Problems are just obstacles waiting to be overcome.
You’ll have 99 problems until you solve one after the other.
Stay Positive & Ask For Help
Garth E. Beyer
Help
The Self-Checkup
Why do we need to go to the doctor?
Why do we need to see a psychologist?
Why do we need to visit an advisor?
Have you gone to the dentist and they ask you questions like, “how often do you floss?”, “do you feel any discomfort?”, “what toothpaste do you use?”
Why not simply ask yourself the questions you know the professionals will ask you. (And answer them yourself too?) For all answers that you can’t find on the internet, let it be a challenge for you to find the answer.
Ask yourself the hard questions too. The deep questions. The questions that would make you open up, but this time, to yourself.
To be straight forward with my underlying point, asking and answering questions to yourself is to set yourself up to always answer questions other people ask. There are hundreds of truly phenomenal and interesting questions that we are asked, but we never answer them because we feel they are somewhat rhetorical.
What do you want?
What impact do you want to make?
What will be your legend?
How are you going to get there?
What are you truly grateful for? (recommend asking daily)
What help do you need?
Most commonly found in speeches, the questions go ignored. We continue to listen to the point of the question, never to find it. To find the answer, we have to search ourselves, we have to provide the answer.
Next time you get asked a question that you sort of think is rhetorical. Answer it. Invest the time to think it through. Only then will you realize the impact and importance of not only asking the question (to yourself and to others), but to answering it.
Stay Positive & Answer Away
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
A Not So Gentle Reminder
Those who care most about you, don’t care whether you ask for their help, assistance, input, opinion, or need. What I know is that you, I, and most people forget that 99% of the time, the people who care about us are more happy to help us than we ever are being helped.
The two most used reasons you never ask for help:
1. You don’t want to be looked down upon by possibly asking too much.
2. You forget that there are people all around you caring, willing to help.
To the first, realize that you would only ever ask something from someone who cares about you. No one asks someone who doesn’t care about them for something. (If they do, it always goes ignored. The same result as not asking at all.) Then think of all the people that care about you. Don’t measure it. Don’t categorize them by the degree in which they care about you. Don’t group them into those who really care about you because they are family or who don’t care too much because they are just friends. No. The miraculous light that rarely gets shined on the idea of asking for help from those who care about you is that no matter how much they care, they will all be willing to do the same thing for you. Yes, it may take a bit more persuasion and communication of the benefit, but they always will. I could ask my friend that I haven’t seen in years to loan me a grand to fix up my car or I could ask my close uncle. Same result.
To the second: now is when the not so gentle reminder comes in. If you forget that there are people all around you that care about you, it’s not their fault for not showing it. No. It’s your fault for not making it so that they are happy to show they care. It’s your fault for not making them feel good about caring about you. This is where the give-and-take of the world originates. If I ask my friend, who cares about me, to loan me a grand to fix up my car, and I blow $800 at a casino, do you think my friend is going to boast about helping me when I blew most of the money away?
To ask for help is to not only tell yourself, but the person who is helping you too, that you will make them happy that they helped, happy that they cared, and happy that it was all worth it.
The most interesting aspect to asking for help is that it’s one of the strongest paths to growth. Asking for help is far from selfish because in order to reap the benefits, you have to think of yourself and the person helping you. And when you do that, it creates a ripple effect around both of you.
Stay Positive & Test It For Yourself, Find Who You Can Help
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Shutting Fear Out … In New York
Who has heard about the lizard brain? No one? Well I’ll have to change that.
The lizard brain is what makes us not do what we say we are going to do. It’s what stops us from checking tasks off our to-do list, it stops us from writing the book we want, stops us from sending that application in, it stops us from living a meaningful, adventurous, exciting life. The lizard brain can also be referred to as the Amygdala, the part of our brain which registers fear. This fear has a voice and it tells us to compromise, to play it safe, to stay where we are comfortable. This reference to the lizard brain was coined by Seth Godin, author, marketer, and revolutionary starter.
During this mass media age, I believe Seth Godin to be one of the most insightful and helpful authors to us digital natives. Seth Godin has written more than 14 books that have all been best sellers and translated into over 30 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. Even if a five-mile wide meteor struck the earth today, you could still say that Seth Godin has made a larger impact on society.
You may think this author is important because you imagine him to be the motivating type. He is no more motivating than a rock. He is however a person who can bring you to understand why you do what you do, rather, why you don’t do what you don’t do. He explains in his most infamous book, Linchpin¸how the closer you get to delivering something, to accomplishment, to taking a risk, the harder the lizard brain works to stop you. This ability, to make us aware, is what makes Seth Godin so important.
If it’s not clear already, Seth is an idol of mine. Heck, I flew out to New York to see him and wrote about that experience here. Seth has taught me how to build a tribe, inspired me to keep shipping, and has helped me realize the inner workings of my brain and ego in such a simplistic manner. I continue to read his books and build off his ideas and will do my absolute best to get a one-on-one interview with him over the holidays because I am planning a trip to NYC. I truly owe it to Seth for getting me to where I am today. (HT to Seth Godin)
Side note: If anyone has someone they can introduce me to through email/phone/person that either lives in New York or has other contacts in New York, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan on spending the summer in New York to find an opportunity to become more of a writer and to connect with some of the most brilliant minded people. Michelle being one of them, she’s something special! Thank you!
Stay Positive & People Help People, Who Help People, Who Help Other People, Who Help More People …
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Are You Ready To Jump?
Go ahead. Do it. Jump.
But let me talk to you on your way down, let me connect with you, and share with you what you need to hear. My methods are like giving you doses of Redbull. However, I don’t give you wings. I show you that you already have them.
Stay Positive & Always Here To Help
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Everyone
Everyone has their problems, their battles, their emotions, their wars, and their own issues. Realizing this, knowing this, understanding this does not mean to put you to inaction. It does not mean to hold back, to deal, to settle, to not complain, to not feel.
Humans need to be better and if there is one way that is more available to us than not doing anything, it is doing something. It is taking action, reacting more passionately, releasing our empathy, our sympathy, our hopes that others can win their battles.
It is to encourage your neighbor, your tribe member, a stranger, that you not only acknowledged that they are having their problems, but that you have their back, support them and encourage them.
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. – Robert H. Schuller
If there is one thing humans have the biggest habit of, it’s creating a mess of our lives, of making more problems and provoking difficult situations to arise. We’re not stupid, we just kind-of suck but we are aware that we can do better. We just have to act on it.
Everyone has their problems. It’s up to you to offer solutions because doing so starts an endless cycle of understanding, encouragement, togetherness and above all, -not less problems, life would be boring without them- but more solutions. And that gets us somewhere.
Stay Positive & I Feel Good For You Son
Garth E. Beyer
Enlighten Others
Asking For Assistance Pt.2
Another factor of the online community theme is that along with finding someone who is a professional that will help for free is that they expect nothing in return.
In the real world if someone helped someone else move items from their shed into their basement, they would then say that they have some stuff that needs to be moved as well. (Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours)
But, in the world of electronic ethics, no one expects anything in return. Everyone knows that the only way to get respectably noticed is to give and keep giving without any intentions of receiving. The online writing community knows that in order to ever even think of being successful, you have to help others out as much as possible. (Something we need to practice off the web too)
I recently wrote a post that you need to prepare for the best and expect the worst because you are most blown away with joy when something positively unexpected occurs. In relation to the online community, if you prepare for the best to help all other people that you can and expect nothing in return, you will be surprised and ecstatic at how devoted those you help are to helping you.
Stay Positive and Maintain The Have-Someone-Else-Do-It Attitude
Garth E. Beyer
