Books

Why You Pick Up To Read

Garth Beyer

I’ve never understood why people write books with the purpose of offering a blanket solution or mindset for working with clients, starting a business or becoming successful. Equally so, I can’t fathom how people purchase them.

I simply can’t buy into the idea that what an author may be suggesting works for any and every situation I could find myself in.

Yet, authors sell books in the form of fake guarantees, rather, we assume there’s a guarantee that if we follow all the steps described then we will become equally successful.

False.

The books that matter, the books I can buy into are the ones that get you to think differently. Seth Godin, Tom Robbins, Gregory Berns, to name a few. They make you uncomfortable. They make you feel slightly inadequate, but feed you the motivation to be different, to claim your self-worth, to think about things differently.

The interesting angle to all of this is a book’s benefits is based on the mindset you go in with when reading it. Are you looking for safety, certainty, security? Or are you looking to be challenged, for a fresh perspective, to think about things differently?

The motto ringing true in my life recently is new is always better. New thoughts. New perspectives. New world views.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not So Much What You Pick Up, It’s Why

(HT to Alex & Maggie)

In The Box Podcast

Episode 5: Stealing At The Bookstore, Being Vulnerable, Planning Ahead And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we dove into some big ideas and a lot about books.

We chatted about scarcity still being an issue and why it always will be, the advantages and disadvantages of planning ahead, how to handle agents (book, music, etc,.), unique things to add in a book, if it’s stealing to read a book at a bookstore, and why vulnerability makes you beautiful. This is a packed episode. Enjoy.

Episode 5: Stealing At The Bookstore, Being Vulnerable, Planning Ahead And More

Scarcity – Is scarcity (food, clothing, shelter) still an issue in 2015? if so, why?

Plans – What are the advantages and disadvantages of planning ahead?

Agents – If you have an agent, how do you handle them not understanding your value?

New uses for book – What’s something new you can do with a book?

Vulnerability – What Does being vulnerable mean? Does vulnerability make you beautiful?

Is it stealing? – Is reading a book at a bookstore stealing?

 

Stay Positive & Share Your Thoughts In The Comments Section Below

They Will Be Pleased, Regardless

Garth Beyer

Don't Appeal To The Mass

When you make an effort to reach the masses, to please the majority, to advertise to all, you are inevitably creating a bitter experience for some.

You see this with retail stores quite often. Owners spend their time outside of the store trying to reach the masses, and in doing so, they neglect and devalue those already in it. It’s better of them to treat and please the customers already in their store if they wish for more newcomers.

We need to recognize people will want us to build an experience for the mass. The thought process of most is that one event that calls out to a majority is better than five events that call out to smaller groups.

Writing a book that is safe, that anyone walking around the bookstore will want to pick up, seems to be the most logical thing to do, but it’s not. It’s better to write five shorter books that target a specific tribe.

You may win the lottery, you may have a successful large event, but all who attended, all who bought your book will revert back to their search for the one that makes them feel most valued, most part of a tribe.

They will eventually be pleased, regardless of the decision you make because it’s our natural inclination to find a place where we have a consistent pleasurable experience, one that connects us with like-minded people, one that all who attend or purchase can give the same answer to “People like us ______.”

We can’t please everyone at once, so why bother?

But we can please everyone over a period of time/a series of events/a number of books by recognizing the tribes people are part of and creating a remarkable experience for each of them.

Thing is, you may find out that pleasing one tribe is all you need to do. Stephen King doesn’t need to write a book specific to a bunch of tribes. All he needs is one group to please.

Anyway, if one were to measure effort, I’d say it takes about the same to appeal to the mass as it does to appeal to smaller tribes. The results, however, are different… very different.

 

Stay Positive & Different Is What You Want

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What It Takes For Ideas To Spread

Garth Beyer

Ideas That Spread

As I’m ironing out speech ideas and book ideas, I’m ruminating on the difficulty of introducing an idea that spreads.

We no longer need a book or a speech or a consultation to tell us how to solve a problem we have. Google and YouTube is there for that. If you’re searching for a “How to,” the Internet is your friend.

But the “Why do” …that might be worthy of print media or a Ted talk or a podcast.

Instead of producing something that shares a solution to someone’s problem, we have the opportunity to share something we are passionate about with someone who might not know they had a problem with their “why,” which, may in turn alter the “how to” they seek.

Our goal, then, ought to be to find those who don’t know they need help and proceed to inspire them with an idea worth spreading.

For a spreadable idea, you few things must fall into place:

1) You must be passionate about an idea that is, at minimum, different from what has been done before. The cue here is often the saying, “We’re doing things just a bit different.” For an idea to spread, there must be both a sense of security (doing things that we know already works) and a little adventure (but doing them a bit differently).

2) The audience must understand the basics of your idea, which you typically don’t need to go in depth about. Recall, Google has you covered as well as bookstores when it comes to the basics. Ideas that spread aren’t sent out to beginners, they are given as a gift to those who 1) understand the foundation of your idea already and 2) trust you. Which leads us to the third and final variable.

3) Ideas spread as quickly as the path established for them allows; that is, the relationship you have, the connection you have built determines the speed at which an idea can spread. The stronger the relationship, the easier it is for an idea to go viral. This goes further than just making a connection between you and someone in your target audience; it requires you to connect your target audience to each other, ultimately creating multiple pathways for the idea to spread.

Lastly, ideas don’t spread simply by throwing them out there. Ideas spread when they are remarkable, as in, worth making remarks about, worth talking to others about, worth sharing.

For an idea to resonate, the idea must focus on the part of doing or thinking about things differently.

 

Stay Positive & Go Spread Something Remarkable

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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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2014 Books Read

Garth Beyer

In no particular order.

1) Wine Bar Theory: Great short book that keeps you on your toes.

2) Jab Jab Jab Right Hook: It’s one thing to read a book about marketing that gives examples, in this book Vaynerchuk shows examples.

3) All Marketers Are Liars: One of Godin’s signature books

4) Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: This will make your brain hurt. Consider just reading about gumption. I wrote a bit on it and the book.

5) David and Goliath: Gladwell, again, knocking it out of the park. A good read.

6) The Gift: It’s a brilliant story of a woman whose life is in shambles, comes around and becomes a successful motivational speaker. The flip is: the President is on her side.

7) Another Roadside Attraction: Robbins doesn’t give anything unique to this book or his other…

8) Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas: but he doesn’t need to. His wit and imagery is remarkable enough.

9) Breakfast Of Champions: Not what I expected, but you might get an inspirational line or two from it.

10) Slaughterhouse Five: Out there. Not sure if I enjoyed it or not.

11) Fahrenheit 451: Out there too. Not sure if I enjoyed it or not.

12) The Master And Margarita: Daniell Radcliffe said it was his favorite book. It takes you on a pretty wild ride, leaves you lonely, but it’s a true magic show.

13) The Craft Beer Revolution: Everything about the craft beer industry summarized and simplified for you.

14) The Terrible And Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distance: It’s a hoot, full of truth, and applicable to more than just running. Web version for you.

 

A lot more books to come this year now that I’ve graduated from UW Madison.

 

Stay Positive & Read On

How Is There So Much Crap In The World

Garth Beyer

Crappy television series, crappy hyped up box office movies, crappy books, crappy food, crappy insurance plans, crappy businesses, crappy ordinances, crappy cars. There’s a lot of crap out in the world. How did it get there?

You can’t tell me you haven’t seen a movie that you wondered, “How the hell did this ever make it to the big screen? Who would buy this?” Let me tell you.

People know how to sell their crap. Producers, companies, publishers, they all buy crap from time to time. The thing is, they don’t know they are buying crap. What they think they are buying is a really great idea. And you know what, it’s not their fault. If someone has mad sales skills, mad storytelling skills, mad ethos-persuasion skills, then heck, they deserve to have their crap bought.

A well-known publisher in Madison just told me today she knows one author who has had a handful of books published, but never any of them really selling well. She said, “He will come into a meeting and say to the agents ‘Yea, that one didn’t do very well on the shelves, but here’s this other book idea.’ He would go onto pitching [selling] this new book and would end buying that one too.”

You can make it big in this world, but you have to know how to sell.

The same publisher also told me she had read hundreds of books that were exceptional, but the author just couldn’t sell them to the agents.

Only when everyone learns how to sell well, will the real content of any art be taken as serious as it deserves.

 

Stay Positive & This Is Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Me When Someone Says Their Work Isn’t Good Enough, It Can Be If You Learn How To Sell It. Bittersweet Isn’t It?