Fear

Once You Leave

Garth Beyer

Once you leave your cubicle, your apartment, your comfort zone, your box, you expose yourself. You risk at all levels. Most people stay in their zone because of that risk, because of their fear. Nothing can throw you out of wack if you stay put in your structure. The interesting revelation is this:

Once you leave your cubicle, your apartment, your comfort zone, your box, you expose yourself. But what you expose yourself to is never what you think and worry about. Once you leave your zone, everything that you dreamed of, craved, and desired in your zone, comes to you.

Want to find love? How can you do that when you stay in your room all day? Forget it. Anyway, love will find you….once you leave your room.

Want to see something truly beautiful? Even more beautiful than what you can Google on the internet or see out your window? You have to leave your space.

Want to laugh unexpectedly? Once you leave your box, something will happen that makes you crack up.

Just getting out of the place you confine yourself to, that you are comfortable with, is all it takes to get what you want. You don’t have to go after it, you don’t have to jump 50 hurdles to get it, all you need to do is get out!

Go to the park. Find a place to see the sunset. Walk to the grocery store. Don’t worry about how you dress, what you carry, or if you wear any shoes. Just leave.

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This post was inspired by the experience I just had. I’ve been in my apartment all day (got off work early) and wasn’t planning on leaving it. I was comfortable, I was safe with my books, my notepads, sticky notes, pens and laptop. I was content, even happy with the breeze and the sound of the water (how could I not be?). Then I decided to do something off Michelle Welsch’s Manual For Daily Adventure. I got up, grabbed a favorite book (Keri Smith’s How To Be An Explorer Of The World) and went to the park. The following things are what I got to experience because I left my apartment.

  • See a runner giving it her all.
  • Laugh and shake my head after watching two black basketball players almost get in a fight and one repeating to the other “you’re not gangsta!”
  • Three girls checking me out.
  • Laugh at a women on the phone only talking about getting drunk, hammered, plastered. Quote: “We will get drunk Sunday, that’s what labor day is for”
  • Pinpointed where an odd noise I kept hearing was coming from to a woman practicing opera.
  • Felt soft grass.
  • Got to observe more things, people, animals, sounds, sights, etc., than I would have in my apartment.
  • On my way back, had a good conversation with the three girls. If they didn’t smoke, I would have asked one for her number. Oh well.
  • Got to feel the ground. (Went barefoot)

That list sure beats the hell out of a list of what I would have experienced if I stayed in my apartment. The same goes for your cubicle at work, your comfort zone at school, your chair in the meeting room, your spot on the bus, your way you walk to work, your seat in class, and any “square” that you feel comfortable in.

 

Stay Positive & Experience Life

Garth E. Beyer

Unlocking Potential: Interview #6

Garth Beyer

People can hate on Twitter as much as they want, but the Twitterverse is where I met Clemens Rettich, a small business consultant. Having sent a few tweets back and forth with him, as well as contributed to his #smbfunchat where I learned a handful of tips that helped me jumpstart my passion in consulting, I could not think of a better person to participate in the sixth interview of my Unlocking Potential series.

Whether Clemens is aware of it (obviously now he will be), he was a great inspiration for me to learn more about what it takes to successfully run a business as I often studied from his website/blog which there is a link to at the end of this post. It is an honor to be the one to share with you a bit more about Clemens, his worldview, his operation for consulting and some of the most straightforward life lessons you will learn one way or another, by Clemens or by life.

Without further ado,

Q: Everyone can read your bio by clicking on your name, so let’s dive more into what you do. What is your passion? Do you have a daily routine?

I love the beauty of things done well, of things and processes beautifully designed and executed, of those points where art, business, science, or sport come together to create something magical. My passion is to have some role to play in making that happen. In particular I love to help it happen in small businesses, teams, and organizations.

My daily routine is only moderately routine. It happens many days, but not every day. I work with clients 4 days of the week. I take 3 days to recharge, create, reconnect, rest. My days start with brisk walks and fruit smoothies… making coffee for my wife and I to talk over. Then it is time for email, client conversations, travel, shopping, organizing life… I love cooking so that is my late-in-the day pause to shift out of work for a while before diving back in again for the evening. I work about 70 – 80 hours a week.

Q: What is the biggest decision you have had to make?

To act without fear. And it is a decision I have to make every morning. Like paying your dues, this is one that you never stop doing. Paying your dues is never a thing to think of in past tense. A life to be lived fully, has to be paid for handsomely. There is nothing wrong with being afraid. True fearlessness is just another form of stupidity. It is the choice to act on those fears that matters. And I have to make that decision each morning… and sometimes several times in the day. This conversation I am about to have, or this decision I need to make, or this action I have to take, scares the hell out of me. But it needs to be done. And that decision to act without fear is the biggest one I make.

Q: How do you tug your client’s imagination and motivation? What is the core of your professional relationship between them?

The core of my professional relationship with my clients is active listening. Listening until my bones ache. When I do presentations or keynotes, I tell people that if you aren’t exhausted after a day of communicating, you haven’t been listening hard enough. Listening to every word, every implied word, and every telling silence is exhausting. That I why I try to limit my day to 2 – 4 coaching conversations maximum, and only 4 days a week at that. I’m no good to anyone after more than 4 or 5 hours of conversation.

I evoke imagination and motivation by responding to what I hear with suggestions from outside my client’s frame of reference. Nothing new there. It is the old lateral thinking, disruptive creativity, non-linear connection of ideas that still works. Most of the time the best ideas are my clients’. They just can’t hear themselves say them. So I just tell them what they just said. And I use a gift I have had since childhood: I connect “unrelated” things easily. A client can be telling me of a financial challenge, and for some reason it makes me think of another client’s story about a motorcycle they just bought. Something in the intersection of the two things creates a fresh approach to reframe the question or problem. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard myself say “Your problem isn’t A, it’s B!” The answer wasn’t coming because the question was wrong.

There is nothing particularly unique or gifted about my mind. 90% of the time there is a great idea or breakthrough of some kind it’s not because I am smart or anything, it is simply because I have outsider status and have my client’s permission to speak my mind. There are few things more powerful than an outsider’s perception, when the currency between the insider and the outsider is complete honesty.

Q: Would you mind sharing one of your biggest failures?

I can’t go into details because they usually involve others. But I can say they almost always involved one thing: a failing of confidence on my part. I fail when I make decisions based on “settling for second-best” or on not having the confidence to push through a tough patch. Dodging conflict has also been pretty consistently a disaster, so I do a hell of a lot less of that in this part of my life.

Q: What did you learn from it? What would you do differently if a similar situation occurred?

It took me about 40 years to learn, and much of that in the last 10 years, but these days I stick closer to my own sense of right and wrong. I don’t mind conflict over something I believe in. I have started to see that the worst that can happen is not a hell of a lot. I trust my own experience, my own sense of things.

Q: This series is a lot about giving credit where credit is due. It’s about reaching out to both, people who could use a little help unlocking their potential and people who can help with that unlocking. Do you have a business mentor who helped curate your passion for small business consulting? What were the mentor’s practices? In other words, how did this person make an impact on you?

Where credit is due is first and foremost to my wife and family. Their passion for great moments, for things done right, for finding that place between standing your own ground and understanding the value of others, has been critical in making me who I am. On the small business side I don’t have any direct mentors. My biggest mentors are my clients. Every one of them owns a small business that is everything they have on the financial and other levels. Yet they trust me and have the confidence in me to invite me in and work with me to change the game. This can be incredibly scary and requires huge trust, particularly if I am asking an owner to change something that they have done for years, and is connected to their own personal values. Every time the change happens, and the owner let’s go, I am in awe. I know from personal experience how incredibly hard that is, even terrifying, yet they do it with me. That makes life worth getting up for each morning.

Also, I am the collective wisdom of every small business owner who has ever brought me into their inner circle and shared with me the workings of their businesses, their successes and failures, what has gotten them out of bed in the morning and kept them up at night. All of that is in my head. Any wisdom I bring to a coaching conversation now is 90% the collective wisdom of a lot of tough, hungry, street-smart business owners who have spent almost every day of their own lives pulling on their shoes and making life happen.

Q: What is your worst fear?

Missing something. I’m not like all those wise ‘old souls’ out there in the world of patchouli oil and Birkenstocks. I can’t get enough of anything. I love being alive and learning and consuming and enjoying. I guess I’m a young soul if you believe in that kind of thing… I don’t believe in that ‘vale of tears’ nonsense or that our bodies are “just material”… I love being alive and on this earth and have no interest in waiting for some ‘other later’ reality. I like this one. A lot. There is a reason why Walt Whitman is one of my favorite poets. So ya, I’m afraid of missing stuff. I want to live 1,000 years and try it all!

Q: What is the biggest obstacle/challenge you have had to overcome?

All that stuff about fear I talked about above. The rest is relatively easy. Following a close second would be bootstrapping my business. You build up a lot of debt in the first few years, and you have to be crazy careful not to let that cross the line where it erodes cash flow in a fatal way.

Q: What is the biggest challenge todays small business leaders are facing?

Gerber got it right: failing to understand that baking and owning a bakery are two completely different things. The biggest challenge they are facing is a world of ignorance and bullshit. All that “do what you love and the money will follow” nonsense. Running and growing a small business successfully is probably the most complex thing a human being can do. The number of things you have to know about and do right, and do right consistently, every day for a decade or two, is staggering.

So no, it isn’t the economy, or competition, or offshoring, or anything else like that. Those things are huge challenges, but they are not the biggest. The biggest challenge is the romantic mythology, especially in America, of owning your own business.

Q: What do you do to continue your growth as a consultant?

Listen to my clients. Listen to the market. Respond with an ever-broader and more diversified and responsive set of products and services. My new book Great Performances – The Small Business Script for the 21st Century is a piece of that. It is setting up a whole new way for me to connect with and support more small businesses to be successful.

And never forgetting who brung ya to the dance. I am a passionate believer in the power of follow-through and great long-term relationship development. I drop the ball lots, but I don’t ever stop trying to stay in touch with and add value to every business I have ever worked with.

Q: What are the golden life lessons you have learned and are willing to share with the readers from your experience as a small business consultant?

Spend more resources on keeping customers and employees than getting new ones. Don’t ever make the mistake that solid systems and procedures, creativity, and relationships are mutually exclusive. That is a myth that simply doesn’t exist in the world of the performing arts. Any ballet dancer, classical violinist, or rep actor could run circles around business people when it comes to getting that. Discipline, practice, organization, systems, all those things aren’t killers of creativity, they are the world’s best support for it.

So work harder to hang on to people, and work harder to bring more organization and systems to your business. Don’t shy away from that stuff.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Some great places to find Clemens’s work:

Have more questions, topics of discussion or simply want to give a shout out to Clemens, you can tweet him @ClemensRettich.

 

Stay Positive & Stick To The Fundamentals, Or At Least Learn Them First

Garth E. Beyer

Select Motoraction

Garth Beyer

Once you decide:

You can live your life to the maximum, you can eliminate fear and fully succumb to every urge, every desire, every temptation. But there is a catch. (there always is)

Just because you can now go HUGE, not just big, in whatever you want, you still have a consistent choice to make.

Now that you will go all the way through, reach your highest potential, give it your all with whatever you do, what is it you’re going to do?

I call this Select Motoraction. It’s the choice each of us has to make. Your actions are now motorized, there is no hesitation, creation of a safety net or fear in anything you do. It’s a trait so few people have and even fewer people can handle because they don’t understand you have to be selective with it. You don’t have to be careful any longer, but you must still be smart. You can be as reckless and risk taking as you want, but you can’t be stupid about it. You have to be selective of your motoraction.

Living a full life is simple:

1. Decide to give it your all

2. Be selective of what you give your all

 

Stay Positive & Do The Two Step

Garth E. Beyer

Die Early On To Live A Full Life

Garth Beyer

Death is meant to be superfluous, but it’s not. It’s important, it’s vital, I may even go so far as to say that it’s the meat-and-potatoes of your mom’s cooking – no meal is complete without meat-and-potatoes.

Death is an angel in disguise, a miracle worker’s shadow, god’s secret power, the greatest treasure in all the world, it is a stronger truth bearer than the greek mythological messenger, Iris.

Death has a message of its own. This message is one that should never need to be delivered but must. This message, once delivered, forces you to challenge every theory you have, it makes analyze your worldview, and it eliminates your perception of risk which is made by the amygdala.

Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients get this message every week. The message is that they only have three months to live. Or six weeks. Or twenty days. And just like that, life begins for them. Honestly. Passionately. Truthfully begins.

Jim Rohn says the following in his book The Seasons Of Life,

“It’s when a human, with sufficient disgust, desire, and determination to change his life finally steps up to the bar of human justice and shouts for all the world to hear, ‘I have had it with defeat and humiliation, and I will tolerate it not longer.’ That is when time, fate and circumstances call a hasty conference, and all three wearily agree, ‘We had best step aside, because we are powerless to stop that kind of resolve.'”

Must you die early on to live a full life? A life which uses your muse, passion, and creativity as the foundation. A life absent of fear, regret, self-degradation and hate. A life that remains intolerant to failure, set-backs, or humiliation. Must we die early on to live that life?

This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is yes. We really must die early on to live a full life.

Contrary to belief, terminal cancer patients are not the only ones who are lucky enough to die early on and live a full life. A rare headcount of people are lucky enough to die early. For some people it takes half of their lives to die and that only leaves half a life left to live, really live. For most, people never die until they are much too old to live. That is the death of death.

You’re likely confused, so let me elaborate. The death in which I write about is the death of the ego. When a person is diagnosed with terminal cancer, or hits rock bottom in life from drugs and alcohol, or gives so much love to one person and then that person leaves them, there is a shift in the psyche of that person. That shift is the death of their ego.

Upon their death, they question everything: tradition, their fears, their relationships, their work, their ethic, their personality… to discover what truly matters and to live a full passionate life.

The only thing I don’t know then is whether the miracle is being told you will die soon or the fact that after you are told, the cancer goes into remission, the addict never touches a drug again, the alcoholic never drinks, and the lover begins to love themself as much as they loved the other?

 

Stay Positive & Diagnose Yourself

Garth E. Beyer

Quadruple Book Regurgitation

Garth Beyer

Following my breakup with girlfriend, I have decided to streamline my goals to accomplishments. At the beginning of 2012 I had decided that I wanted to read 25 books before the end of the year and last night, or this morning – I don’t recall what time it was – I completed that goal.

In the last week I have read four books that I would now like to regurgitate for you. However, unlike past book regurgitations, these will be more similar to reviews, as I did not highlight or pull out too many examples to share.

Ironically, during pre- and post- breakup I was reading The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz.

I firmly believe that this book should be read by every adolescent of love. I would define an adolescent of love as anyone who has not read the book. This makes it very black and white as to who I think needs to pick it up. Did this book help me save the relationship? Obviously not. Could it have if I read it earlier, yes, but everything happens for a reason. (And that reason is usually based on the fall of three aspects, which you can read more about in my Twelve Pillars regurgitation toward the end of this post).

While you may solely believe that the book is supposed to help you master love, develop an honest and stable relationship and build a stronger chemical bond between you and your partner, you have correctly assumed only half of it. Reading this book during the break-up assisted me in making realizations and accepting them. The key to it though is not necessarily the eye-openers or realizations, they come naturally if you remain objective. However, if I had to simplify it for you, love is about acceptance.

In short, no matter when, where, or why you would pick this book up, you are going to feel that it was written for you, just you, at just the perfect time. Love is all there is, better to learn how to master (accept) now than later.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 4.5

—

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

This book was on my 50+ book list to read and to be straightforward (when am I ever not?), I got exhausted from reading all of the references to this book, all of the reviews and people suggesting others like me, to read it. As a writer, the more I know about the Resistance the better and who better to learn from than the one who put a title (the Resistance) to what prevents us from being creative.

After reading it in nearly one sitting, I was disappointed. Not in the sense of how it was written, or the advice in it, actually, the book is perfect but…

It’s perfect for someone who doesn’t know about the Resistance yet. For me, I’ve been aware of it, dancing with it and fighting with it for a fear few years now. As I set the book down, I really do believe that it should only be read by anyone who either has no clue about the Resistance or who is just starting to learn what being creative really entails.

If a blank mind opens the book, it will be taking in the knowledge Pressfield presents quicker than the desert floor absorbs a bit of rain, and craving more all the same.

While most of what Pressfield shares is only a reminder to me, there are certainly a few actions I will take as a result of reading it. One specifically is in response to reading the chapter “The Definition of a Hack”.

“I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.” (pg 152)

For quite some time I have been eliminating multiple sentences and sometimes entire paragraphs, rewriting portions that I think are too personal or that the reader wont give a damn about, excluding swear words and even holding back a bit of my real potential. Possibly more times than not, I’ve been a hack.

Rest assured, that phase is over thanks to reading The War of Art.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 5 if you don’t know what the Resistance is, a 1.5 if you do

—

These next two books are ones that came with the Success book package I purchased last November to jump-start my pursuit for just that, success.

An aside about reading Success books: You don’t need 20 of them. You probably don’t even need 10. A strong handful will do since they regularly repeat themselves in different forms. Also, you can purchase huge packages of 20-30 books on Success but what I have learned is that when you make and devote time to reading on personal growth, you have less and less time to continue doing so. Why? Because you are putting thoughts into action, advice into results and lessons into experience. By the time you begin going through your whole list of personal growth/ success books, you will have already changed your life so much that you are living the life you read about.

My immediate reaction upon reading and resting The Seasons of Life by Jim Rohn on my side table was that it’s a book that should be read in the Winter. It is a highly motivating take on the cycle of personal growth and from experience, most people are already feeling the height of their life during Spring/Summer. The Seasons of Life is not set to make where you are standing now even better, it is to give you a deep understanding of why you are standing where you are at this moment and advice on how to control where you will be standing one season, two seasons or three seasons from now.

Something I really enjoyed about the book was that it did not overdo it with the seasonal/nature analogy. There was a depth of optimistic realism – yes, that may be an oxymoron – that enables you to relate your life to that of trees, flowers, leaves, or the seasons themselves.

We all know that in the Spring we are often times ecstatic, in the Summer we are happy and content, in the Fall we are at peace but at Winter we are depressed. Reading The Seasons of Life does not present to you a way for balance or consistent happiness, but a mind-set and strategy to make the absolute most of every season.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 2.5 and suggest again to read it during Winter

—

The next book in my “success series” we can call it, was Twelve Pillars by Jim Rohn and co-author Chris Widener

They took a fictional approach on telling the Twelve Pillars of success. It felt real in the sense that we all wish it would happen to us, so there is an instant connection between reader and protagonist. Speaking of it being fiction,  it was slightly predictable, at least the plot twists were but nevertheless the foresight did not degrade the story in any way.

There is truly a plethora of incredible quotes. For example,

“‘That’s great,’ Charlie said. ‘I am so glad for you. You will have to keep me posted as it progresses. Just remember that once a flower blooms, it still needs water and sun to keep it from wilting. The work isn’t over when the color comes out.”

The Twelve Pillars:

  • A Chance Encounter (Personal Development)
  • Live a Life of Health
  • The Gift of Relationships
  • Achieve Your Goals
  • The Proper Use of Time
  • Surround Yourself with the Best People
  • Be a Lifelong Learner
  • All of Life Is Sales
  • Income Seldom Exceeds Personal Development
  • All Communication Brings the Common Ground of Understanding
  • The World Can Always Use One More Great Leader
  • Leave a Legacy

Overall, Twelve Pillars was an entertaining read that allows you to put each pillar into action in your own life at the end of each chapter.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 3.5

– As stated with the first book regurgitation on The Mastery of Love, I will now go into a quick insight about love/relationships from a combination of these two books, plus experience. Building a relationship is based on three factors: time, effort and imagination. HT to Jim Rohn, but I think I’ve taken it a step further than that.

Time can be based on quantity or quality, but in the real world, “time” is more “timing” than anything. It’s about spontaneity and creating the perfect moment.

Effort can be dwindled down completely to compliments. Women do not receive enough of them and once you begin to put in the effort, you will realize just how many they deserve.

Imagination is doing something fun, weird, and different together. It’s about getting her to think about the crazy things she has always wanted to do but never has and doing them! Dates, dinners and distractions have their place in a relationship but nothing will make a girl more happy than to do the oddball things she has always questioned about life.

Let me know any of your responses to my thoughts or your thoughts on the books in the comments section and keep coming back for more book regurgitations. After all, I have more time to read now. Is that an up side?

Stay Positive & Genuine

Garth E. Beyer

Train Wrecks, Finding Yourself & Life

Garth Beyer

Life can be really freaking incredible.

Life is made up of a trillion train tracks and it’s all about finding your train, or the one that best suits you – after all, most people don’t find themselves, they find something safe to settle with – and then they just go right along. It’s a ride and they certainly don’t conduct it.

Then people wait, they wait for a train wreck that forces them to go back out and search for their train. Some try and repair the one they were on, others take the closest one to the wreckage, a few never get on a train again, and -what I have never believed until recently- rarely, very rarely a train actually comes to you.

Bare with me as I carry on the analogy…

It’s as if the train already had you on it, and it was searching for your body. Your body never knew because it was riding a train, a safe train, with little fear and a lot of false security. (Clearly it was false security because you just got in a train wreck!)

So. Very rarely in life, a train finds you and you forget about the train wreck because it never really happened. It may be a memory but that memory is not part of who you were because you were never there [remember, your “self” has always been on another train]

The most fascinating part about when you find yourself, or rather, when your self finds you, you don’t just get aboard.

You climb, you jump, you cuddle atop it, you make an imprint on it, you slip but don’t fall, it’s not a memory, it’s life.

And at that moment, when you reconnect with life -whether it’s alone or with someone else- you forget about your train wreck. As a reader, you forgot that this was all based on a train wreck, you were simply rolling with it. (Pardon the pun)

Having just been through one, I know you forgot it was based on a train wreck for two reasons.

1. (Obviously) Train wrecks suck. They crunch, they hurt, they burn, they crumble, they are painful. Who wants to focus on that? Who wants to invite a train wreck into their life for the possibility of finding themselves when they are already so comfortable, so safe.

2. (Not at all obvious and hard to agree with) What I just described that happens after a train wreck is exciting, it’s wonderful, it’s life. For most, it’s a dream and who doesn’t love a dream, especially one this great? So great that you keep it a dream, you ignore the fact I told you exactly how you can have it. That’s how you have gotten through all of your other troubles, you focused on dreams and they took your mind off it.

Your life is good, it’s average, it’s mediocre, it’s safe, and you’re okay with that. The dreams you have while on the train you are on now, are great. They are stimulating, an adventure, amazing and you’re okay with them staying so because they make you forget about your troubles, the dreams give you enough power to bear with the troubles.

But you can’t be okay with that, no one deserves to live like that. You have to wonder what sort of dreams you can have once you develop your own train wreck and find your self or at least lose the illusion you have long believed to be your self. The dreams you are having now are little, weak, and I will even say they are unworthy because you can dream so much larger.

Because you took that train wreck, made the most of it, and found your self, you are able to dream bigger, stronger, more powerful dreams. But you don’t need another train wreck to get those either. The train you found your self on takes you there because you’re finally the conductor, you are yourself, uncaring about safety, mediocrity, security or having things just be okay.

 

Stay Positive & To Find Your Self, Wreck A Thousand Times If You Have To

(you’ll likely end up loving trains a lot more than you do now. I sure do.)

Garth E. Beyer

 

 

Unlocking Potential: Interview #3

Garth Beyer

I was thinking about motivation (what’s new…). I thought about how much I love to motivate people, I mean, I live for it, I give motivational speeches and obviously I write a lot of motivational content. The question popped in my mind, what motivated me to motivate people?

I came up with two answers. The first is that seeing people like Zig Ziglar, Seth Godin, or my interviewee today Karthik, motivate other people. If there weren’t people motivating other people, nothing would get done in the world, it would be void of accomplishments that matter. The second answer is that I am freaking amazed at us, at people, at human beings. Our abilities are out of this world, literally. I simply want to bring out more of these godlike abilities in people, I want to continue to be amazed at a higher level which means I need to motivate more.

This is an aspect of the Unlocking Potential series. To motivate these artists and to have these artists be motivated to motivate other artists. If you are just jumping in, you can catch Interview #1 here and Interview #2 here.

Without further do,
Interview: Karthik Puvvada

As you know from my “Pick Yourself” post, I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in New York a couple of months ago. This interview, the third in my Unlocking Potential series, is with Karthik Puvvada, a friend who I met as a member of Seth’s tribe. Karthik’s blog is one I visit often for, not so much for information on how to fail, be free and break the status-quo (although it’s loaded with it), but for a reminder that there are other people like me that have a truly unbelievable spirit for progress, an unstoppable force for enjoying life and making the most out of it in every way possible. This is only touched on in Karthik’s introduction to the interview and provides great insight to the rest of the Q&A. -Enter Karthik-

My story:

I’m Karthik Puvvada and I hail from India. And like most Indians, I was brought up in a very conservative and struggling middle class family nudging and budging my childhood dreams with whatever little money we had.  Since I was born into the era of  “Great Indian Outsourcing Boom”,  I was compelled to chose the well established path of becoming an engineer and to work at a software company that I disliked.

I was clearly unhappy with what I was doing with my life.  Modifying bits and pieces of computer software written by some other engineers didn’t seem appealing to me. Especially when I loved building things. Especially when I believed I should be able to create things.

As a kid I dreamt about robotics,  and that suddenly appeared to me as my next destination. Despite heavy peer pressure and uncertainty of how I’d manage the finances to afford such a costly technological degree, I gave all the entrance tests with full vigor and hope.

After a dramatic turn of events, and with help of some amazing people, here I am, in the USA,  doing Masters majoring in Robotics with full scholarship.  I started believing in dreams even more from then.

This phenomenal dream-come-true incident in my life changed my perspective totally. It gave me enormous CONFIDENCE to go get what I want in life. I started reviving my half-killed dreams from childhood.

Writing is one.

Q: What would you die without?

Fire in the belly.  If there’s going to be a day when I feel sapless about my dreams, and give up on them, that day, you can proclaim me dead. Officially. I don’t see any reason to be called alive when I’ve killed my dreams. I am what my dreams are. The rest is just a piece of flesh.

Writing, film-making, advertising, technology startups, for now I’m in love with these. So badly that I can exchange going to heaven for a chance to live my dreams.  This feeling, the feeling of otaku, the feeling of going any far to follow your passions in life is what I call “fire in the belly” and that is something I can’t afford to live without.

Q: How much time does following your passion consume each day? What is a typical day in your life’s conquest?

It’s an interesting question because the time it actually consumes to me is irrelevant.  I rather count it based on whether I had done the task I intended to do for that day or not.

Consider blogging. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes to write a blogpost, and sometimes 3 full hours. The beauty of imagination is it’s without limits. All kinds of limits, including time.

But, yeah, if I look back and estimate an average number, I think I spend around 2hrs per day on writing. The rest of time I spend on my other passions.  And on sleeping.  And on eating. And wait, on bathing too.

Q: How do you go about searching and finding motivation/inspiration?

Two things. One, I go outwards into the huge sea of knowledge online and offline and try to find stuff that stimulates my thinking. Something that pushes me away from my comfort zone. Something that provokes my mind, into action.

Steve Jobs, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Mahatma Gandhi, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Neithzche, Swami Vivekananda,  Gautam Buddha, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Randy Pausch ,Jon Goethe, Rabindranath Tagore,  Aristotle,  Michelangelo, David Ogilvy etc.

I read a lot about these incredible people. And their incredible faith in themselves that they can change the world.

Second, I go inwards into myself finding resonance for all that I read. There is a deeper level of consciousness in your own self that you can actually unleash if you poke it long enough.

It unravels an incredible urge that was within you all these years to do something in this world. To make your presence felt. To shake the world gently. Not for the heck of fame or money,  but to leave a legacy in the world, to leave a story of yours, to write your own destiny. This motivates me frantically. Sometimes, the motivation stays for weeks and drives me nuts to do something I thought I couldn’t do earlier.  I will elaborate on this in the further discussion.

Q: What two habits have you developed that produce the best results?

Over the past 2 ½ months, the greatest habit I have developed is the habit to develop a habit.  Like I wrote here, it was extremely painful for me to write everyday initially.

Most amateur writers would know that, after a few days, the challenge of writing something original is by itself a challenge and to do it every single day makes it even more of a nightmare. But still I didn’t give up. There were days where I sat with my laptop for hours and yet couldn’t produce an interesting write-up. But still I didn’t give up.  I tried just once more. That made the difference I think.

I once wrote, “The greatest thing about doing the greatest thing is actually doing it.”

So I knew there is no red button.

Though it didn’t look appealing to me initially, I realize how accurate Steve Pavlina was. He speaks about creating a habit, like a ritual everyday and doing it for 30days. Non stop. If you can pass this phase, most likely you are already enjoying what you are doing and you’ll want to continue. Makes total sense to me.

So, the two habits I’ve developed are a) develop a habit and b) develop a habit. Damn, that is the single most important thing.

Q: Do you plan on shipping a tangible product? Any ideas?

Yes. First, I want to finish up a new screenplay that I started last week. It’s a sci-fi mystery about a delusional scientist on a marooned island.

Second, I want to film an already existing script that I have. It’s going to be about fortune cookies in 3 different countries.

Third, I want to write an ebook, with illustrations, on my most favorite theme, “failing”. I love failing. I think that’s the best thing that happens to me everyday so that I wake up with a better game plan.

Fourth, I want to start up a new project on advertising this September online.

Q: How do you conquer the troubles that come with trying to write every day? (Time, Writers block, etc)

Simple. Have an iron will. I earlier had a plastic one I guess. It would always give up on my dreams. But this time around, I took the pains to form an iron will. The will to do it at any cost. Anyhow. Anywhere.

I remember writing a blog post borrowing a friend’s laptop after having a tiring day of paintball shooting.  I wrote one in a vacation in Chattanooga. I wrote one while I was sick with a stomach bug. When I’m in my regular daily routine, taking time out for writing is easy because I would have planned the day accordingly. It was quite a challenge to do the same when I’m out on the roads travelling or camping etc. Still, the iron will to do what I wanted to do cleared the way for me.

I don’t do it for the count, I don’t do it for the world. I do it ‘coz I challenged the most important person in my life, Myself.

Writing block, well, here’s where the travelling inwards theory I spoke above helps me. Swami Vivekananda spoke volumes about the power of the mind. He says, the question is in the mind, and if you look deeply, and probe keenly, the answer too is in the same mind, just a few blocks away.

It was a fantastic eye-opener for me. All my frustration, disgust and restlessness vanish into thin air whenever I recall this, and I head straight into a peaceful self-questioning mode. And voila, it has worked magic so far.

Q: If you had to give one piece of advice what would it be?

“It’s not the deed; it’s the “doing” that you should attach yourself to.”

I wrote a post titled “Do you love the doing?”. I’d say it is by far the hardest advice anyone can ever follow. But ironically, it is the surest way to excellence according to me.

Q: I believe mottos are vitally important for motivation. Would you create a new motto right now for the readers, a motto they have likely never heard before?

Speaking about how important risk-taking in life, atleast once in a while is, I wrote, “Trust your guts, and remember it’s all about the journey, not the destination. No one jumps of a cliff to experience landing, but to experience flying.”  

The favorite ones I wrote are:

“When your ideas, energy and focus are united by one, you become divided by zero, Mathematically they call it, THE INFINITE!  Be that!”

“Be the king. But first, fight the war.”

Q: As you know, I am on a constant verge to learn new life lessons and share them with people. Do you have any crucially important life lessons you would like to share?

I only have one lesson in my life. The lesson of hope. The lesson of dreams.

Einstein once famously said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” For me, everything has begun to appear miraculous once I started following my dreams. Once I opened my eyes and shunned my doubts. We want the perfect world. The perfect skills. The perfect people.

And hence we are eternally pissed off at what’s at hand. If you think about it, an email from a teenage artist in Europe telling you how much he loved your writing is a miracle. A subscriber asking you if you majored in English literature is a miracle. A counselor of anti-bullying campaign loving your blog you wrote from miles away is a miracle. What more you want?

Life opens up to the fullest when you are ready to see it positively.

I once wrote, the moon is the moon always, it depends on who you are to perceive it beautifully or full of scars.

Look at life differently. Be the most energetic person you have ever met. Surround yourself with tons of positivity. Make new friendships. With extremely positive people. Have the brightest glimmer of hope in your eye. Feel thrilled about little things. May be you’ll look delusional to your naysayers. But try new things. Fail at them. Fail often. Fail publicly. Have an extra coating to your chest called courage. Coz it takes just one time to get it right, and remember, you will never be the same person again.

Q: Where can people find you and your art?

I write my heart out at www.bethepurplecow.tumblr.com.

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Stay Positive & Purple

Garth E. Beyer                                                                                       “moo”