Judgement

Don’t Bother With Critics

Garth Beyer

Ignore The Critics, Shun The Naysayers

If it’s a critic you’ll never be able to please, don’t try.

If it’s a critic you might be able to please, don’t try.

If it’s a critic you can please, don’t try.

There are two people we all mean to please: those who care and ourselves. Unfortunately we get confused about critics. We think mattering equals caring, and so we let them judge us, let them decide to pick us or not, let them control our progress (or worse yet, the direction of our progress).

Critics don’t care, friends do. And it’s easier to turn a stranger into a friend than it is a critic.

 

Stay Positive & Having Critics Is Essential, Listening To Them Is Optional

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Pushing Back The Divas

Garth Beyer

It’s not what you do that earns you credibility, recognition and praise. It’s how you behave.

Behavior comes first when people talk about you.

The time to be a Diva is over. Now anyone can be as remarkable as another if they work hard and smart enough.

Before, people could get away with being jerks because they were the best at what they did. But, now you hear this: “He was so helpful,”

then they say what it is he did.

People comment about your character, your behavior, before anything else.

Sure, some people can still get away with being Divas, but that’s because their employer doesn’t understand the new economy, not because their work is actually the best.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Worry, They’ll Catch On Real Soon

The Thing About Advice

The Thing About Advice

Garth Beyer

There’s a lot of advice out there. Really good advice. Advice because other people took risks, learned from them and don’t want you to make the same mistakes.

That is all good and fun, but it’s partly wrong.

I remember a time when I was younger and living with my dad. He was trying to tell me to not do something that he did when he was my age. I turned to him and asked if he regretted the choices he made. I said to him, “What if. What if I do everything exactly as you tell me, that I do everything you suggest the way you suggest it. Then what. Am I supposed to be happy? It won’t be my life then.”

True advice is when someone suggests you do something a certain way but doesn’t resent you if you don’t. This is what I want you to keep an ear out for with this new year.

I want you to take the risks, make the mistakes, fail, but fail fast. If something isn’t clear that it’s the wrong choice, then it’s up to you to see whatever choice you make as the right one and not let anyone else make that judgement for you.

 

Stay Positive & This Is YOUR Life

Garth E. Beyer

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Putting Yourself Out There (to be judged)

Garth Beyer

Keeping tab of the facts, every time you stick your neck out on the line, people are judging you. They can’t help it and maybe you can’t help judging them in return. Regardless, putting yourself out there is a chivalrous task: respectable, rare, personal.

There is a societal shift, though. Before, putting yourself out there was sharing your story, laying out all the highs and lows of your life (always more lows, of course) and making yourself vulnerable to the fact that you have connected with someone, that they know your secrets.

Now, this happens within the first few weeks of meeting someone. These facts and life experiences are no longer associated with vulnerability – they are simply common knowledge to anyone willing to ask. There’s been a switch.

Putting yourself out there has become talking about your passion, about showing the work you have created, and about sharing your notes, your ideas, your art.

Just as difficult as it was before.

But more worth it.

 

Stay Positive & Put Yourself Out There

Garth E. Beyer

Traded Expectations

Garth Beyer

You can tell a lot about a person by how they handle traded expectations. If told a movie is good, do they then watch it and search for the good parts, or do they try to contradict you by looking for the bad parts. Personally, I root for the people who find something interesting between. That’s just me.

 

Stay Positive & Trade Once, May Never Need To Trade Again

Garth E. Beyer

Are You Encouraging Or Discouraging?

Garth Beyer

Right now, you are doing one or the other. 20 minutes from now, you will be doing one or the other. Five years from now, you will be doing one or the other.

There is no middle ground, there is no hideout or escape from it.

It is very simple; if you are not using your highest potential, if you are not trying your hardest, then you are discouraging others. When people look at you, they may judge you and stereotype you, but at the same time, they are either encouraged by you or discouraged.

“Either they draw inspiration and want to do likewise or they draw discouragement because they see us not doing the most with our ability that we can be doing with that ability” – Zig Ziglar

If you’re not discouraging, then your encouraging. Simple as that.

 

Stay Positive & If You Can, They Can

Garth E. Beyer

If The Shoe Doesn’t Fit

Garth Beyer

Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes can be life changing.

But what if the shoe doesn’t fit? Or rather, you just don’t want to wear them because you have a well enough idea about their life that you know you would rather keep your shoes on. It’s like the saying that if everyone threw their problems in a pile to exchange for someone else’s, you would grab your own back after seeing the problems everyone else has.

Fortunately, you don’t need to wear anyone else’s shoes – whether they fit or not. The significance of shoes is that you can judge a man by the bottom of his shoes, you do not need to wear them.

“If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?” – Gloria Steinem

No Gloria, despite the pressure to do so, you can learn more from looking at the bottom of the shoe than putting it on or changing your life so that the shoe fits. Meaning, you can see where the owner of the shoes has stepped. It is a waste and can often not be a pleasurable experience to live someone else’s life, but there is a significance to knowing where they have stepped rather than living their life. By seeing where they have stepped, you can discover either what got them into such a sour spot or such a sweet spot. Their history is written on the bottom of their shoes. Their legacy just so happens to be the piece of chewed gum that they stepped on.You don’t need to gain an understanding of where they are, you only need to know how they got there and wearing the shoes does not tell you that.

Stay Positive & Follow The Footsteps Of The Shoes That Stepped In Success

Garth E. Beyer