Podcasts

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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Start Your Way

Start Your Way

Garth Beyer

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I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts lately. One in particular Debbie Millman’s. It seems every interviewee, every professional creative, every communicator began with one weird thing.

Think of a sculpture made from all the staples in wooden posts within a city. Imagine fake moss saran wrapped on a rock and sold. Consider a ridiculous feat. It can even be something that anyone can do, but no one is willing to commit to (basically half the art pieces in an art museum).

Once you become a success, people will want to hear your story. They will ask you how you started or where you started or when you knew exactly what you wanted to do with your career.

You have an opportunity when starting on the path to your own success to start in a remarkable, more specifically, weird, way.

If your serious about becoming successful, then you need to be the opposite about starting down that path. You never heard a successful person’s story start out “Well, I planned for four years figuring out everything I needed to do to get here and I worked my way very slowly here, pleasing everyone I could and trying to appeal to the masses and doing what everyone told me to blah blah blah.”

No.

You hear about people doing something crazy and weird and something worth talking about.

 

Stay Positive & The Most Important Part Of Any Story Is The Opening Paragraph

(What’s Yours?)

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Get Psyched!

Garth Beyer

I have a Get Psyched playlist for my workouts.

Barney has a Get Psyched mix for, well, getting psyched.

What about a Get Psyched mix for overall work, life, and self-improvement?

 

I’ll be going on a trip this Friday and will be #unplugged for 14 days. (Don’t worry, I’ve written like crazy to schedule posts for the days I will be unplugged.) While I get everything in order for my time away, I will be listening to a countless number of motivational speeches and discussions.

I remember the first Zig Ziglar talk I listened to on a Podcast at work two years ago. Heck, he’s still there on the front page! It changed my life for the better the best.

After I listened to all the Zig Ziglar that I could freely get my hands on, I bought a couple of discs. Then I listened to those until I knew what word he would say next. After nearly memorizing the seminars, naturally, I stopped listening to them. That’s when my life rocketed toward everything I wished it would be. It still amazes me just thinking about it.

Now I’m shooting to do the same with this trip. Loading up with motivational fuel, getting psyched, then cutting myself off. We’ll see what happens.

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Without the need to be unplugged, I encourage you to do that same. You can download Spotify (much like Pandora, sure you’ve heard of that) and search for Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, and all the other great motivational speakers. From there, it’s simple: listen.

You don’t need to spend hundreds, or in the case of some of Brian Tracy’s work, thousands, to Get Psyched for personal growth. Yes, Spotify is free.

What makes me happy is knowing how little Zig would care that we can now listen to him talk for free. Let’s show him what we got.

 

Stay Positive & Get Psyched

Garth E. Beyer