Passion

Rather Than What’s Next

Garth Beyer

I’ve gotten in the rotten habit of always thinking about what’s next.

I love checking projects and assignments off because it means I get to work with the next thing, but that, in a way, prevents me from moving forward faster.

Instead of always seeking the next thing, sometimes it pays off more to do more of what you’re doing, but differently.

Perhaps you’re in a job that is repetitive and it’s frustrating that you haven’t been promoted or asked to do different work. You can let your desire (and ultimate inability) to progress eat at your passion or you can direct that passion to experiment with what you have in front of you.

Simply because you’ve been blogging for a year doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get your book published. Maybe it’s time to blog differently and see if it resonates more.

When we are facing a barrier to what we want next, we can either let it destroy us, drain our energy, and make us question our direction or we can think about things differently, experiment with our work, and find a way to improve what we think is “good enough.”

 

Stay Positive & Doing Things Differently Might Be What’s Next

Talking Points

Garth Beyer

In the moment of indecision, of wondering what people want to hear, in trying to please the boss in the room, we forget the talking points we are most moved by.

What happens in most presentations is they get filled with the expected.

Informative, sure, but expected.

The presenter goes through the motions and about three-quarters into the keynote, they’ve finally slid in a slide about what they are most passionate about. And you know what? That’s the most moving part of the presentation.

Not because of any build up to it, but because the energy of the presenter finally gets noticed.

People like Sasha Dichter and Simon Sinek aren’t phenomenal speakers because they practiced how to speak publicly. What makes them special is they’ve practiced how to speak publicly about points that completely move them, energize them, fill them with an incredible need to share. (That’s why Sasha paces and Simon uses so many hand motions and vocal influxes.)

Instead of putting the expected talking points in your next presentation, send them out earlier in an email and dedicate your presentation to what moves you most.

 

Stay Positive & Focus On Resonating, Not Feeding An Audience The Basics

They Did The Work

Garth Beyer

I’m not sure why so many people seek out shortcuts to being successful in the field they’re interested in when it’s so obvious there isn’t a shortcut.

“How did you become such a great writer?”

“How did you become such a successful improv actor?”

“How did you become so muscular?”

They read and wrote. They practiced improv on a regular basis. They lifted a lot of weights.

The closest thing to a shortcut you will get is figuring out how to be more passionate than others, more willing to fail than others, more motivated to write, to act, to lift.

There are no shortcuts to being great at some form of art, but there are shortcuts to being more passionate about it.

 

Stay Positive & Ask How They Got Passionate About Their Practice

Bottled Up

Garth Beyer

You can’t be moved by a presentation a week after as passionately as you could be moved the evening of. Inspiration can’t be bottled and saved up for later. Motivation is also addictive for this reason.

We love the feeling of creative potential, of assertive ambition, of being fueled with passion, but the moment the creative spark ignites, so does the lizard brain tricking us to wait until a better moment, to use our knowledge on our next project, not the one we’re currently working on.

Since we don’t recognize it’s the lizard brain speaking up, we feel bad a week later when we’re reminded about the seminar we went to and how we haven’t put to action anything we learned from it. I recall myself saying how ready and stoked I was to write my next novel after a 2-day writing conference. I never did. So what’s the best solution?

Go to another conference, watch another Ted talk, listen to another podcast episode because the energy makes us happy again, which leads to an addictive mentality, a downhill spiral of bottled up and wasted inspiration.

What has helped me prevent wasting creative energy is to remind myself I don’t need to create something huge or wait for something big to release the passion. Immediately after attending a second writing conference, I wrote an incomplete story. I spent about 20 minutes writing while I ate lunch.

Two things happened.

One, I learned inspiration is quickly spent. The creative juice waned after 15 minutes of writing, but when I first put pen to paper, I thought I was pumped up enough to write for hours.

Two, I was proud of myself later in the day and even a week later when I thought back to the conference and how I used the inspiration. Even though it was a short incomplete story about an irish boxer who had a fascination with things colored orange, I had conquered my lizard brain.

Don’t bottle up your inspiration. Don’t hang on to motivation. Put it to use, make something, write something, do something differently, and remember, it doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be.

 

Stay Positive & You’ll Often Come Out Even More Inspired (by yourself!)

Listen

Garth Beyer

I get asked time and time again how I do it all, and my answer often changes.

Here it is now.

I do it because the voice in my head, the song in my heart won’t let me not do it. I don’t have superpowers. I’m not privileged more than anyone else. I may think about things differently, but I see them the same as you and the next person.

But, and I suppose this is a big but, that voice inside my head won’t settle until I see if I can do it, until I try to make what I want happen, until I give all the art and inspiration to create it I can.

 

Stay Positive & Are You Listening To The Voice In Your Head?

What Are You Doing It For?

Garth Beyer

Core Values

A lot of things get done throughout the work day merely because someone was too scared to say STOP or lacked the confidence to ask why they were assigned to do what they were.

From an employee stand point, every task is an opportunity to reaffirm what you’re doing it for. It’s why company culture, company goals, and, most importantly, the company message is so vital to know and understand.

Often times, when one is doing a task one deems unnecessary, they still have a legitimate purpose for doing it when they know why the company is in existence (its core value).

But not every company shares its why. Not every company inspires their employers to be part of their movement. In fact, not every company is moving.

So we must fall back on our own values. We must ask why. We must understand what we are doing this or that for… and appreciate it.

From a manager’s perspective, if employees aren’t asking why, if they’re not seeking out work that matters, then it’s an indicator of a larger company problem.

Do work that matters or be the company culture changer. They need you.

 

Stay Positive & Ask, Know, Care

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Marketing Close To Pain

Garth Beyer

Remarkable Or Pain

When someone is in pain, they’ll do anything and everything for relief, and if you’re in the business of relief, the more you can charge.

Pain is a strong word, but then again, so is need, which is exactly what marketers place themselves in a position to fulfill.

It blows my mind how any podcaster can charge $1,100 a month for a podcast webinar series. It’s crazy how much some marketing conferences cost.

Likewise, it’s never exciting to hear the burger at the airport is $15 or the beer at a hotel bar is $9 a bottle. Yet, owners and businesspeople and marketers and podcasters alike can charge that much because they are in the proximity of pain.

The marketers who invest in the podcast webinar series are in desperate need to get to the top. The starving traveller, well, is starving.

Want to charge more for your product or service? Get closer to the pain, the need.

Or… or… go to the other end, the end of desire and passion and love. The end of connection and bragging and giving.

You have two options. Sell a mediocre burger for an outrageous amount because you’re close to the pain or sell a remarkable burger for a price that matches its value (sometimes even less because it’s a burger you want people to talk about, an experience you want them to partake in, and joy you want to share).

Fortunately for you the market for remarkable is wide-open, there are people there waiting to be blown away with an experience. The market for pain, however, is crowded. Good luck getting in there.

 

Stay Positive & Yes, Fulfill A Need, But Know Which Need You’re Fulfilling First

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