Ideas

More On The 2nd Part Of Being Scared

Garth Beyer

There are two parts to everyone being scared.

The second is my favorite because it has the potential of making you feel better than you ever have before. At my work, I have evaluated applications from students that have put in more than 2,000 hours of community service over a span of four years. But when I think of the second part of fear, I can’t help but realize that more empowering results can be created by talking to someone for two minutes.

Online example

Despite Twitter’s popularity, it’s far from perfect. In fact, I gave their ads a try and was revolted. They gave me $50 to start running ads and I quit before it was spent.

They also required you to have a debit/credit card on file before they gave you the money. Once I quit my ads, I wanted to delete my debit card information. I could not find any place to do this. So, I emailed them.

Within a day I received an email saying that the feature I requested was not available and that they would work on it – in the mean time I would basically have to deal with it.

Since then, a few weeks have passed. The other day, I opened my email to find this:

Twitter

There is always room for improvement

Whether the person, company, or client you’re talking to follows through with your suggestion – or in Twitter’s case, takes your unfulfillable request and turns it into something real – it’s still your responsibility to make that suggestion.

Out of the millions of Twitter users, I have no clue how many will be happy that they can delete their card from their account. I have no clue how many employees it took, how much red tape it had to go through, or how successful their actions really were. What I do know is that they took a request, an idea, and made it happen. And for that – although I still can’t stand the ads, – I will stick by Twitter’s side.

Personal examples

An old friend of mine wanted to start a blog about teen dads. I gave him roughly five lines of hard encouragement. I told him exactly what he needed to do. He never did. I didn’t let fear get to him, he did.

Another friend of mine was applying to law school and asked if I would review his personal statement. I gave him a few suggestions but explained more about human personalities and how those reviewing the application are real people. He understood, realizing that there was fear that the person reviewing his application might misjudge him. Because of fear, he wrote a safe statement. Once I called him out on it, he made some changes and while he has yet to hear back, I’m sure he will get in.

I shared a speech I wrote with a respectable entrepreneur. She critiqued the staleness and boredom out of it. Because of her, my speech became more remarkable. I also gave the original draft to a friend who said it was good, providing a couple grammatical corrections. You can guess which one had more of an impact.

Criticism is tough work

So is encouragement, accountability, and inspiration – all of which are required to back up another’s dance with fear. I’ve always thought that doing your own work is easy, well, maybe not easy, but always easier than helping someone else do their own work.

I suppose that’s why I love giving people feedback. Maybe, just maybe, they will see how valuable it is to them, that they give feedback to someone else.

 

Stay Positive & Let Others Know What You Think And Feel

Garth E. Beyer

“I think that’d be really difficult”

Garth Beyer

I had an idea for an app, much like the Google Goggles. It came to me after I saw a wicked font on a banner. I thought to myself, why not create an app that takes pictures of a font and can match it for you. It’s like Shazam for writers and designers. In addition, it would link you to websites where you can download or purchase that font.

I pitched the idea to a friend, and my friend said, “I think that’d be really difficult. There are so many and most are licenses/pretty expensive”

So is anything else of value. My friend obviously isn’t into the risk taking, or the “if there is a will, there is a way” mindset, or even into the idea of just giving it a try.

I couldn’t help myself but reply back, “Yea, but nothing worth it ever came easy.” If anything, because his response was such, I am even more convinced that it could be a phenomenal product. What do you think? Have any ideas yourself? Do you get this type of response when you pitch them to friends? I hope so.

 

Stay Positive & So It Goes

Garth E. Beyer

The Meetings You’re Waiting For

Garth Beyer

They don’t exist.

You take internships, you jump in groups, clubs, associations, you work for organizations or companies in hopes that a meeting is called and you can be the one person to shout something brilliant out.

Everyone loves that person who – out of nowhere – comes up with a phenomenal idea. For the one meeting, you take the stage, you get the spotlight, you get the credit you finally deserve.

And then it dies. Lights off. Curtain closed. Meeting over.

Is it worth it though? To work for the blind until they call a meeting? Only for the possibility of you coming up with a great idea off the cuff and them accepting it? Then waiting for the next meeting?

No one loves a light that flickers.

Or are you: Better off connecting with the few who love your constant stream of ideas. Better off interacting with members outside of the meeting and showing them what you have created. Better off doing your work for the sake of doing your work instead of for the chance to be picked.

Or – my personal favorite – skip the meeting completely to connect with someone who is also not attending the meeting. Hell, they may not even be associated with the meeting group. They may even be someone who impresses you and changes the way you work. Instead of trying to be the remarkable one, you may just meet someone who is.

 

Stay Positive & Frequent Conformity Is Overrated

Garth E. Beyer

Creative Class

Garth Beyer

Each era prior to the present is defined by what people did with their hands: agricultural, manufacturer, knowledge based. (Knowledge: experiments, hands on activities, tests.)

Now our current era of the connection economy has produced a new class of workers. Nonchalantly coined by Richard Florida as the “Creative Class.” This class of – better called artists than workers – don’t reside in cities that are built around assembly production, construction, or mechanical organizations.

There’s no age requirement, no credential, or resume that qualifies you as part of the creative class – it’s a conscious (and consistent) decision.

The difference between being part of the institutionalized workforce and the creative class is like writing a report as a homework assignment and writing it in a way that you would also share it with your peers, your community, your friends, and your tribe.

It’s the difference between doing banal, monotonous, industrialistic work and melting your passions, mentally building a mould, then transforming your liquid art into something emotionally tangible.

These artists of the creative class are managers, engineers, consultants, teachers, painters, entrepreneurs, connectors, and all around movers and shakers – but with a new class flair.

My reason for telling you this is so that you know that you’re not the only one. There are others like you. Others that are fed up with the assembly line work, others who are afraid to step out of the box (and dance), others who want to make, not just a positive impact, but real human connections.

Your ideas are valued. Share them.

 

Stay Positive & Welcome To The Creative Class

Garth E. Beyer

 

Saying It

Garth Beyer

Alright fancy pants, spit it out.

You have a great idea, you thought of something remarkable, you met someone or saw something online worth sharing, so share it, say it, spit it out.

Forget the grammar police, loosen your belt on your fancy pants or take them off completely. If you have something worth sharing, worth explaining, worth telling, then say it.

We get caught up in making sure what we want to say is completely understood by the masses. We try to word our posts, our articles, our voicemail using the lowest common denominator. Is that who you truly want to reach? Or do you want to reach the select few who completely understand your thoughts as they are normally, unchanged, unmanufactured?

There’s a reason public speakers are told to imagine their audience not wearing pants.

 

Stay Positive & And Hey, You’ll Always Have More To Say (no doubt about that)

Garth E. Beyer

Selling An Idea

Garth Beyer

Good ideas are easy. It’s doing them that’s the remarkable part.

In which case, you may not want to (or may have already done) and now you want to sell someone else on doing it – you want to sell them the idea.

Traditionally you do this by talking about the idea, by sharing every perspective, by shining light on every angle of the idea. Traditionally you sell an idea by focusing on the idea and less on the selling.

No more.

To sell an idea, sure, you have to tell someone about the idea, but that takes only a few minutes. (If it doesn’t, you may want to find a different idea.) The rest of the time is filled with how the idea will work and has worked before. It’s about getting someone to take the initiative and selling them their self-motivation to follow through, to take action with the idea.

Good ideas are easy to produce. Doing them is the hard part. But getting someone else to follow through, that’s bloody hell.

But worth it. Always worth it.

 

Stay Positive & Motivating. Selling. Same Thing.

Garth E. Beyer

So You Want To Be A Columnist

Garth Beyer

You’re a writer, a great one at that.

(At least you better be if you’re looking to go into this field!)

But getting that first writing position can be difficult.

What I’ve learned about getting writing jobs isn’t the “tell me what to write and I can write about it” mentality. Far from it. As I have heard repetitively from different organizations and agencies, if a major editor is going to tell you what to write about, they might as well write it!

First things first: don’t go into a writing job seeking topics to write about.

Have them prepared.

The big risks of writing isn’t the criticism you may will get after being published; the risk is in deciding exactly what to write about, in having to judge the audience, and in diving in without anyones confirmation of your idea.

Back in the day you may have been given prompts, but now there’s too much creativity and flexibility with audience’s desires.