Meditation

Advice To My Younger Self

Advice To My Younger Self

Garth Beyer

During meditation earlier my mind began to wonder. For some reason it went back to some childhood memories, of moments that I thought I was the only one who thought something or experienced something.

You know the odd-looking air on the horizon of a road, it’s almost as if it was heat or some fume? When I asked anyone driving in the car with me if they saw it, they responded as if I was crazy. I believed them.

Or, to the extreme, thinking of jumping off a building you’re on. Everyone has thought it at one point, but in the moment we feel so alone, as if we’re the only ones who think these things and we get uncomfortable about it.

The advice I’d give to my younger self is “you’re going to think about a lot of things that you will think are unique to you. They’re not.”

The reason I’d say this to my younger self, and to you, now, is that we have thoughts, which we quickly dispel based on the premise that we think we’re the only ones to think it. It’s a tragedy, really.

You think you’re the only one who has come up with a spectacular idea, but you’re not.

Think Jobs was the only one to think of transportable music in your pocket? Think Gladwell was the only one to wonder about cockpit culture and why planes crash? The answer is yes, you do.

And we’re wrong in that thinking; they’re merely the only ones who acted on an idea. You can be them if you realize you’re not the only one who thinks about things differently, who has the thoughts you do, who has an idea that just might damn well work.

 

Stay Positive & Worth A Try Right?

Unlocking Potential #11: Q&A With John Saddington

Garth Beyer

John Saddington

I regularly write about the importance of being human, of momentum and of the need to continuously try new things. Top experimenter John Saddington is a living example of doing all the above.

John is linchpin who I recall wore a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt to Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca, and asked Seth a question about blogging platforms. It should have come as no surprise to me that John was asking for input because he was in the process of developing his new (and awesome!) blogging platform app, Desk.

John has been blogging for more than 14 years, so it goes without saying how much of a privilege it is to have him be part of this series. Without further ado, welcome John.

Q: You’re a hacker and a human. Tell us how you got into hacking. What’s your story?

John: Yes, that’s my tagline. I think it’s important to let others know that I am a human being. This is one of those “duh” statements but it carries a lot of personal importance to me. It means that I suffer and struggle with just as many things as the next person. But, I have “hacked” my way to a solution that works for me.

I will always be looking for more solutions to life, just as the next person, to ensure that I can survive and thrive in the limited amount of time that I have on planet earth.​

Q: What qualities are needed in a person for them to become successful hackers, humans, entrepreneurs? 

John: A willingness to experiment, be wrong, and fail. A desire to get help, all the time, and to stay humble. To be curious about learning new things and tenacious about not giving up. To be a person of integrity, honest, and true.​

Q: For this next question, I’m sure there are hundreds of answers, but just write about the first two or three that come to mind. What are some hacks you can share about entrepreneurship?

​John: Time box everything. What I mean by this is create a “start” and “end” point to all your experiments and projects. This helps create momentum and helps you establish objective markers for whether or not it’s actually working.

Secondly, get help. Do more things with others and less alone.​

Q: Tell us a bit about Desk PM: How did you go about strategizing a publishing app so it would be as successful as it is? What sort of questions did you ask and answer before you built and shipped the app?

​John: There wasn’t a strategy. It was luck and a long marinating process (over 12 years) as I thought about this application as it tied so closely to my writing and blogging over the last 14 years. Then, I executed. That’s about it. I didn’t deliberate or try to do massive planning or anything like that. The only question that I asked was this (and one that I continue to ask): Do I still love this app? Am I using it every single day?

If the answer ever becomes “No” then I’ve lost the original vision and I should throw it all away.​

Q: What’s the most recent big decision you’ve had to make and how did you rationalize your decision?

John: The biggest decision recently was to join with some friends to work @ The Iron Yard.​ This was the culmination of long-standing relationships and a deep love for education (I got a Masters in Education). I joined them full-time in late 2013.

Q: Would you mind sharing one of your biggest failures and how you worked past it or what you learned from it?

John: I raised ~ $300,000 and spent much more than that on a failed iOS app that netted, over a two year period, just north of $1,300 dollars. I am still learning from this fiscal failure of an app and project. I am still recovering. I wrote a few things here.​

Q: Who and where do you go to for motivation? Any particular mentors or bloggers?

John: I go to my friends and most importantly my wife and kids. I find a ton of motivation in my quiet times as I reflect on spiritual topics, God, and through meditation.​

Q: Perhaps there’s a couple quotes or life mottos you live by?

​”Never give up.” – Dad

“Always have options.” – Dad

“It never hurts to ask.” – Dad

Q: What is the biggest challenge todays entrepreneurs are faced with? 

​John: I’m not sure. Does that matter?​

Q: This one might be a toughie, answer however you would like. What does it take to create something remarkable?

John: It starts with a decision to pursue it and then it requires the courage to not quit.​

Q: Where can people find you and you art? What’s the best way to reach you?

​John: My personal blog: http://john.do

 

Stay Positive & Publish On

Meditate On Doing The Work That Matters

Meditate On Doing The Work That Matters

Garth Beyer

Meditate On That

 

It’s probably time for a sexy website revamp, right?

And you ought to post to Twitter more often.

And don’t you think you need to publish more Instagram photos?

And your profile picture seems kind of old, doesn’t it?

With the new year comes the feeling of needing to update, to design a new book cover for your life, to work on that index, to focus on the prologue. In doing so, we miss out on the chance to write the book, to focus on moving forward, and to do the work that matters.

When it comes to tasks you think need to be completed, a simple reality check is to ask if it is for your inside success or out?

 

Stay Positive & Meditate On That

Photo credit

You’re Grounded!

Garth Beyer

Don’t just ground your kids, ground yourself too.

Ground yourself so you can learn to be alone, inquisitive, have time to think, to use your imagination and to add to the flame of creativity.

Being alone is vitally important. It gives you the time to shut everything down, let your mind be free and for you to produce ideas and solutions that you would have never thought of before because you are constantly enabling an overload of information to transition into your mind. Day by day, the mind is twitchy, hyper and working too fast for too long. It is in this action that much of life, of creativity, of a purpose is lost.

I remember the couple of times I was grounded as a kid and the multiple times I grounded myself as an adult. I locked the door, laid on the floor and sometimes listened to light music, read a magazine or just sat there contemplating the world outside my room. I would also write. Other times, I would destroy things and try to put them back together. There were plenty of times I sat on top of my dresser, looked out the window and watched birds fly, watched clouds in the sky and questioned life. The more special times were when I thought of incredible life changing ideas – something that is guaranteed to happen once the mind is quiet. The most important lessons in life are the ones which are learned when alone, when one has a relaxed mind and can work out an understanding without any predescending variables.

It was during these periods of grounding that I would meditate. Not on purpose. Not based off of a video or internet advice on how to meditate. Meditation simply is, it’s not something that can be forced because in that very purpose, in that very goal, there is a working mind and a sense of strife to achieve. That is not meditation. The meditation I am speaking of is the one that does not seek calmness, relaxation or solitude. The one I speak of is that which will revitalize your energy, your motivation and resilience. The one which unlocks the treasure chest of creativity in your brain and releases it into all of you which then transfers to all that you touch. The one that makes art, art.

 

Stay Positive & Getting Grounded Doesn’t Seem Like A Threat Now Does It

Garth E. Beyer

Writing Games w/ Life Lessons

Garth Beyer
Guess Who Is In Control: You or The Pencil?

Success is really what you call “Mastered Creativity”. What you will find below are some constructed writing challenges and exercises to push your creativity.  They are formed in a way to apply practice to parts of writing (and thinking) you have rarely practiced before. The goal is to get your creative mind to push limits, stretch its imagination and to give it a game to play.

To have an open and expanded mind that is capable of using objects, sounds, movements, etc., and turn them into something solid and applicable is exactly what the most successful creators do. So why not start with the basics – Creative Writing. You might just realize that there are some life lessons to be learned from the writing exercises.

1. Newspaper Headline: I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of reading all the negativity in the newspaper. Old Zig Ziglar always said that the reason foreigners can come to America and become millionaires within a year is that they can’t read all the negativity in the newspaper. For this challenge, write your own headline article for the newspaper and share what you think is important enough for all to know. Lesson: Make sure the positive is what remains on the front page. Focus on the good, the happy, the love and remember to share it with everyone. Put all of the negativity in the obituary section.

2. Oddvertisement: You have seen great advertisements that may have even gotten you to buy something, but you have also seen terrible ads that feel like a continuous prod in the ribs. Advertisements are only fun when you see an advertisement for something odd. That’s why I call it an Oddvertisement. Open up your pantry or closet and dig for something in the far back that never gets used. Now it’s time to sell it. Write an oddvertisement that is creative and encouraging enough for someone to consider buying it. Lesson: Anyone can make a sale, but only the creative make a living off of it. There is always a different way to look at things, you just have to have the right mindset.

3. MadLib Promotion: While MadLibs are extremely fun. The joy can be even more fruitful when you are the one who created the MadLib for someone else to complete. Lesson: Challenge others by giving them the authority to choose what word goes in a certain spot.

4. Word Of The Day Stories: Dictionary.com has a Word of The Day every day. For a beginner writer, try freewriting and using the words from the last seven days. For a more expert writer, create a story using all of last months words. To take it a step further, you can even start your story by using the time and setting of  the actual month that you are using the new words from. Lesson: Time really does go by quickly, yet it’s still possible to learn something new everyday and apply it to your life.

5. Improv Writing: Improv, Improv Character Building, Improv-ing Writing Skills  Lesson: People-observation skills and the ability to make a correct judgement can be critical in some situations. In others, it’s necessary to keep an open mind about a person since truly, you don’t know where they come from, what they are thinking or where they want to go in life.

6. Who’s Quote Is It Anyway?: Have a list of famous quotes you absolutely love? Create a story that implements them word by word, as the theme, or by using your own derivative of the meaning. Give the quote an all new definition and background. Who knows, if you switch it up enough, you just might be quoted for it. Lesson: Emulating The Successful Through Quotes.

7. Poetry Walk Or Meditation. While walking and becoming aware of all that is around you, carry a journal and write down notes and ideas to create a poem from. Lesson: Living in the moment and remaining aware.

8.  Connect-The-Sentences: Either pull random sentences from different books or use sentences you have recently heard someone say. Make three columns and in the first and third, write down the sentences that you gathered. The middle column is for you to write your own sentence that can connect the first and third sentences. The more challenging you want it, the more columns you can add, making every other column blank. Lesson: To achieve anything in life from where you are, you have to create a bridge. There is never skipping steps. You can’t just skip the middle column of this writing game or skip the work you need to do to get to where you want to be in life. It’s also great to realize that you can make the bridge as interesting and be as creative as possible.

9. Word Jump. While freewriting, start every sentence with the word that you blindly land your finger on in a book or newspaper. Lesson: You never know what’s going to pop up in your life to knock you off track. Are you creative enough to adapt and overcome?

10. Guest Post: Instead of getting a guest to write a blog post for you, you write it. Open up the post like you normally would on a  subject of your choice (preferably controversial, but it doesn’t need to be). Then introduce your guest that will be writing a post on the subject (Create an alias for yourself). Now begin writing from a different perspective, as the guest blogger. Lesson: Getting different perspectives.

11. Word Play: Write a poem with word play… wait, weight, waste, waist, hole, whole. Lesson: Simply just fun!

12. I Write Dead People: Open up a newspaper to the Obituary section and write a story about how a person died. Lesson: Makes you happy to be alive doesn’t it? Life’s too short to not be creative.

13. Telephone Book Tale: Open to a random page of your yellow book, placing your finger on a part of the page and using what is written in that ad, put it in your story. Did your finger lie on a Muffler shop? Has there been a recent murder there? Was all that was left at the scene a piece of paper and the phone number which has been disconnected? Big yellow phone books don’t do any good unless you can write a story from them. Lesson: Nothing is ever as it seems.

14. Where Do You WANT To See Yourself In 5 Years?: Simple as that. Write every detail, every dream come true, every aspect of the life you want. Get crazy with it! So many people will ask you this throughout your life. Create an answer that will blow them away.

 

Stay Positive & Then Follow Through To Make That 5th Year Come True

Garth E. Beyer