Making Better Choices

Garth Beyer

From time to time, we all say to ourselves, “From here on out, I’m going to make better/smarter/bolder choices.” Usually, we make a mistake and promise ourselves we won’t do it again.

A good percent of the time, we break those promises. We don’t make better choices, we just find a different way to make a wrong choice. And maybe that’s okay, maybe that still get’s us in the right direction or at least closer to it.

The real trigger to knowing you will make better choices is when you want to go back in the past to make them. It is only when you want to make better choices in your past, that your future choices are guaranteed to be better.

The future, that’s the scary part because the choices you want to make, well, you may not have to make them. The future may have something else in store for you.

To make better choices, you have to break the illusion that better choices come from the past or in the future. The only choice that matters right now is the one you’re currently making.

And if you’re choosing to dwell on the past or fear for the future, you’re not making better choices.

 

Stay Positive & Choose Wisely, Moment To Moment

Garth E. Beyer

When You Say You’re Going To Write Everyday

Garth Beyer

It’s late. I’m tired. I have friends over. I want to just sit, relax, play brawl, and hangout.

But I’m not.

I’m at my laptop writing because I swore I would write one blog post a day. While what I’m writing may not be the most influential, its writing, it’s my resolution being fulfilled.

Most days we can go full force on completing our resolutions, other days, we have to remind ourselves that delivering something crappy is worth more than not delivering at all.

 

Stay Positive & Especially When We Are Delivering To Ourselves

Garth E. Beyer

 

A Blend Of Information

Garth Beyer

A statement that is true can be interpreted by someone else in a different (and sometimes wrong) way.

Expose yourself to a variety of sources of information to find the truth.

If anything, at least view one piece of information that challenges your beliefs and one that agrees with them. 2-3 sources of information will always put you ahead.

There is bland information. And then there is blended information.

You can guess which tastes better.

The Catalogue Effect

Garth Beyer

There’s a problem with overserving, with overshipping, and with overcreating.

Do you know what a catalogue is? They used to be extremely popular because every week, month, or year, the catalogue would present everything new that is being sold. Yes, they would contain older products, but companies don’t send out catalogues to show you their old products, they send them to show you the new products.

A catalogue is the greatest 18th and 19th century way to overserve, overship, and demand overcreation. I’m going to let you in on a secret. The secret why catalogues have died off – it’s not because of the internet. No.

When people would receive catalogues, they looked at them to see what was new, but contrary to the seller’s belief, the consumer wasn’t looking to see what was new to buy it. The catalogue became a news source. All the consumer was left with after receiving a catalogue was wonderment with what the next catalogue could possibly contain.

Where does that leave the seller?

It’s neither positive or negative. The seller makes money as she always does.

The real person you should be questioning is the creator. Where does that leave her?

It’s a positive thing to serve, create, and ship with some form of regularity. However, when you overserve, overcreate, and overship, you produce the catalogue effect. Yes, people will value your work, but merely appearance wise. After you begin to deliver excessively, they will only be interested in what you will concoct up next. (Not what they will pay for next.)

 

Stay Positive & Creating More, Makes Your Audience Want More, But Not Spend More

Garth E. Beyer

When Things Don’t Go Your Way

Garth Beyer

It happens plenty of times over. Things don’t go your way. Typically, you get upset, frustrated, hurt, emotional, skeptical, hesitant, and any other negative emotion until the next day.

Your mind thinks, “Well, this sucks. Tomorrow better be a better day.” And of course, this most commonly happens in the morning or afternoon of the day – with plenty of time to turn the bad day around. But no. You’ve already decided that since something didn’t go your way, your entire day is ruined.

From plenty of experience, I’ve learned something remarkable. When things don’t go your way and you sort of ignore it, you will end up getting other tasks done you have wanted to do, or something positive happens – maybe a friend calls to share the news that she is pregnant and they have chosen you to be the godfather – and your day ends up being great.

The only reason days don’t end up great when something doesn’t go your way is when you acknowledge that you will then have a bad day because of it.

Dispute it all you want, but our days are naturally set to be good. It’s our mindset that alters that. Lucky for you, you have control over your mindset.

The easiest way to alter your mindset, to reset your day to naturally good, to give fate another shot when things don’t go your way, is to ignore that they didn’t.

Stay Positive & Carry On

Garth E. Beyer

The Single Most Rudimentary Lesson About Advertising That People Don’t Realize

Garth Beyer

It’s been a great holiday with a lot of traveling and for once, watching some television. Making it an understatement, I saw a myriad advertisements. After seeing each one, I thought to myself, “absolutely no one will buy that because they saw this sign,” “no one will call the number because of the poster,” “no one will request the free information because the commercial tells them to.”

I had my advertising epiphany.

Advertising isn’t about creating action, getting someone to call, to buy, to request free information, even though it appears that way. No. Advertising is about creating a sense of familiarity because one day the world will work it’s weirdness and someone will need to call a lawyer because they know someone who suffered a heart attack from taking a specific type of doctor prescribed drug.

When that time does come, they will search for lawyers and notice one specific law firm. It will stick out for some reason, possibly stir some memory. It’s unlikely they will remember they saw an advertisement on a billboard for it, but that doesn’t matter, the sense of familiarity is there.

That familiarity, that’s what advertising is all about. That’s what creates profits. That’s why it’s okay for advertisers to blow money like crazy on what appears to be a pointless billboard advertisement.

Familiarity.