Fear

Run!

Garth Beyer

I saw a brilliant sign at a race that read: “Run like someone just called you a jogger.”

At first glance, it was a silly motivational poster.

At second glance, the real truth of it all set in.

  • Work like someone just called you lazy.
  • Swim like someone just called you slow.
  • Paint like someone just called you a starving artist.
  • Write like someone just called you fake.
  • Run like someone just called you a jogger.

When you run, you don’t think. The sign was a reminder that you can use frustration as energy, but it was a better reminder that you forget about frustrations when you run. You don’t acknowledge your fear, you don’t worry, you forget the ankle pain, you forget about criticism, you forget about the time.

When you run, that’s all that you do, you run.

I’m writing a novel right now and the only way I can get through it each day is to sprint through it. If I don’t, then fear eats at my motivation as if it hadn’t eaten anything in months.

If you haven’t sprinted before, go run and give it a try.

 

Stay Positive & Do What You Love Like Someone Just Said You Couldn’t

Garth E. Beyer

Your Fear Isn’t That Different

Garth Beyer

Dr. Margee Kerr is the staff sociologist at ScareHouse, whose website I don’t even like being on. In a brilliant article over the The Atlantic, I read her saying, “To really enjoy a scary situation, we have to know we’re in a safe environment.”

There’s an insurmountable truth to that.

1880365693_e4ef2a0c56

With that, I must ask, is standing up on a stage to give a three-minute speech any worse than running through a 30 minute haunted house? Is asking that girl you think is cute for her number scarier than being chased by a blood soaked 6’4″ man carrying a chain saw?

When you’re afraid to follow through with something, I’m unapologetically admitting that  it is because of you, not because the audience or those around you are making you feel unsafe. How could an audience that is just sitting there make you feel unsafe public speaking? How could a girl just doing her homework listening to music make you literally fear for your life?

There might be a scientific answer behind these questions, but I believe it is more of a subconscious inaction of realizing the state of fear that you’re in. Very few walk up on stage and after acknowledging that they are afraid, ask why.

On the flip side, let’s jump to a good explanation of why people are the first to raise their hands and face their fears.

“Lots of people also enjoy scary situations because it leaves them with a sense of confidence after it’s over,” said Kerr.

Just as Kerr has seen someone scream and jump and then immediately starts laughing and smiling, I have seen hundreds of people trembling, get up, give a speech and walk off the stage smiling and looking forward to doing it again. When asked if they are afraid to give another speech, the answer is “yes.”

It’s not just about public speaking either. It’s making that phone call you’re afraid to make, it’s putting your art out there for everyone to see when you’re afraid of the feedback, it’s sending in that letter, fearing you will get rejected. Those who do are what a call Confidence Builders. Those who do are no more afraid than you.

 

Stay Positive & Become A Confidence Builder

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit Manipulation done by me

Your Tongue Functions, But So Does Your Fear

Garth Beyer

There’s no frog in your throat or cat having your tongue. You have a voice, you have curiosity (obviously what killed the cat, emphasizing the cat can’t have your tongue), and you have an interest. So why are you quiet? Why are you standing still? Why are you incapable of doing anything but breathing and fidgeting in your seat?

Fear grips us all at times. The better chance of accomplishment, the larger the opportunity, the increased likelihood of getting what you want – that’s when fear really gets to us. That’s not okay.

I was recently in a conference where everyone attending was interested in the speaker and what he had to say, but they didn’t show it beyond just being there. Fear had them and they missed their opportunity to stand out, to be recognized as the courageous one, to be remembered by the speaker, to accept the authority, the accomplishment, the opportunity. Why? They feared being disappointed.

Can you guess what they felt anyway? – disappointed.

 

Stay Positive & Fight Fear With Movement, With Voice, With Accomplishment

Garth E. Beyer …and don’t… don’t forget to ask questions

Photo credit

Outsiders

Garth Beyer

What do you have on the inside? What’s in style? What’s in store?

The answers are out there. I mean that literally and figuratively speaking.

4317291702_8ed2b46118

The outsiders are the new insiders. In fact, one could go so far as to say that insiders now seek to reflect the trends being created by the outsiders. The outsiders, who are the handlers of grit, gumption, and creative genius, are creating art from the heart.

They are playing with the available tools and blowing raspberries at fear, failure, and malfunction.Outsiders are taking over in all mediums of art.

When you ask an expert what’s new in their industry (any industry!) they’re going to tell you what some person or team recently created, something previously unimagined, something… weird.

Like Sarah Boxer says in the Atlantic, “Out is the new in.”

 

Stay Positive & Now That You’re In Cahootz, What Will You Create Next?

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

 

Newton vs Einstein

Garth Beyer

Newton only cared about analyzing everything and proving ideas with mathematics. Newton had a fixed idea about life and how it worked. He created laws instead of breaking them. A man who studied outward rather than inward.

Einstein is about creativity. He thought about macro and micro level moments of life and how they can’t be broken down to mathematics. The macro and the micro is of the ether, of uncertainty, of fear, and creativity. Rather than create laws, Einstein went on a crusade against them, against stereotypes, against the impossible. A man of originality and intellect.

There’s a reason why Einstein, not Newton, is synonymous with genius.

 

Stay Positive & All In Theory, Of Course…

Garth E. Beyer

Hoarders

Garth Beyer

282559483_5fcf4b47da_z

I have a great idea for a television show. It’s going to center on the life of hoarders.

Not any hoarders though. A special kind of hoarders, the worst kind, actually. (Yes, I’m well aware there is a show called hoarders that is centered on the life of hoarders.)

See, the type of hoarders who pose in the current television show and keep everything they touch, they are fighting the psychological battle of either holding on to the past or the concern of needing something for the future.

The type of hoarders I want to film are those who keep all of their art to themselves.

Those who have composed hundreds of songs but stick the sheets of music in the attic.

The types of hoarders that have 14 manuscripts tucked in the back of a drawer, telling themselves they need to be edited again before they are brought to a publisher.

The hoarder whose basement is filled with incredible knickknacks that no one will ever see. Or the hoarder who has a room filled with colorful handmade glassware, not for sale.

These are the hoarders with the serious problems. It’s one thing to be attached to a material item, it’s another to refuse letting anyone be attached to your material item, your art.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Be A Selfish Artist

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit