Climbing The Ladder

Movement Tells A Story

Garth Beyer

Story Ladder

What you’re passionate about doesn’t necessarily come easy. No matter if you’re doing what you love or not, you’re still climbing a ladder, trying to reach the top, trying to make progress.

Creating art is a method of taking on problems from an outer level with complete focus and forming them into an almost subconscious solution process that allows you to then focus on the next problem. Each step of the ladder presents a new problem to solve. At face value, it’s not enjoyable, not fun, but what sets an artist apart from others who climb is that they find a way to love the process, to enjoy the struggle.

We build value in ourselves when we climb the ladder, when we accomplish goals, when we are moving. When we stop moving up the ladder to say “look at me now,” we tell the wrong story. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives, Cody Delistraty at The Atlantic writes. Storytelling when standing still is an oxymoron. It doesn’t resonate well, it doesn’t inspire, it doesn’t tell the message you really want to be telling.

People view you differently when seeing where you’re at now, compared to where you’re going. Sure, saying where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished and how you got to where you’re at now can be remarkable, but only if people know there is more to come from you; that where you decided to stop and shout down is not the highest you will climb.

Movement tells a story, and people die standing still.

If tasks start seeming easy, if you tackle all your problems subconsciously, if there’s no longer need to focus, no struggle with a problem, it means you’ve stopped climbing, that you’re standing still.

 

Stay Positive & Is That Really The Story You Want To Tell?

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The Unfair Advantage Of Those In PR

Garth Beyer

If you’re going into PR, you better already know that it’s nearly all about connections. Knowing people who know people. That’s how you will land your first job, your second, and third. That’s how you will learn about your clients, your employer, your co-workers, your friends, and your enemies.

If you really want to move up the ladder, it’s done by getting a lift from the helping hand of others. Those who think people have an unfair advantage by knowing people would call this way of helping those whom you know, climbing people. They are ashamed that anyone would do such a thing. To them, though you may be up, they look down upon you. They see it as the only way you can go up in the corporate world is to get on the shoulders of a person taller than you. It’s unfair to them that they work hard while you keep climbing people because you know more of them.

I’ve heard people complain that the only reason a person got a job is because they knew someone, the only reason they got accepted was because they were friends with an insider, the only reason they landed the contract was because a family member is the head of the contracting department; the list is endless.

Do these people have an unfair advantage though?

Not at all.

It’s fair, because they (or you) could have connected with the same people. They (and you) could also have connected with different people and have gotten even higher.

The only matter of fairness is that it’s unfair people aren’t trained in this at an early stage. Everyone can connect with someone if they really want to, it’s what defines us as humans. Let’s quit saying how unfair it is that someone one-ups you because they know someone who knows someone.

Knowing people is life. Get one.