Practice

In The Box Podcast

Episode 21: Advice, Delighting Customers, Practicing Patience And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we discussed how to acknowledge the viewpoint of others when you disagree with them, how to handle the desire for others to understand your point of view, how one can build patience, if it’s better to seek advice or wait until it’s given, and a couple of ways businesses can delight customers. Enjoy.

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Episode 21: Advice, Delighting Customers, Practicing Patience And More

Patience – What’s one way you practice patience?

Advice – Do you think it’s better to seek advice or wait for someone to give you advice without asking?

Acknowledge – What is one way to acknowledge the viewpoint of others even if you disagree?

Understanding – How much do you desire for others to understand your POV?

Delight customers – What is one way businesses can delight customers?

 

Stay Positive & It’s A Lot About Mental Preparation

Does It Compound

Garth Beyer

Love compounds.

Learning compounds.

Skill compounds the more you ship.

It pays to ask if what you’re doing compounds. Failure, being right, submitting to the lizard brain doesn’t compound, so why are you spending your time there?*

 

Stay Positive & Love Learn And Practice More

*When it comes to failure, it’s impossible to compound because the more you fail, the less likely you’ll fail the next time.

Second Best

Garth Beyer

Rather than quitting, burning the manuscript, scrapping the design because it’s not perfect, not exactly what you wanted, not what you promised, what else could you do with your project?

The business model you began building, but never completed, could you put it online anyway? Perhaps someone could work off it. Perhaps it will inspire someone. Perhaps it would show people you’re onto something and they may start waiting to see what else you share.

The novel you started writing, but didn’t finish. Maybe you can manage writing a conclusion regardless it’s not where you wanted the conclusion to be, and shipping it. Someone may read it and be impressed. Someone may feel confident in shipping their own work because they saw you still did.

Shipping something that’s your second best can still be a place of inspiration, of growth, of connecting with others. When you know you won’t finish with a first place project, consider shipping a second best version.

Two benefits of second best:

1) There’s no resentment, no regret, no disappointment for not finishing and shipping your art.

2) Instead of sitting on the project, waiting to be inspired to finish it, you can just move on.

 

Stay Positive & Move On, Move Forward

The Greatest Life Lesson From Getting A Job

Garth Beyer

After the struggle of searching for places to apply at, applying, and going through the interview process, you arrive at your new job. As crappy as it is, most will say, “a job is a job.”

While there is plenty to learn from the process of acquiring a job, what I would like to point out is in regards to the training that everyone must go through. Once you’re hired, the next step before you start – beside the paperwork – is to train, to learn what you will be doing.

You may be handed a small manual. You may be told to shadow someone. You may be shown what you will be doing and asked to run through it once or twice. Other than that, there isn’t much more to the training. In fact, I would bet that after training for any job, you will be nervous about not doing what you need to do right, efficiently, or flawlessly. Simply because you weren’t trained well.

You won’t master anything even with a manual. You won’t master anything by watching someone else do it. (How great would that be if we did though!) You won’t master anything by doing it once or twice. In fact, I wouldn’t even call any of that training. Training for something results in a sense of preparedness which this doesn’t produce.

No employers care about that though. They shouldn’t. Actually, they’re smart not to!

Employers – and now you – know that there is no better training than training on your feet. By that I mean getting thrown into what you need to do and being expected to do it right even with the haunting lack of preparedness.

As people, the best way to learn is to do. We can read, we can watch, we can shadow, we can even give something a shot or two, but the most effective and quickest way to learn anything is to jump in and do it.

For the next time you have an interest in doing something, catch yourself when you begin to “train” for it too long. And to simplify it for you, I can even tell you how long “too long” is. If training for something as important as a job only takes a few hours (maybe a day), then whatever you are training for better be more important than a job if you are training longer for it.

I could have told you from the beginning to not spend much time researching stuff and instead, do. But that would be an insult to the way the world works. The same way that skipping the barely helpful training for a job would be.

 

Stay Positive & For Best Results, Do

Garth E. Beyer

Traceurs Are Not The Only Ones To Acquire Calluses

Garth Beyer

Callus: An especially toughened area of skin which has become relatively thick and hard in response to repeated friction or pressure,

While there is only one definition of Calluses, there are multiple forms of Calluses and of all the forms, they can be  summarized into two categories: The Good and The Bad.

The Bad

When things do not go the way we want, we often consider it a failure. With repetition, this will cause friction and eventually we will quit expecting great things for ourselves and no longer take any risks. We build a resistant callus of comfort toward the world. In addition to these mental calluses, we often form emotional calluses. We become tougher on others, sometimes so much that it produces more of a negative outcome than a positive one. Even in relationships, we may form calluses that prevent us from getting close to others again. In summary, when bad experiences begin to add up, the calluses formed in our minds and hearts become thickened. The real question to ask is are we really protecting ourselves from more bad than we would expose ourselves to greatness by becoming vulnerable?

The Good

“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger”, “Failures are stepping stones to success”, “Being strong does not mean avoiding the truth. It means accepting it, learning about it, and dealing with it head on.” I could spend days listing all the famous quotes and sayings about strength. What it breaks down to is the strongest of individuals build calluses around their failures and their weakest points. Whenever they are exposed to one of their faults, they allow a callus to grow in its place. Instead of growing calluses that prevent us from failure, it’s a positive behavior to grow calluses where their was a failure.

With enough failures, there will be no limitations.

On a handout titled “What To expect At A Wisconsin Parkour Class” the following was written..

“There is a saying in Parkour, that ‘Our fitness is our armor.’ This is the rationale behind our safe, incremental progressions, and also behind why we don’t wear gloves for training. We climb and crawl on concrete, railings, cement, gravel, and other urban and natural surfaces. As such, your hands will likely experience small cuts/scrapes, blistering, and some discomfort during class. Over time these will toughen up and will provide ‘natural gloves’ to protect your hands while doing Parkour. Many new students are surprised to truly feel concrete on their hands the first few times they train, and are also surprised at how quickly the discomfort goes away with regular practice.”

The Great

Isn’t the last line the absolute greatest? “and are also surprised at how quickly the discomfort goes away with regular practice“. Parkour remains a constant reminder to me that in order for me to grow where I am weak, to repair where I have faltered, I must continuously practice my behaviors in order to strengthen them – to acquire positive calluses. I look at it as this, whatever hell you come out of, whatever scrapes and scars you leave with – you will always become twice as strong. So who’s up for round 2?

Stay Positive and Acclimate To Your Strength

Garth E. Beyer