Artist

The Gap Between You And An Artist

Garth Beyer

Have you ever noticed that some of your best work was done a day or maybe even hours before the deadline?

You waited (procrastinated?) until the deadline was right in front of you and thrashed to complete what you needed to.

While deadlines may suck (they are never far away enough), the thrashing that they provoke is paramount.

An artist in any industry is really no better than you or me. The gap between us isn’t skill, it’s not the number of followers they have and we don’t, it’s not even the connections they inherited and we have not. What creates the gap is that they thrash more often.

Thrashing is that rush of complete productivity we get before being forced to have something produced, finished, shipped.

Most acknowledge this with a term paper that’s due tomorrow afternoon or that personal statement you have to write by April 13th – that you start on April 11th.

The difference between you and an artist is that the artist makes thrashing a habit, it’s done daily, and most importantly, it’s done without a deadline.

What do you say we start closing that gap?

 

Stay Positive & You Can Start By Sharing Your Art On Here (comments section below)

Garth E. Beyer

If Shipping Is An Event

Garth Beyer

If shipping is an event for you, you’re not doing it like an artist.

Events are for gatherings, huge interactions, and personal conversations with someone willing to contribute as much, if not more than you.

Events are for seminars and being the star of a publicized interview about your latest art.

Events have less to do with consistency, and more to do with the spontaneity of acknowledgment.

The actual shipping of your art is a habit, not an event. It’s meant to be a constant and predictably unpredictable action. Risk, over and over and over again leads to success. Risk once in a while just keeps you alive while you stand still.

 

Stay Positive & Make Your Art Into Your Sweet Disposition

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

Figuring It Out On Your Own

Garth Beyer

Sorry Tim Ferriss. Sorry Michael Ellsberg. Sorry to countless of thousands of other people who made a map to success. Sorry to everyone who made a strategy, a game-plan, a step by step process to reach any goal.

Flipping through a folder of all my projects, I came across a printed out version of Tim Ferriss’s/Michael Ellsberg’s blog post 8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials. Basically Ellsberg covers the present circumstances of degree required positions and how to get them without a degree; basically referrals. Knowing people who know people.

He communicates that employers require skills, not degrees and it’s up to you to show you have the skills by “creating your own damn credentials”. After giving all the background information and the reality of becoming successful without a degree, he challenges you to follow his 8 step process. Here they are. (View the full post here)

Step 1: Choose Your New Field of Learning

Step 2: Showcase Your Learning

Step 3: Learn the Basics of Good Networking

Step 4: Within Your Budding Social Economy, Start Working for Free

Step 5: Develop Case Studies of Your Work

Step 6: Develop Relationships With Mentors

Step 7: Learn Sales

Step 8: Sell and Deliver your Services Within Your Social Economy

Reading through all of his steps, they will definitely work. I’ve experienced each one of his steps, in my own way of course, and the results are tried and true. The thing is I read this blog post over a year ago. I read it a few times actually, and never implemented it directly. I didn’t sit down and take it step by step to get where I am today. Maybe if I had then I would be much more successful. I’m not. I’m happy though and I have a lot more real experience and attachment to the journey I’ve taken to get where I am.

See, these 8 steps are just one game-plan in a billion. Think of all the different phrases you can search in Google to find step-by-step procedures on how to become successful, how to get noticed, how to monetize something, how to reach a goal, how to become a real artist in your trade. There are billions of proven plans.

Yet, we don’t take them.
Some part of me thinks that Ellsberg even knows this but still puts out a book of how to become successful without a formal education. We desire to know and that makes him and countless others a profit. However, and what I find most fascinating, is that we desire to figure it out on our own much more. We simply learn and practice certain segments of all these game-plans until we create one ourselves and it’s successful. Then we write a book about it, preach it, and sell it to others. In turn, they do the same thing.

Following the plan doesn’t make progress, creating an entirely new one does.

 

Stay Positive & Do What Works … For You

Garth E. Beyer

Turning Beauty Into Art

Garth Beyer
Credit and Source: Giuseppe Arcimboldo

“To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition.” – Albert Einstein

Anything can be art: a simple doodle, a crumpled paper or one huge collage of junk. The best art though is intentional art, no matter the depth of beauty.

Intentional art is art that originates from a beautiful source, it is not something the is created and then made beautiful. Knowing me, I have to say that everything is beautiful, but what you already believe is beautiful is the best source of art.

What are 5 things you think are beautiful? Now, how can you turn them into art?

It’s a simple process to becoming an artist. After knowing the answers to those two questions, all that is required is action, a bit of your imagination and a touch of insanity.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere” – Albert Einstein

Stay Positive & Youthful

Garth E. Beyer

The Difference Between Good And Great

Garth Beyer

The difference between a good factory worker and a great one is small.

If a factory worker is just good enough, then they are average, it’s expected. If a factory worker is great, they are still just good enough…or fired. Factory workers don’t get paid to be remarkable to invent a new way to do their work better or quicker. Nor do they get noticed when they are great, they are only ever viewed as good enough.

The difference between a good artist and a great one is incomparable.

A list of the top 100 vocal artists or even the top 1,000 don’t get there for being good enough, they get there by being great, by diving into their creative muse and ignoring constant prods to be average, obedient, disciplined and held back. They become great only by finding ways to do their work better and quicker, to be remarkable and to give their passion everything they have.

Now when you compare a good factory worker to a good artist, the artist is hands-down the better choice.

 

Stay Positive & What’s The Difference Between You And Them?

Garth E. Beyer

Paid To Think

Garth Beyer

You know why it’s good to get paid for your thoughts, ideas and actions? Because you have a million a day. Even if you get paid 1 cent per thought, you would still make more than if you got paid $500 an hour for an 8 hour work day.

No wonder why bloggers, writers, artists and creative minds make so much.

Food for thought.

 

Stay Positive & More Thoughts, More Money, More Food (For Thought)

Garth E. Beyer