More Than Just A Decision

More Than Just A Decision

Garth Beyer

Everyday the PR world is filled with decisions, to take on this client or not, to place the ad here or there, to focus more on social media outlets or word of mouth – the decisions are endless.

It’s almost as if you’re the CEO, but what sets you, as a PR Specialist, apart from the CEO is that it is your job to not only make a decision, but to justify it.

It’s no wonder that taking a debate class is so highly suggested for those looking to go into PR. However, debate merely teaches you how to fend for your position, your opinion on a matter. You can debate which decision is better, but that’s not your job.

Your focus is to fend of those who do not support the action you took from the decision you made. Justification in PR is about the action already taken, not the decision to take action.

By the way, there is no guide to it. Sorry.

Practice makes perfect.

Life Is Short

Garth Beyer

If time flies when you’re having fun and having fun is all you do, life is short.

If you’re a person that is having tragedies in your life and think life is short. You have another thing coming: one longgg life of living with those tragedies.

Which statement do you hear more people respond with “life is short”? I feel that I hear a lot more people say life is short in response to tragedies: A close friend dies from driving drunk, a grandparent falls and gets amnesia, you get heartbroken by the one you loved for years. Those are logical reasons to note that life is short.

Then you have those who use “life is short” as an excuse. An excuse to not do well in school, an excuse to be reckless, to risk their lives without realizing they are risking putting their tragedy on someone else’s mind, as explained in the paragraph above. Though they may not say it aloud, an underlying factor of why people do “stupid” things is that life is short.

And it is. It should be. Life NEEDS to be short. Scroll back up and read the first contention of this post.

There’s a variable that very few realize about time flying when you’re having fun. Think about this for a moment, remember a time that you said “time flies when you have fun” in response to an experience you had. In that experience, was time going fast? Or were you lost in it? It’s more than likely time didn’t even exist during that experience, in your mind, it was going to last forever. It’s not until the experience is over do you state that time flew.

Did it really though? Or is it just a perception. Yes this is getting deep, but bear with me, there’s a point.

You can have two people that live to be 78 years old. One lived every single day having as much positive fun as possible but ended the day with saying how short life is. The other lived every single day, averagely, blindly, safely, and at her deathbed, she had realized how short life is.

Did either have a short life? Yes and no. They both lived to by 78 years old which is a fair amount of years to live, not short at all. But only one person really lived those years. Only one person made the absolute most out of every day, that made time fly, and at the end of each day wished they had more time to continue doing the fun things they did, that thought life is short, when realistically it wasn’t shorter than anyone else’s.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You can live each day and think that 24 hours is really short or you can go through life and once on your deathbed, wish you would have lived every set of 24 hours more.

 

Stay Positive & A Short Life Lived Is Better Than A Short Life Lost

Garth E. Beyer

A PR’s Drug: Gossip

Garth Beyer

You’re a Public Relations Specialist, not a conniving magazine journalist trying to keep ahead of the Kardashians.

You may think this is common sense to leave out any gossip and untrustworthy information in your communication with the public. For most, it is.

While gossip sinks into the white papers and press releases of the low-minded, ill-fitting amateurs, a real PR professional eliminates any possibility of it entering their work and their life.

See, the real gossip problem is not “in” the work, but “around” it.

As a PR Specialist, you are working with a gargantuan amount of information, on clients and their businesses or organizations. Just as well, you are being constantly overloaded with conversations, emotions, behaviors and memos from them and the public. There’s a reason Public Relations is rated one of the top 10 most stressful jobs.

Like nearly any other drug, gossip is a quick reliever of the stress. It allows you to vent, to be subjective, to rant, to release all the stressful emotions you acquire. But at the same time, it defeats your credibility, your clients trust in you, and creates a conflict of interest, rendering business with you unnecessary.

In PR and life, it is your reputation that gossip damages, not anyone else’s.

Why I Interact With Everyone: My Hope

Garth Beyer

My hope is that you remain discontent with how society defines success;

that you understand some rules are unjust and are meant to be broken;

that you use the broken pieces to build your character;

that you will light the match which ignites the fire in your belly, the warmth of your heart, and what is necessary for passion to turn into something tangible;

that you either walk away or plow over the naysayers;

that you never stop transforming;

that from time to time – the more often the better – you just start and ship something immediately, just do what you need to do right away and feel that special sense of completion;

that you manage to find a way to always keep your head up;

that you would be willing to get arrested for what you do;

that you always try;

that you be you;

that you

 

Stay Positive & Remember I’m Here For You

Garth E. Beyer

Safeguarding Confidence

Safeguarding Confidence

Garth Beyer

My personal life is like searching something on Google, just without my overconfidence in suggesting what you will finish typing. Regardless of how personal your search or question is, I’ll give you an answer.

Going into PR, thankfully, I learned that I can keep my personal life as open as I want. However, areas of my professional life, of the PR realm, confidential information of clients has to remain seal tight. There are two reasons this was tough to do at first.

1. I believe in communication being the foundation of everything successful, whether it’s good or bad, nothing should stay unsaid.

2. You never know what someone else may be able to help you with or add to what you know if you can’t discuss it.

It did not become so easy to keep confidential matters confidential until I did an interview with Michelle Welsch in which she touches on the concept of protecting the names of everyone who attends her Project Exponential events. She says,

“I want to create a space where everyone’s on the same playing field. This anonymity allows people the freedom to step away from their work and whatever preconceived notions or judgements someone might have about what they do for one evening and connect with others in a meaningful way. There are plenty of events that list of the names of attendees. You go, hoping to meet specific people there and may walk way with a few business cards that, if you’re lucky, turn into something remarkable. You may also miss meeting a handful of incredible people who didn’t have the job or the title you wanted to see.”

Michelle made confidentiality a key supporting factor in making her events work so well. It’s a skill, a mind-set even, to be able to leverage confidentiality. Not only does she build trust and credibility at every event when she keeps items confidential, but she creates real connections between people, not connections based on status, prestige, name, income, etc.

As well as in Public Relations, you not only safeguard the confidence people have in you when you keep material confidential, but you enable yourself to discover a new way to leverage something very few people attempt leveraging in the PR world.

Michelle has an event coming up and you’re invited to connect in a different way! You can buy your tickets here

Once You Leave

Garth Beyer

Once you leave your cubicle, your apartment, your comfort zone, your box, you expose yourself. You risk at all levels. Most people stay in their zone because of that risk, because of their fear. Nothing can throw you out of wack if you stay put in your structure. The interesting revelation is this:

Once you leave your cubicle, your apartment, your comfort zone, your box, you expose yourself. But what you expose yourself to is never what you think and worry about. Once you leave your zone, everything that you dreamed of, craved, and desired in your zone, comes to you.

Want to find love? How can you do that when you stay in your room all day? Forget it. Anyway, love will find you….once you leave your room.

Want to see something truly beautiful? Even more beautiful than what you can Google on the internet or see out your window? You have to leave your space.

Want to laugh unexpectedly? Once you leave your box, something will happen that makes you crack up.

Just getting out of the place you confine yourself to, that you are comfortable with, is all it takes to get what you want. You don’t have to go after it, you don’t have to jump 50 hurdles to get it, all you need to do is get out!

Go to the park. Find a place to see the sunset. Walk to the grocery store. Don’t worry about how you dress, what you carry, or if you wear any shoes. Just leave.

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This post was inspired by the experience I just had. I’ve been in my apartment all day (got off work early) and wasn’t planning on leaving it. I was comfortable, I was safe with my books, my notepads, sticky notes, pens and laptop. I was content, even happy with the breeze and the sound of the water (how could I not be?). Then I decided to do something off Michelle Welsch’s Manual For Daily Adventure. I got up, grabbed a favorite book (Keri Smith’s How To Be An Explorer Of The World) and went to the park. The following things are what I got to experience because I left my apartment.

  • See a runner giving it her all.
  • Laugh and shake my head after watching two black basketball players almost get in a fight and one repeating to the other “you’re not gangsta!”
  • Three girls checking me out.
  • Laugh at a women on the phone only talking about getting drunk, hammered, plastered. Quote: “We will get drunk Sunday, that’s what labor day is for”
  • Pinpointed where an odd noise I kept hearing was coming from to a woman practicing opera.
  • Felt soft grass.
  • Got to observe more things, people, animals, sounds, sights, etc., than I would have in my apartment.
  • On my way back, had a good conversation with the three girls. If they didn’t smoke, I would have asked one for her number. Oh well.
  • Got to feel the ground. (Went barefoot)

That list sure beats the hell out of a list of what I would have experienced if I stayed in my apartment. The same goes for your cubicle at work, your comfort zone at school, your chair in the meeting room, your spot on the bus, your way you walk to work, your seat in class, and any “square” that you feel comfortable in.

 

Stay Positive & Experience Life

Garth E. Beyer

Three Lists To Always Have

Garth Beyer

These lists are very cut and dry. You don’t need me to tell you why you should have them. It matters not even where you have them or how often you read them, as long as you have written completely out.

1. A list of sources of inspiration. It can be in the form of bullet points, a collage, or the real thing. Regardless, still write down everything that you draw inspiration from because if you don’t feel inspired just writing it down, it’s not strong enough. If it’s not strong enough, go find something that is. Write it down.

2. A list of places you want to go. Pull out a map or a globe if you have to, Google odd places to travel, pick locations that a typical tourist would go to, or be weird and write that you want to travel to the lake where they filmed The Notebook or where the tomb of Oscar Wilde is. If you broke up the world into square feet, it leaves you with almost 5-1/2 quadrillion square feet to choose from.

“Nothing beats travel to expand your knowledge, your palette, and your empathy for your fellow men and women.” – Debbie Berne

3. A list of ways you can contribute, volunteer, and give.

 

Stay Positive & Write Then Animate Your Lists

Garth E. Beyer