Art

Feng Shui

Garth Beyer

Feng Shui seems to be a dead term, but ever more powerful and noticed concept.

Last night my SO said it was dumb that she slept better when the closet doors and dresser drawers were closed. I reminded her there are thousands of ways that are impacting her sleep without her being conscious of it (and props for noticing these two simple and controllable parts).

Did you know the direction your feet point when sleeping matters too? Also, having your work computer in the room you sleep in takes a toll on the quality of your zzz’s.

What about the room you hold your creative meetings in. Surely you don’t have examples of disappointments hanging on the board from last week. That’s poor feng shui.

There’s a co-working space here in Madison that is absolutely electric, inspiring, and a perfect charging station for entrepreneurs. As far as I know, they’re not circulating any drugs through the vents. It’s all because of the way it’s set up: open, art on the walls, plenty of windows.

Ever wonder why some retail stores smell so wonderful? There’s consumer science behind it. People are more likely to purchase items when they are in a place that smells familiar and pleasant.

As for me, I rarely write anywhere besides my work place dojo, the book store or at my desk, my personal dojo where I control the smell, the sights, the seating comfort. I’ve learned to associate these spaces with a particular outcome of a great blog post, a wonderful beer column, a new idea clipped on my Evernote.

Small ways your rooms are set up can collectively have a big impact. More importantly, can collectively produce outcomes you want… again and again.

 

Stay Positive & Harmonize Yourself

Listen

Garth Beyer

I get asked time and time again how I do it all, and my answer often changes.

Here it is now.

I do it because the voice in my head, the song in my heart won’t let me not do it. I don’t have superpowers. I’m not privileged more than anyone else. I may think about things differently, but I see them the same as you and the next person.

But, and I suppose this is a big but, that voice inside my head won’t settle until I see if I can do it, until I try to make what I want happen, until I give all the art and inspiration to create it I can.

 

Stay Positive & Are You Listening To The Voice In Your Head?

Variant Feedback For Effective Communication

Garth Beyer

Martin Luther

Martin Luther revolutionized German culture and made a dent in standardizing their language. He would travel and read his translation of the Bible into the vernacular and ask each audience that listened, “How did this sound? Was it too banal? Was it strong? Did it sound good?”

He rewrote and rewrote and continued reading aloud until he got “yes” as a response from everyone from the baker to the welder to the merchant. His writing was a variant of German, intelligible to both northern and southern Germans, his target market solely because he had his system of feedback, he listened, he rewrote.

Note, Luther didn’t change the message of his writing, he merely changed the wording to effectively communicate the message he wanted. (He did get in some heat for adding some words when he shouldn’t have. Remember, this is a translation of the Bible, not much room for creativity.)

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. – Martin Luther

Who was Luther and why does he deserve this blog post? He was a constant seeker and recipient of feedback. He didn’t take criticism personally. He ignored the naysayers. If some commoner expressed a dissatisfaction with his words, Luther didn’t begin to question whether he himself was right or wrong, he merely wondered what he could do better to communicate his beliefs.

Now-a-days I see people quit, toss their business plans, and remove their books from Amazon because their message didn’t resonate with whom they thought it would. I witness speakers decide not to speak in front of an audience again because their first audience wasn’t convinced by their message. I miss out on seeing a starting blogger become influential because they stop blogging. Why continue if no one is reading, right?

Wrong.

By doing what Luther did and sharing our ideas, our blog posts, our podcasts, our business plans, our art, we have the opportunity (I mean, come on, there are more than seven billion connected people on this planet) to check whether our way of communicating is effective for the audience we’re reaching for. Why are we not doing this more often?

Why are we limiting ourselves to mastermind groups, to people who already think like us, to our idols or our best friends when it comes to seeking feedback and tweaking the way we communicate? Certainly I’m not suggesting reaching out to all seven billion people, but the group you’re now letting influence your communications can increase in size and as a result your words, your art, your message can get stronger.

 

Stay Positive & Send Something My Way, I’ll Give Some Feedback thegarthbox@gmail.com

* Worth a read: The social Origins of Good ideas. Essentially the best ideas come from outside communities, just as often as the best feedback.

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Stressful Work, Self-Evaluation And Hacking Your Productivity (And How To Win Monopoly)

Garth Beyer

Hacking Productivity

It’s been more than two years since I gave a Toastmasters speech. I connected with the president of the club I used to be involved in and had dinner with her yesterday. We chatted about the PR life and how stressful the work is. (Top 10 most stressful careers!)

I agreed that it’s stressful work, but it’s as stressful as you let it be; there are ways to lessen the stress.

One of my old friends gave a speech at the meeting about saving mental energy for more important decisions by limiting the options you have for what to wear. A few months ago I mentioned the benefit of wearing the same outfit each day. Jobs did it. Zuckerberg does it. So many others do it to save mental energy for work and decisions that matter.

What I do each weekend is evaluate my week in terms of stress, productivity, time, focus… all that important stuff that dictates your level of happiness or unhappiness. I stop doing what’s unproductive, I stop having meetings with people who don’t create value, I read more, I freewrite for 15 minutes every night, I meditate in the morning and recite a mantra I wrote – all the things I do and don’t do are done or not done with purpose.

The president asked me something like, “Isn’t that exhausting or stressful to have to be so on top of everything?” She was obviously thinking about the benefit of going with the flow, letting things be, simplifying life (which certainly has its value at times). My response…

It’s fun to hack your productivity, your energy, your focus. It’s like the moment you learn how to win Monopoly: just make sure you buy St. James. Place then begin to build on the orange. Works every time. The excitement of learning, knowing and then implementing the practice which nearly guarantees success is what drives me to reevaluate, review, and renew my objectives of the week each weekend.

Stress is not an external force we have no control over. We design our stress, and by evaluating ourselves on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, we begin to notice what’s working and what isn’t in our lives. We respond rather than react. It’s an art, and there is so much beauty in art.

 

Stay Positive & There Is No Better Game To Hack Than The Work Game

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I Hope It Takes Time For Me To Get Noticed

I Hope It Takes Time For Me To Get Noticed

Garth Beyer

Not So Instant Success

If everyone knew about me and my work right away, it might be because I marketed myself just right and not that I’ve done anything truly remarkable.

Be it me or a piece of software or your new startup, if it’s immediately popular, immediately caught on by the masses, immediately has every spotlight shined on it, none are reliable indicators of remarkable work, of art.

For most innovations, the fact it has taken awhile to catch on means they are important because they have won over the skeptics, they have made it through hell and back.

Often times people sacrifice their business or themselves for the short-lived, well-marketed limelight rather than being in the game for the long haul; rather than creating evergreen, everlasting content; rather than doing the remarkable work of swaying the most skeptical influencers over time.

There is such a thing as a “get rich quick” strategy, but now a “be remarkable in seconds” one.

 

Stay Positive & Instant Attention Takes Away The Fun, The Pride, The Point Of Being An Artist

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Be Remarkable: Shun The Naysayers & Your Lizard Brain

Be Remarkable: Shun The Naysayers & Your Lizard Brain

Garth Beyer

I tell my team I only want to hear how we can make an idea work. I don’t want to hear all the issues of why it won’t work UNLESS they provide a solution to it that makes the work more remarkable.

Otherwise we push through, we ship, and if it fails, then we figure out why it didn’t work.

Shun The Naysayer, Be Remarkable

More often than not, your lizard brain will speak up with bogus reasons why an idea won’t work, miniscule excuses to quit, to not create, to not ship. “Not everyone will like it,” “they’re not willing to pay that much,” “they already have B that does Y, they don’t need C to do Y too.”

Unless your gut says it’s a bad idea, then your lizard brain is merely shooting shit, unworthy reasons to not take the risk, the leap, and by extension, not do the work that matters.

When fear is shouting at you to stop moving forward, it’s worth reminding yourself something that might not work, might also go viral.

Work that might not appeal to 1,000 people, might impact 10 people who become your new tribe for your next venture.

The book that might not get downloaded a million times, might get downloaded by your future business partner.

Amanda Palmer’s record label said it was a failure her record only sold 25,000 copies. Yet, when she ran her Kickstarter, just over 25,000 backers gave her more than $1.1 million to create something remarkable again.

It’s only when we listen to the lizard brain and the naysayers; only when we don’t push on and ship our ideas, that we truly lose.

Move forward and ship something. If it doesn’t work. Follow Neil Gaimon’s advice: make better art.

 

Stay Positive & You’ll Be Surprised At How Often Your Lizard Brain Is Wrong

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Kintsugi: The Art Of Recreating, Of Improvement

Kintsugi: The Art Of Recreating, Of Improvement

Garth Beyer

Kintsugi Art Of Recreating Of Improving

Yes, creating new problems is a rich method of learning about art. Likewise, though, it is beneficial to study, mend, and learn from the already-broken. Rather than creating new problems, which has its perks, we find what’s broken, what once worked, and give it the necessary aid.

Performing the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, which means “to patch with gold,” is to live beyond the life of simple repair, easy fixing, and auto-correct. To understand art, to follow the kintsugi rule, one must make something better than its original form.

Becoming a creator of art doesn’t mean you have to create something no one has imagined before, it doesn’t mean you have to start from nothing or from scratch; it merely takes determination to find room for improvement in something that is broken and to fill the cracks with imagination.

Artists don’t use band aids, duck tape or caulk, they patch with gold, with heart, with newness.

 

Stay Positive & Kintsugi: Make Something “Better Than New”

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