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Writing On The Wall

Garth Beyer

My friend Michelle inspired me to write this post.

When I was growing up, my first AIM (AOL instant messenger) username was Writing0nTh3WaLL. My favorite song was “The Writing On The Wall.” And oddly enough, I liked to write on walls. – Still do –

Today, I read a post of Michelle’s which said, “You may never see the writing on the wall.”

In NYC, there’s a thing called the Underbelly Project. It’s where you can find all the writing on the wall. But it’s a different kind of writing, the most passionate kind; the kind that those writing it knew it may not work.

When you wait and look for the writing on the wall you aren’t only playing it safe, you’re regressing.

With your art, nothing is certain even in your most certain moments. When you are waiting for the guarantee of success or failure, when you rehearse through every failure or success, when you try to  steady your hand before you take a whack at the nail, you’ll never follow through. Doing is about risking.

When you use the writing on the wall idiom, you’re also insinuating that there are people who don’t see it. (If everyone could see it, there would be no need for the idiom.)

Leave it to other people to see the writing on the wall.

 

Stay Positive & More People Are Wrong About The Writing On The Wall Than They Are Right

Garth E. Beyer

The Greatest Life Lesson From Getting A Job

Garth Beyer

After the struggle of searching for places to apply at, applying, and going through the interview process, you arrive at your new job. As crappy as it is, most will say, “a job is a job.”

While there is plenty to learn from the process of acquiring a job, what I would like to point out is in regards to the training that everyone must go through. Once you’re hired, the next step before you start – beside the paperwork – is to train, to learn what you will be doing.

You may be handed a small manual. You may be told to shadow someone. You may be shown what you will be doing and asked to run through it once or twice. Other than that, there isn’t much more to the training. In fact, I would bet that after training for any job, you will be nervous about not doing what you need to do right, efficiently, or flawlessly. Simply because you weren’t trained well.

You won’t master anything even with a manual. You won’t master anything by watching someone else do it. (How great would that be if we did though!) You won’t master anything by doing it once or twice. In fact, I wouldn’t even call any of that training. Training for something results in a sense of preparedness which this doesn’t produce.

No employers care about that though. They shouldn’t. Actually, they’re smart not to!

Employers – and now you – know that there is no better training than training on your feet. By that I mean getting thrown into what you need to do and being expected to do it right even with the haunting lack of preparedness.

As people, the best way to learn is to do. We can read, we can watch, we can shadow, we can even give something a shot or two, but the most effective and quickest way to learn anything is to jump in and do it.

For the next time you have an interest in doing something, catch yourself when you begin to “train” for it too long. And to simplify it for you, I can even tell you how long “too long” is. If training for something as important as a job only takes a few hours (maybe a day), then whatever you are training for better be more important than a job if you are training longer for it.

I could have told you from the beginning to not spend much time researching stuff and instead, do. But that would be an insult to the way the world works. The same way that skipping the barely helpful training for a job would be.

 

Stay Positive & For Best Results, Do

Garth E. Beyer

How Thoughts Become Things

Garth Beyer

Have you ever thought of a song you wanted to listen to and then you turned on the radio or Pandora and the song was on? It’s an example of the incredible power your mind has on the universe.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

But let’s put this in prospective.

Yes, as human beings with brains, we are powerful. We may not have complete control over our future, but we have a lot of control, especially with our thoughts. Have you realized though, that the song you wanted to listen to, is a song that would be played on that station regardless if you thought of it or not?

The song wasn’t playing by only chance or because of what you believe, becomes. You would never hear a heavy Metallica song – no matter how much you thought about it – if you only ever had on an old country radio station.

It’s true that we have control of our thoughts and our thoughts have a certain degree of control on what is created in our life. Let’s apply this to something beside music.

It is extremely unlikely that you will become an artist if you never put yourself in the position of an artist, no matter how much you think about it. Taking this even further, you won’t become a famous artist – that you imagine daily being – if all you ever do is paint and stick your work in the closet. The possibility of someone from the art museum ending up in your closet is pretty low.

We can think about what we want as much as we want, we can visualize, we can imagine the life we want. We can do all of that. But none of it will exist unless we step in the box that makes what we want, able to occur.

Have a song you want to listen to? Put on a radio station that is likely to play it.

Want to become an artist? Put yourself (and your work!) where people can see it.

Want anything? Go to where you can be handed it.

 

Stay Positive & Thoughts Require Movement

Garth E. Beyer

You’re Inadequate

Garth Beyer

Cool. Me too. Friends?

First of all, what right does anyone have to call you inadequate? I suppose that doesn’t matter though, once we feel it, we feel it.

Secondly, if you’re into all the motivational pish-posh (Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, and about a billion bloggers), than you’re guilty of feeling inadequate. How can you not when you hear of stories about people doing more than you can ever dream of? How can you not when you catch yourself wasting time away on the couch or falling victim to the worst time-killer at large, waiting.

A lot of people can’t handle feeling inadequate, so they don’t listen to any inspirational tapes, read any encouraging novels, or watch any motivational speeches. The bad isn’t on their end, it’s on the motivators end because the goal of motivation is to making someone feel inadequate enough to improve.

It’s that nudge your coach gives you when he says, “Good job, but you can hit harder next time. I want to see that,” or when you finally read something in a magazine that you actually do, whether it’s making a holiday cupcake or creating a gratitude journal. The success of motivation is action, but you can’t just tell someone to hit harder, make a cupcake, or write in a journal.

Next time you listen/read/watch a motivational person, try not to focus so much on how they make you feel inadequate. Focus more on the how of it all, the actions you can make, the steps to take.

 

Stay Positive & Then Take Them

Garth E. Beyer

Why We Read: A Pyramid of Life (Information)

Garth Beyer

One reads to argue; grammatically, mechanically, ideologically. If we can’t argue in one or more of these ways, we pick one piece of a whole that we deem incomplete.

The description and detail does not fulfill our expectations. Not that we had them to begin with, but since we can’t argue one of the three ways posed above, we must find some flaw. Thus, we raise our expectations for information until we can deliver that flaw ourselves.

In other words, in order to argue one thing, we must collect one or more others writings that connect with our own thoughts of why the original piece of work is inadequate.

Simplified: We dig in our minds, as well as research, until we can one-up the concept we are arguing.

I read an article on Brain Pickings today that shared parts of Vannevar Bush’s essay’s. Maria Popova, whom I adore but must argue with, stated the following in response to one of the essay’s excerpts. In addition, she had provided this visual.

“To that end, I often think about the architecture of knowledge as a pyramid of sorts — at the base of it, there is all the information available to us; from it, we can generate some form of insight, which we then consolidate into knowledge; at our most optimal, at the top of the pyramid, we’re then able to glean from that knowledge some sort of wisdom about the world, and our place in it, and what matters in it and why.”

I love pyramids, more specifically though, I love BIG pyramids. Pyramids that contain everything available, everything manageable, everything attainable to make it as large and strong as Goliath. Of course, without the idea that a small pebble or a tap of the foot on it would knock it down.

If you haven’t gathered what I’m pointing out here, it is that this pyramid is incomplete. It’s missing a vital piece of human development and understanding. It’s missing, action. See for yourself.

By action, I clearly mean experience.  You can gather all the information possible, develop as much insight as you can, acquire any related knowledge on that subject from others, but you still won’t have wisdom. Simply because wisdom can only be shared through remarkable stories, and remarkable stories only come from experience.

I have added to this pyramid, I have argued against Bush and Popova, and I have strengthened an understanding of such a broad concept. Why we read, then, comes down to the need for progression, the creation of informational dynamics, and the simple fact that there is always room for improvement.

 

Stay Positive & What Do You Have Too Add

Garth E. Beyer

Select Motoraction

Garth Beyer

Once you decide:

You can live your life to the maximum, you can eliminate fear and fully succumb to every urge, every desire, every temptation. But there is a catch. (there always is)

Just because you can now go HUGE, not just big, in whatever you want, you still have a consistent choice to make.

Now that you will go all the way through, reach your highest potential, give it your all with whatever you do, what is it you’re going to do?

I call this Select Motoraction. It’s the choice each of us has to make. Your actions are now motorized, there is no hesitation, creation of a safety net or fear in anything you do. It’s a trait so few people have and even fewer people can handle because they don’t understand you have to be selective with it. You don’t have to be careful any longer, but you must still be smart. You can be as reckless and risk taking as you want, but you can’t be stupid about it. You have to be selective of your motoraction.

Living a full life is simple:

1. Decide to give it your all

2. Be selective of what you give your all

 

Stay Positive & Do The Two Step

Garth E. Beyer