Experience

Building Intuition

Garth Beyer

Sure, I won’t argue that intuition in some cases comes naturally. You can follow your intuition when lost in the woods or playing a game of chess. However, you can also build your intuition.

Go hiking enough, your intuition becomes a combination of gut feeling and a recognition of signs. A chess player stated, “If I notice a piece is out-of-place (recalling a similar position from my subconscious memory), I’ll adjust my thought process appropriately and evaluate my options. All of this behavior related to pattern recognition is collectively known as a chess player’s intuition.”

I don’t rely on intuition. I rely on building it. And when it fails me, that only means I haven’t experienced enough. Cool thing is, failure is experience.

 

Stay Positive & Check Mate, Intuition

Garth E. Beyer

What Makes Me Happy

Garth Beyer

Those who say that you can’t find happiness, that it’s something that just happens to you in the moment, obviously were only listening to those before them, and who knows who those people were told by. Happiness can, indeed, be found absolutely anywhere.

When I look at my phone, I feel happy because I think about the conversation I had last night with a friend whom I trust, or the sweet text from my significant other that I read this morning when I woke up, or the hour long conversations I have with my mom. (Often one-sided conversations. She likes to talk.)

aLet’s look at this more broadly. Happiness is associated with two forms of events: new and old.

When I find myself wandering through an oddly lit alleyway in town, I feel adventurous, curious, and slightly anxious to discover what lies around – all feelings adding up to that of happiness. Then, at a later date, I find myself walking through that same alleyway remembering the picture I took of a toy sand shovel that I saw in the parking garage. Unexplainable, but oddly, made me happy to remember it.

See, we live in a world made up of little things, new and old. These little things come from experience and experience has as much to do with happiness as the flame does in a hot air balloon. So, what makes me (us!) happy is experience. There’s a problem with this though. You can have a bad customer experience, or a regrettable experience, or a poor vacation experience. Right? I would argue that you can’t.

Experience involves two variables: noticing and having interest.

Dictionary.com describes experience as “the process or fact of personally observing, the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.” I believe that if you were to notice what is happening around you, if you truthfully and personally observe what is occurring, then without a single doubt in my mind, do I think you would feel happy.

The events that people often refer to as negative experiences are actually a subjective reaction to what is going on around them. This reaction is the result of shortened feedback and either always a misunderstanding or the mere inability to understand the situation enough to find the yin in the yang.

Following your attention to the moment, experience also comes from having an interest in something. In one sense, you can view this as the opposite of a negative reaction. Having interest involves reacting to an object or an event in a positive way.

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.” – Henry Miller

Just as you can always find good in the bad, you can always find an interest where you find the good. It’s our inherent responsibility to follow our hearts, to seek out our passion and then, once found, let it ignite our hot air balloons. The higher we go, the happier we are. All from seeing the good in things and having an interest.

I can’t help but end with the note that Abraham Lincoln is purported to have once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” In short, it isn’t about what makes us happy, it’s what doesn’t make us happy. (In case you were wondering, the following does not make me happy: pickled eggs, when I fail to see the bigger picture, and the memory of playing hide-and-seek with my Dad in Gander Mountain, except he didn’t know he was playing.) Happiness is a choice that after you make often enough, it becomes a habit, a habit definitely worth having.

 

Stay Positive & Do More Of What Makes You Happy

Garth E. Beyer

Why Experience Matters When Creating

Garth Beyer

Yesterday I wrote about how difficult it is to actually create something. The reason being is that to create something that is valuable and successful, you have to think the unimaginable.

One important factor to this way of thinking is that what you create needs to be something that someone, somewhere has no clue they want or need. There are only two ways this can be done.

1. Observe. Obviously the hardest since you are busy, on the go, and trying to be creative. I tend to agree with people like Daniel Pink that before we can be creative, we have to notice others’ creativity.

2. Experience. Jump in the ocean of opportunities life presents you. The more you experience, the more likely a creative idea will hit you. Zipup laces would never have been created by someone who never wore shoes.

 

Stay Positive & Start Swimming, Whichever Direction You Want, Doesn’t Matter

Garth E. Beyer

 

Give In. No, Really.

Garth Beyer

There’s a million reasons why we surround ourselves by loved ones. Some obvious. Others, not so much. One reason in particular is to allow us to admit defeat but benefit from it.

Let me explain.

From time to time, our loved ones who support us, who helps us, and even, at times, look up to us, turn sour. Our loved ones are often “more knowledgable and experienced,” leading them to have a “realist” opinion of our decisions. In other words, sometimes those closest to us can be downright negative and even hurtful.

They will tell you that you are getting yourself in too deep, that you’re jumping the gun, that you can’t handle something, or it’s too much for you to chew. Now, I suck at math, but I ace’d statistics. If people who care about you – enough of them – are suggesting that you take a step back, take a breather, go with the easier option, if they tell you that you are pushing yourself too hard. Listen.

If you have one, two, or three loved ones suggesting it, maybe you should at least consider their option. If you have four or more loved ones advocating that you take that step back. Listen.

Yes, people who love you most are also those who worry more than they should. But this is as much of a reminder to listen to your loved ones as it is to make sure they hold you accountable.

Nothing is worse than letting loved ones down. But there’s a difference between that and having them being happy that you let yourself down.

 

Stay Positive & Sometimes People Look Up To You More When You Give In

Garth E. Beyer

Until You Stumble

Garth Beyer

Keep on going and you will stumble on to something remarkable. Notice how I didn’t say that you will find a treasure chest. Notice how I didn’t say you would stop in front of and look up at your reward. Notice how I didn’t say that you would meet your goal face-to-face. No.

We race so quickly to our goals, that when we fall, we never notice the X on the ground. We get back up and keep racing, leaving whatever reward (which often comes in the form of a lesson – at least at the early stages -) on the ground.

 

Stay Positive & Look Where You Stumble Before You Get Going Again

Garth E. Beyer

You Don’t Have The Experience

Garth Beyer

That’s the biggest problem with people looking to start at any rung of the ladder beside the bottom. It’s a universal problem that prevents us from doing the work we know we can do well.

Why is it then, that although you know you can do something, you’re still not allowed to do it? Because you don’t have the experience. And why is that?

Because experience doesn’t mean that you know how to do something or even do it well.

I think it’s a fair moment to share a quote from Oscar Wilde,

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes“

It’s actually easy to start half way up the ladder and even sometimes closer to the top. The only way to be granted that spot, though, is through humility, through sharing all the mistakes you have made and what you learned from them.

I could write for the New York Times, easily. They have editors,  I don’t have to worry too much about the details, just write as best I can. Why don’t they hire me then? Because I don’t have enough “experience.” I haven’t made enough mistakes, don’t have enough stories, I wouldn’t be a good enough teacher because I have yet to learn everything (the hard way).

It’s the mistakes that make the experience and the experience that delivers you to your dream job.

I guess that means there’s only one thing for you to do if you want what you want. You have to do the hard stuff, the humiliating stuff, the emotional labor. You have to make more mistakes.

Stay Positive & No, It May Not Be The Only Way, But It Is The Best Way

Garth E. Beyer