Observe

Three Phases Of Trends

Three Phases Of Trends

Garth Beyer

Trends

First, people start a trend. Naturally they don’t know it’s a trend yet. Massive quick adoption of the act makes it a trend. Political blogging only had a trending impact once many others started blogging.

Second, people begin noticing the trend. Journalists start writing about political blogs. People other than the bloggers themselves talk about the impact of political blogging.

Third, people start following the trend. The increase of political blogs, not necessarily the immediate early flood of them, but the later consistent growth of them is a representation of following a trend. Instagram, Toms shoes, #scarystoriesin5words, Apple products – all examples too.

Although it is difficult to predict what action will become a trend, it is not impossible.

I had a dream the other night where I ran into Seth Godin at an eyewear store. Although he was dressed up as if he worked there, he wasn’t working. Instead, he was watching everyone who walked by, everyone who came inside and picked up frames to try on, and everyone who voiced their issues.

He was observing all three phases of trends.

1. He listened to the problems people came in with. After all, most trends are just solutions to a problem.

2. Those who entered the store to try on the frames were the ones noticing the trend. After all, the store pushes and showcases what they see is a recent trend in eyewear design.

3. Lastly, everyone who made the purchase of a showcase item or knew full well what they wanted when they entered the store were followers of a trend. After all, there’s not much convincing needed for followers of a trend.

I see it as this: there are actions taking place, things happening that are waiting to be written about, pointed out, learned from, and shared. We can play a role in any of the three phases of trends. We can start them by creating the solution to a problem or we can jump on the bandwagon.

 

Stay Positive & Do You See These Phases Happening?

if not, perhaps you need new glasses

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Catch Yourself

Garth Beyer

When you fall, fall hard. Learn from it and get back up.

But before you fall, try to catch yourself.

Too many artists get the two confused and try to catch themselves falling or rely on some other safety net to prevent getting hurt, to prevent failure. Don’t.

safety-net

What you want to do is to catch yourself losing track of your goals, or your motivation, or swaying into oncoming traffic. To do so, you have to develop three elements to your psyche.

1. Cautiousness

2. Observation

3. Mental Risk Taking

If you’ve read any of my content before, you’re likely wondering why I am advising cautiousness. I am all for a gamble, but you need to know the consequences going into it. To be cautious is to acknowledge the potential negative consequences.

To understand a decision, you have to observe everything about it. Have other people made a similar decision? What factors may affect your choice later that are not now? What are all the pieces that need to be in place before a decision can be made effectively? Essentially, what’s changing, in constant motion and how does it affect you?

Mental risk taking means to think through the unthinkable, the impossible, to explore every avenue available. Have you ever heard someone say there are only X number of ways to do something? The obstacle of mental risk taking is to think of one more way then what has already been thought of. Better yet, think of Parkour. Ask a regular pedestrian what is the fastest route to get from A to B and they will give you directions. Ask a tracuer and they will tell you to jump over this fence, run through that lot, leap over this creek and race across the rusted bridge. Something a layperson wouldn’t.

 

Stay Positive & Try Not To Fall, But When You Do, Fall Hard

Garth E. Beyer

Take Your Glasses Off

Garth Beyer

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I read an article that put the idea of how much we observe on a daily basis in better perspective. The article suggested to imagine walking a dog.

Notice how the dog is all over the place, pulling you forward, pulling you backward, to the side, off the path. Notice how the dog is sniffing everything and, quite comically, has something similar to what we call ADD. In reality, it’s simply observing absolutely everything around.

The dog hears the squirrels in the tree, the lawn mower behind the house around the corner, the starting of a car in the garage of the house you just passed. It notices the direction of the wind and the family hollering out for their children on the other side of the block.

The WOW moment for me was when, despite observing as much as a dog possibly can, the dog is still curious of what else is happening in the world and searches for more activity to observe.

Before the article I already thought we had glasses that gave us a narrow perspective of what occurs around us. Now I feel the term “dumb as a dog” is more of an insult to dogs.

 

Stay Positive & Get Observing Like A Dog

Garth E. Beyer

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What Makes Me Happy

Garth Beyer

Those who say that you can’t find happiness, that it’s something that just happens to you in the moment, obviously were only listening to those before them, and who knows who those people were told by. Happiness can, indeed, be found absolutely anywhere.

When I look at my phone, I feel happy because I think about the conversation I had last night with a friend whom I trust, or the sweet text from my significant other that I read this morning when I woke up, or the hour long conversations I have with my mom. (Often one-sided conversations. She likes to talk.)

aLet’s look at this more broadly. Happiness is associated with two forms of events: new and old.

When I find myself wandering through an oddly lit alleyway in town, I feel adventurous, curious, and slightly anxious to discover what lies around – all feelings adding up to that of happiness. Then, at a later date, I find myself walking through that same alleyway remembering the picture I took of a toy sand shovel that I saw in the parking garage. Unexplainable, but oddly, made me happy to remember it.

See, we live in a world made up of little things, new and old. These little things come from experience and experience has as much to do with happiness as the flame does in a hot air balloon. So, what makes me (us!) happy is experience. There’s a problem with this though. You can have a bad customer experience, or a regrettable experience, or a poor vacation experience. Right? I would argue that you can’t.

Experience involves two variables: noticing and having interest.

Dictionary.com describes experience as “the process or fact of personally observing, the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.” I believe that if you were to notice what is happening around you, if you truthfully and personally observe what is occurring, then without a single doubt in my mind, do I think you would feel happy.

The events that people often refer to as negative experiences are actually a subjective reaction to what is going on around them. This reaction is the result of shortened feedback and either always a misunderstanding or the mere inability to understand the situation enough to find the yin in the yang.

Following your attention to the moment, experience also comes from having an interest in something. In one sense, you can view this as the opposite of a negative reaction. Having interest involves reacting to an object or an event in a positive way.

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.” – Henry Miller

Just as you can always find good in the bad, you can always find an interest where you find the good. It’s our inherent responsibility to follow our hearts, to seek out our passion and then, once found, let it ignite our hot air balloons. The higher we go, the happier we are. All from seeing the good in things and having an interest.

I can’t help but end with the note that Abraham Lincoln is purported to have once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” In short, it isn’t about what makes us happy, it’s what doesn’t make us happy. (In case you were wondering, the following does not make me happy: pickled eggs, when I fail to see the bigger picture, and the memory of playing hide-and-seek with my Dad in Gander Mountain, except he didn’t know he was playing.) Happiness is a choice that after you make often enough, it becomes a habit, a habit definitely worth having.

 

Stay Positive & Do More Of What Makes You Happy

Garth E. Beyer

Why Experience Matters When Creating

Garth Beyer

Yesterday I wrote about how difficult it is to actually create something. The reason being is that to create something that is valuable and successful, you have to think the unimaginable.

One important factor to this way of thinking is that what you create needs to be something that someone, somewhere has no clue they want or need. There are only two ways this can be done.

1. Observe. Obviously the hardest since you are busy, on the go, and trying to be creative. I tend to agree with people like Daniel Pink that before we can be creative, we have to notice others’ creativity.

2. Experience. Jump in the ocean of opportunities life presents you. The more you experience, the more likely a creative idea will hit you. Zipup laces would never have been created by someone who never wore shoes.

 

Stay Positive & Start Swimming, Whichever Direction You Want, Doesn’t Matter

Garth E. Beyer