask for smaller donations so more people will be willing to pitch in, she suggested.

She’s right. They would get more donations if they requested a smaller donation and reached out to more people. But why? Why spend more money on advertising to the mass who may or may not donate a little bit to the radio station when the radio station can meet their yearly goal with a handful of large donations. It’s truly niche marketing.

If Ferrari really wanted to (heck do I wish they would), they could cut the price of their cars to a quarter of what they are now, sell a ton and still make loads of profit. Why, though, when they can produce a few hundred cars and sell them at high costs.*

Even certain news organizations could put ads on their sites, put up paywalls and charge submission fees for freelance content, but why when their journalism is so thorough and desired that they can meet their expenses just by asking for donations.

I think there are grand benefits in figuring out how much it is you want to make from an idea, invention or business and how exactly you want to make that much. You can follow the steps of selling a product or service and charge what everyone else is charging in hopes of gaining the attention of the mass public. Or (or!) you can find the condensed group of people who will pay top dollar for what you offer.

Might be worth mentioning there is a profit differentiation between the two methods. I think you can figure that out for yourself, though.

 

Stay Positive & Remember, The Less There Are, The More You Can Focus On Each Individual

*Quality of course matters. Yamaha wouldn’t be able to sell their mopeds for half a million dollars. The quality just isn’t worth that. But, there are products and services I see regularly  I would pay more to have than what they are charging. Macs, Mizuno shoes, Biofreeze… Despite this post encouraging increased pricing, I can’t contest there’s beauty (and profit) with the effect of selling something for less than it’s really worth. (Something I’m sure we’re all thankful for.) Discretionary note: never price lower to the point people assume cheapness.