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Two Things To Do Before A One-On-One Meeting

Two Things To Do Before A One-On-One Meeting

Garth Beyer

Coffee Shop One-On-One Meetup

Anyone who knows me personally knows I have a habit of scheduling one-on-one meetings quite regularly. I think carefully about who I meet, but sometimes I even ignore my own guidelines.

While I don’t need to argue the reasons to have one-on-one meetings (InkHouse just did it for me), I can offer a couple of tips on what to do to have a successful one-on-one.

1) Read newspaper headlines or short blurbs of front page stories. Whether you bring up a headline topic or the person who you are meeting with does, you can at least say you caught it briefly. (It’s also a great conversation starter and fall-back small talk if there are periods of awkward silence.)

Often times if they mention a topic first and you are able to connect with it (“Yea, I saw that in the NYT this morning.”) then they will go on to talk about it. No deep thought from your end is necessary. You won’t lose clout by stating you didn’t get the full story yet. In fact, they will get pleasure from informing you more about it.

However, you will lose some informed credibility if you don’t know what’s going on in the world, especially when they bring it up as it’s obviously a matter of interest for them and thus, should be for you (at least for the sake of the meeting).

2) Listen to a podcast that is either motivational, entrepreneurial or focused on a shared interest of you and the person you’re meeting with. Many one-on-one meetings end up being an act of back-and-forth storytelling. “I remember when X happened to me.” Or “Have you used MailChimp? Did you know that if you enter ‘boredom’ in their search box, you get to play Asteroids!” (I learned that nugget by listening to Debbie Millman’s podcast with Ben Chestnut and Aarron Walter and used it during a meeting with an aspiring game developer.)

By listening to a few podcasts you will learn something new, think about experiences you’ve had (essentially jostling your memory), and give you something of value to share. They will put you in the mood to meet with someone, to socialize, to generate new ideas together. If those aren’t reasons for your one-on-one meeting, what kind of meetings are you going on?

Best of luck. Let me know how these tips help.

 

Stay Positive & Go Schedule A Couple Of Meetings

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What’s The Weather Like Out There

Garth Beyer

I’ve just about had it with all these news headlines and front page topic choices.

Weather. Weather. Weather.

I don’t quite understand people’s fascination with the weather forecast. It feels that people take it as seriously as a school shooting, a tsunami or a political scandal that is unfolding.

The only difference is those three are newsworthy. Weather, not so much.

You might argue that a tsunami is part of a weather forecast. I would argue back that there is a difference (a very large difference) between a tsunami and a winter storm. If you’re perceiving that each relate, consider the list of natural disasters by death toll (tsunami vs blizzard) and then ask yourself if the current weather “news” is really newsworthy.

If you’re still wanting more numbers, consider this:

Add up all the time you’ve spent checking the weather, worrying about the weather and reading about the weather.

Now imagine what more you could have done by using that time differently.

It’s not entirely your fault of course. But until news agencies change their tactics, you need to watch yours.

 

Stay Positive & Sunny Days Ahead

 

Where’s The Off Button, News?

Garth Beyer

What do you wish the news did?

Perhaps this question would be better shaped to “What do you wish the news did not do?” The reason being is that whatever suggestion you come up with has likely already been done – maybe not by CNN or The Washington Post, but by a blogger or freelance investigator. In the scenario that it hasn’t been done, well… who is stopping you from implementing your idea?

Apropos to my previous post, I mentioned that we should understand why the news sources choose the news to share. Why is every cover page telling a story about death, disease, adultery, murder, theft and loss. I believe that, in understanding, it is very simple – it’s all about the eye balls. While we can go into the psychology of it, it doesn’t take a psychologist professor for a layperson to understand the concept of yellow journalism.

With this into consideration, I wish the news would first try to implement a average citizen focus group to decide what goes on the cover, what is more advertised than other articles, and what they (the average citizens) want  to read. If this is in some way improbable, then at least cut the vulgarity and introduce more good-news. (Thanks Huff!)

 

Stay Positive & Good News Is…. Good

Living Is Easy

Garth Beyer

Do one thing a day that if you died the next day, you would have been happy you did.

Most will tell you to do one thing a day that scares you. Others will suggest to play it safe. Many ignore both and just don’t care. These are hard to do, extremely hard. The amount of effort that goes into failure is insubstantial.

But, living… living is easy.

If I may add one note coming from the journalist inside me, if there is one thing I have learned from watching and reading news, it is that people die. Every single day. For different reasons, in different ways, procuring different impacts. People die.

Life can be cruel, but only if it has the first move. That’s where you come in.

Make that first move, every day.

 

Stay Positive & Live, That’s All You Have To Do In This World

Garth E. Beyer