Expectation

Getting That Promotion And Recognition

Garth Beyer

Getting Ahead

You can’t get ahead or become remarkable by asking your boss how. By asking what you can do to get the promotion, to get the recognition, to get the page views, you’re setting their expectations and spoiling the surprise.

I was fortunate the other day when I heard a PR director say they hired someone who wrote weekly posts for the agencies internal blog. That director isn’t going to tell every intern to write those posts. If she did, it wouldn’t be special, wouldn’t be remarkable, wouldn’t be exceeding expectations; it would merely be doing what she suggested.

To get that promotion and recognition you’re striving for, you’ve got to get uncomfortable, you’ve got find ways to do things differently, you’ve got to do the unexpected.

Often times, it doesn’t matter how great what you do is, it’s really just a matter of you doing it. That director never said the blog posts were great. Hell, she might not have even read them. It was the fact the intern did something unexpected (and consistently!) that made her stand out.

 

Stay Positive & What Are You Doing With Your Downtime?

Your Success Story

Your Success Story

Garth Beyer

Storytelling Your Success Story

It doesn’t need to be how you starved for years before people bought some of your art.

It doesn’t need to be how you read thousands and thousands of books as a child before you realized you were a writer.

It doesn’t need to be who your family is connected to.

You know these stories because of their popularity. They were once rare, which made them famous stories at the time. Now a starving artist is expected, writers are expected to read a lot, and if you have a lot of money, people first wonder who you’re related to, not how you did it.

These don’t make for good stories anymore, so why try replicating them?

By all means, learn from the already-accomplished, have idols, imitate morning habits if you want to, but make your success story your own.

 

Stay Positive & Tell A Story No One Has Told Before

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The “IOU” Paradox And How To Best Give

Garth Beyer

I give a lot. I love to give, I mean, really really love to give. Time, money, resources, tools, and so on, I give it all to those who ask, and even more to those who don’t.

What I can’t stand are the reactions I get when I give – the old “IOU”. Every time I give, it comes out in some shape or form. Here are some examples? Do they sound familiar?

“I’ll pay you back”

“Next time, I’ll get it”

“Why don’t you take this since you are giving me that“

and the worst of all, the “IOU”

Not to start a debate -by all means go ahead if you want- people are naturally good. There are very few people who I have given to that when I continuously asked why they thought they owed me, they came up with a statement which basically said that since I gave to them, they felt they needed to give to me. Balance. Those are good people, but oh so very annoying.

People may be naturally good, but they are also naturally and extremely self-centered. So self-centered that they care more about the need for that balance of giving back to the person who gave to them, than they do the simple fact that the person who gave to them, does not want anything in return. You are insulting the person and degrading the bliss they feel for giving without that expectation when you fulfill an expectation that is not there.

That is all fine and dandy, human nature, all of which you have experienced yourself or can rightly agree with.

But then someone comes along and doesn’t praise you for giving without an expectation, doesn’t say the infamous words of IOU, takes what you gave and never mentions it again. This is where the IOU paradox presents itself.

Despite the ever-present blissful feeling of giving without an expectation of a return, you feel swindled. You question whether they know you gave to them because you cared about them, that you felt their was an invisible but mutual respect for one another, you thought that them not giving you an IOU would make you feel even more incredible, but sadly… it doesn’t.

There’s no winning, but you still have two options. Either you can deal with them never mentioning your gift again, or you can convince them of how deserving they are of it so they don’t feel that it’s a gift, rather, an award for living remarkably.

I prefer the latter.

 

Stay Positive & Want An Award? Who doesn’t?

Garth E. Beyer

My Ishmael

Garth Beyer

I know that a couple book regurgitations ago I said that I really disliked reading books a second or third time. Not so ironically, this regurgitation of the book My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is the result of a second reading. I knew it was an extremely powerful book and since I did not write a regurgitation last time, I wanted to write it before I gave it away for someone else to use as a tool to change the world.

The more books I read, especially ones by people like Daniel Quinn, the more I feel absolutely guilty of holding back the world when I put the book back on the shelf instead of giving it to someone else to read. Whether the person I give the book does the same or ends up sticking it on their shelf after reading it, at least I can say I gave a motivational tool to someone. I didn’t make it a keepsake. I helped the world become one person better than what it was by giving a good book to them. A good book can work wonders.

You will notice just how strong My Ishmael is as I write this regurgitation. Enjoy.

“Adults get real cranky if you quiz them about the scams they’re running on you.” (Pg 23) Real cranky, I might add.

 

If food became free, no more lock and no more key, what would become of thee.

You are food. You are who tradition feeds on endlessly.

But tradition holds the lock and you the key.- My own little jingle I came up with.

 

 

“Another rule of thumb you can use to identify the people of your culture is this: They perceive themselves to be members of a race that is fundamentally flawed and inherently doomed to suffering and misery. Because they’re fundamentally flawed, they expect wisdom to be a rare commodity, difficult to acquire. Because theyre inherently doomed, they’re not surprised to be living in the midst of poverty, injustice and crime, not surprised that their rulers are self-serving and corrupt, not surprised to be rendering the world uninhabitable for themselves. They may be indignant about these things, but they’re not surprised by them, because this is how they expect things to be.” (Pg 40)

I recently wrote a regurgitation on a book of history that persuaded me to comment about how history must to be taught in a way that teaches us “how” and “why”, not “what” happened. My Ishmael does part of it in the sense that he knows the future depends on understanding how we came to be the way we are.

I have always said that people want you to succeed, they really do. After reading My Ishmael, I realized why they do. People are meant to live successful lives. If we can just get enough people to ask themselves (ask yourself now), “Am I successful?” If the answer is no, then the way you’re living isn’t right and that effects everyone. You can’t not share success, so you must define what successful is and then try to live it that way for all of humanity to become wealthy. -And not the type of wealth that involves money, I’m speaking about the intangible kind of wealth-

 

Quinn notes how we perceive ourselves as being deprived of essential knowledge so special we can only access it through supernatural means. When really, essential knowledge comes from understanding and you don’t need superpowers to understand anything, just some time and a desire to actually understand it.Until that desire is declared, we will continue thinking of ourselves as wisdomonically impoverished. (Yes I made that word up)

Wisdom plays a huge role in Quinn’s reality that no invention ever comes into being fully developed in a single step from nothing. Wisdom is having an understanding of everything that has lead you to your current thought. It may take a billion ideas and theories before you become wise on a single subject just as it may take a billion projects and prototypes before an invention is fully developed. Most importantly, give it another year and the wise will become wiser and the inventor more inventive.

 

“Whatever grows without limit must inevitably end by overwhelming the universe” (Pg 62)

Quinn was sure to note that nothing comes into existence from failing and I had to add, ‘but anything can fail and become nonexistent.’

On the note of failure I must proclaim that anything that makes failure hurt will help you succeed.

“We know how to cope with everything that has already happened but we dont know how to cope with what has never happened before” – Daniel Quinn

Humans are passionate but inconsistent. [I’d like to quote myself on this…]

“I sense that more and more of you are becoming alarmed about your headlong plunge toward catastrophe. I sense that more and more of you are casting about for new ideas” (pg 127)

Quinn on school: “Do you know why students ask so many questions about their (the teachers) hobbies?” Because the teacher expresses real passion about it and even if the students don’t have any interest in their hobby, they are sung into listening from the teachers passion in telling.

School produces no value or skills because if they did, you would enter the job market competing with siblings for the same jobs that they worked to get by doing the menial jobs, the grunt work. That may be unfair to you, but I feel that the fact that it comes down to this is unfair.

“Imagine what a twelve-year-old with a musical bent could learn at a recording studio. Imagine what  twelve-year-old with an interest in animals could learn at a zoo. Imagine what a twelve-year-old with an interest in painting could learn in an artist’s studio. Imagine what a twelve-year-old with an interest in performing could learn in a circus.” (Pg 164)

I have to agree with Quinn that if people were free to follow their passions, there would not be a single occupation that someone wouldn’t pursue.

Note: One of Quinn’s golden nuggets is definitely his explanation of the ‘make products to get products’, ‘give support to get support’ charts. Highly worth reading just for that.

“A problem shared wildly is no problem at all” (Pg 183)

Quinn’s 7 point plan — One: the revolution won’t take place all at once. Two: it will be achieved incrementally, by people working off each other’s ideas. Three: it will be led by no one. Four: it will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body. Five: it has no target end point. Six: it will proceed according to no plan. Seven: it will reward those who further the revolution with the coin of the revolution.

 

A positive revolution can only occur when you give something better than what a person already has. By giving something better, they lose interest in what they we’re just doing. I suppose that is a background theme to why I write; I just want you to know of all the possibilities and options that are open to you in hopes that you will let go of the destructive habits well all indulge ourselves in. I give you my total support. No reservations.

Humans are taught to expect little from life. Can we change that?

 

Stay Positive & An Experienced Intriguer And Confidence Trickster

Garth E. Beyer

The Need To Fulfill Expectations

Garth Beyer

Especially easy ones.

But fulfilling the wrong ones (also known as easy ones) can lead you astray, taking you off the course of fluidity and least resistance. For example, if you get woken up at 4:30am by someone being loud and insincere, it’s so easy to yell at the person who woke you. Why? The person expects you to. For some reason it’s been engrained in your mind that if you get woken up early, you have the right to be mad.

But are you really upset? Is it the end of the world? Did anyone die? Was it a life altering event? Could it have been worse? Maybe the person was in a rush to get to work on time? Maybe something woke them up early so they were aggravated?

Instead of listing more examples, discover your own. For one day, write down all the problems you have with people throughout the day. After you write them or at the end of the day, reflect on the experience and cross it off IF after you think about it, it really didn’t make you upset, but it was only how society expected you to feel. You will find that most of the problems will get crossed off.

If people expect us to act a certain way (typically negative types of feelings: sad, angry, upset, stressed, frustrated, injured), were going to feel that way and fulfill their expectations. Sure because it’s easy but also because you unintentionally don’t want to let other people experience the dissatisfaction of being wrong in expecting you to act a certain way.

Why?

It seems silly but the reason for it is that you feel that since they assumed you’re going to react a certain way- that they are prepared for it, that they deserve it, that everything is set in motion for you to react by fulfilling the expectation. (Status-quo is hard to break!)

The last attribute to fulfilling expectations is instinct. With instinct every person will act selfishly. When you do the experiment above and take that moment to write down the problem and reflect, you will see that you may be putting more trouble and stress on the other person than what troubled you to begin with.

It is damn hard to live in Zen and to prevent yourself from fulfilling the expectations of negative reactions. It’s difficult to remain relaxed, stay centered, and to be focused on the “why” of your reaction.

Stay Positive & It Doesn’t Do Good To Either Party When You Fulfill An Expectation Of A Negative Reaction

Garth E. Beyer