Change

Your Business Is Boring (Or Maybe Just You)

Garth Beyer

Before proceeding, I must note, personally, I never get bored. Bored is a choice, as you will read, whether you’re a business or an individual. I may find myself in a boring environment, but I keep myself entertained. It’s been three years since I said I was bored. Something I’m proud of.

The coffee shop I used to go to daily; it got boring.

The job I have; it’s gone down the hill to boring.

A big client I’m working with right now; the brand is boring. (…reason I have them as a client.)

I quit talking about an old favorite restaurant; boring, boring, boring.

I’ve let more friends I can count on two hands go; they were boring.

Dare I say, you might be boring too.

You might be boring if you’re not learning new tricks of your trade. You’re certainly getting boring if you’re playing things safe. Boring doesn’t just happen. Boring isn’t some sort of natural roadblock on the path to building a successful business. Being boring isn’t a prerequisite for making a breakthrough in the market. Boring is a choice.

You choose to avoid risks and stay in your comfort zone. You choose to remain out of the conversation of friends. You choose to show or, in most cases, hide your personality.

If you’re bored, what do you do? You do just about anything that will make you not feel bored, right? The same goes for customers, for friends, for clients. If you want to lose customers to your competitors (and fast!), be boring.

Do just about anything to not be boring and there’s no way you won’t be talked about, interacted with, referred to. Isn’t that your goal?

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Try (Something New), You Will Fail (By Becoming Boring)

How Do Will Do

Garth Beyer

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There’s something special to the people with “will do!” attitudes. They’re often the ones to lead, to take on more than they can handle, and the ones to have long “to-do” lists (and an equally long “done” list). These narcissists state they will do something: they will fix it, they will improve it, they will increase sales, profits, referrals.

Yes, these types of people have a stigma, many being given the title of Millennial.

I care to dissipate the stigma. There is one short way to removing this societal blemish, and it’s to change the way you think.

Instead of “will do!” attitudes, revert back to the “can I do?” attitudes.

To ask is to observe, to analysis, and to consider all possibilities. “Can I do?” attitudes are open-minded. Asking if you can accomplish something allows you to explore, whereas stating that you will do something and then just doing it prevents experimentation and above all, feedback.

Once it is done, you can check it off. But those who have “can I do?” attitudes ask themselves if they can do better once they accomplish what they set off to do.

The beauty of it all is that you can carry over the motivation, the determination, and the tenacity that “will do!” attitudes have into the “can I do?” attitude.

Just start asking yourself if you can complete something instead of stating you will.

 

Stay Positive & A Little Self Actually Helps

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

A Fair Place To Find Passion

Garth Beyer

You can write and talk about a lot of things you like, but it’s difficult to do so without sounding like you are promoting it.

When searching for passion (in writing, in creating, in art), find something that makes you angry.

I’ve noticed hundreds of exceptional products made because the inventor was angry that things were the way they were.

Sure, you can find something you love and add to it so that you love it more, but I can’t sense the passion when you do that.

If you communicate to me that you added more frosting to the middle of an oreo, great, I’m sure some people will like that. But, if you get frustrated that they don’t offer enough variety in terms of the flavor of frosting and then go out and create a new frosting, you will certainly get a lot more attention.

(Now is a good time to read about Cheez-Its.)

Remarkable change and creation stem from passion, and who is to say that anger is not a fair place to find passion?

 

Stay Positive & Count To 10, Then Do Something About It

Garth E. Beyer

Anyone Can Design, Right?

Garth Beyer

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There are so many tools (free and cheap) that allow the most novice of designers to create something better than they can on Microsoft word or Minecraft. Take presentations, for example.

It began with Powerpoint. Outside of academia, I have yet to see someone present using Powerpoint. I have, however, seen users upload their information to Prezi or Haiku Deck, two (free!) fantastic and simply designed presentation platforms.

It makes me wonder why we need “professional” designers if – so it seems – anyone can design an adequate presentation.

Then I come across people like Nancy Duarte and her methodology to designing presentations. From there I visit her portfolio, my jaw drops. I – hopefully you, now, too – am astonished and impressed with her work. It is some of the finest design I have seen.

Sure, anyone can design, but very few can design like Duarte. I suppose that’s why I am so fascinated with design, simply because the moment you think everyone is a designer, someone steps it up a notch and raises the “average.”

I will tell you this: you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping up with the average. I have said it already, design is in everything, no matter what career you have or are pursuing.

 

Stay Positive & Forget The Joneses, Keep Up With The Designers

Garth E. Beyer

Creative Destruction And Getting Rid Of The Old

Garth Beyer

I read an article by Albert Sumell I don’t want to be mooc’d in the Chronicle Review and it got me tearing up. It made me re-realize how human everyone is and how those in the older generation resist change because the change effects them more than anyone else. Sumell says, “When I talk about creative destruction with my students now, I am not quite as dogmatic as I used to be. I tell them that there are exceptions to every theory. I don t tell them that I hope that I am one of them.”

Change is constant, but so is fear. While there are those who will benefit from change, there will also be those who are deathly afraid of it. While we can’t stop it, we can at least empathize.

 

Stay Positive & Hey, It Might Be Us One Day

Garth E. Beyer

Avant-Garde

Garth Beyer

It’s been said that everything popular was once ridiculed and the thinkers behind it demoralized. The reason “it” became popular was definitely not the work of those who gave up, who let themselves be emotionally influenced, who backed off in the face of criticism.

Nor was it brought forth by those who were indifferent. Take, for example, the move to legalize gay marriage. Those who could care less whether it’s legalized or not have little to no influence over it being legalized. (counterarguments anticipated)

It’s the avant-garde who break through the glass, the threshold, the wall, the oppression, the fear, the criticism; all the obstacles that go along with something incredible.

“Those who belong to the avant-garde are committed to the future and thus by necessity, are also isolated; but their conviction that they are ahead of their time enables them to endure.” – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

More or less this is a salute to the avant-garde, as well as an expression of hope that you will become/remain one of them.

 

Stay Positive & There Is No Popular Without Avant-Garde

Garth E. Beyer