Genius

Don’t Be The Best

Garth Beyer

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The problem with Ivy league schools or the problem with any Grade A school is the same problem as top, Grade A businesses. When you go into them, naturally you want to excel, to be the best, to have others in the school or business look up to you.

The problem with enrolling in an Ivy league school or any Grade A school is that once you’re in, it’s damn difficult to be the leader of the school, the smartest, the best or even part of the top ten percent of students. In an environment where genius is the norm, there’s seldom ways to get past that.

Do you see the complexity behind this? Let’s look at it from the business angle.

Perhaps someone knocks at your door right now and tells you that you are to start working with Apple’s design team tomorrow morning. You might be an extremely talented designer, but when you meet the team tomorrow, everyone will be extremely talented. You will all be gray. (Well, according to Ive, you will all be colorful. Alas, still the same.)

There’s a misperception between the school/business relationship I’m presenting.

Let me suggest you reject the Ivy league school and not work for Apple’s design team. Don’t be the best. Create the best.

Harvard doesn’t need you. Nor does Apple’s design team. But, Drexel University does. But, that Startup in town does. But, students at Purdue do. Microsoft does (ha).

It’s irrational and much less satisfying to be a big fish in a pond of equally big fish. What matters – and you might not realize this yet, but you will – is that to feel the happiness we all habitually seek in life we must make small fish into big fish, small ponds into big ponds.

Holding hands is great. I’ll kumbaya any night of the week. But extending my hand out to pull someone up – I’ll do that any hour of any day, all hours of every day.

There’s an ol’ saying: the only time you should look down at someone is if you’re reaching out to help them up.

Perhaps that was meant to be a motivator, a goal, a call to action.

 

Stay Positive & Are You There To Answer(?)

Photo credit and HT to Jesse Jackson for the saying

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.

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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

 

Another Day, Another Picasso

Garth Beyer

“At a time when it was cool to bend the rules of art, Picasso smashed every one.”Picasso

Look at the world of design around us. It’s cool to bend the rules of design. Ogle at what Steve Jobs has done. Even after his accomplishments, I still can’t help but wonder, with the world rewarding those who challenge the status quo and bend the rules of design and connection, who will be the next to smash every one of them?

Stay Positive & Jobs Is Just The Start

Garth E. Beyer

It’s Not Your Art

Garth Beyer

So what that you put hundreds of hours into creating what you did? Just because you went through all the pain of developing what you did, doesn’t make it yours. Even if you searched for every single piece of your creation and sold your sentimental belongings to afford what you made – it still doesn’t make it yours and it definitely doesn’t make it art.

Art is only art when it’s shared.

It’s the same with genius. Einstein wouldn’t have been a genius if he never shared everything he studied, ruminated, and experimented with. Or, a person can write a novel a year, but they will never be a writer unless they share it.

People might shout,

“This is not the time for metaphor! This is not the time for art! And this is certainly not the time for art about you!” But once you’ve shared your art and it’s resonated with a single person, it’s no longer about you — once you share it, it’s about everybody. And if your art is found by a single soul, shared with a friend who links it to a friend, and the response is whatever it is, you start to see how art becomes about everybody — just through the act of being shared.” – Amanda Palmer

I am stating that art becomes about everybody the same as it becomes everyones.

When I buy your art, I don’t see it the way you do. I don’t know how much money, time, sweat, blood, relationships, tears, mental exhaustion, late nights, and broken prototypes went into it.

When your art is in my hands – no, even when I see your art – it becomes mine too. It’s part of me. I put my emotions, my thoughts, my personality in and around it.

And let me tell you something. Art becomes so much more beautiful when it has amassed a variety of emotions, thoughts, and personalities.

 

Stay Positive & Sharing Always Makes It More Valuable

Garth E. Beyer

The Sweat Of Perfection

Garth Beyer

No. This isn’t about working hard. It has nothing to do with perfect practice making perfect. It actually has nothing to do with quality. It does, however, have everything to do with fear, effort, and vulnerability.

Edward R. Murrow called stage fright ‘the sweat of perfection.’

What Murrow was implying is that getting yourself up there, just doing it, trying, testing, shipping, making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself to criticism, sharing what you have created is what makes perfection.

You can build a myriad of matryoshka dolls but they will never be perfect unless you share them, because that’s what creating is really about.

Perfection is a state of completeness and nothing is complete until it’s given away.

 

Stay Positive & Perspire Perfection

Garth E. Beyer

Fine Lines

Garth Beyer

There’s such a fine line between winning and losing.

There’s such a fine line between genius and insanity.

There’s such a fine line between honesty and bluntness.

There’s such a fine line between communication and interaction.

There’s such a fine line between being naive and taking a risk that’s worth it.

There’s such a fine line between capitalism and capitalization.

There’s such a fine line between reality and pretend.

It’s not that we’re not meant to cross certain lines, rather, we are meant to dance on them. I tell you, we are here on this earth to dance around, don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise.

 

Stay Positive & Hell, Just Draw Your Own Lines

Garth E. Beyer

Everyone Can Be A Genius

Garth Beyer

Contrary to belief, geniuses isn’t measured by I.Q. It’s not measured by the choices you make on a multiple choice question. It’s not even measured on a scale.

Genius is measured by making continuous efforts. Efforts to grow, efforts to make mistakes, efforts to try and try again until success is reached.

 

Stay Positive & Einstein It Up

Garth E. Beyer