Preparation

When You’re In It For The Long Run

Garth Beyer

How can you make it more enjoyable, or in most cases, at least more bearable? It’s simple to figure out whether something will take a long time or not. Best case scenario, of course, is it doesn’t take long. You can plan for a short input and quick output, but here’s the thing about plans: they almost never happen the way you plan for them to happen (and certainly never as quickly as you plan).

#ProTip: Think of every long-term effort as if you were running long distance. It’s much more enjoyable when you’re running with a friend, much more bearable if you’re jamming to fresh music, you’ll be more excited to go the distance if you have a new pair of kicks. You can build these variables into your plan before you start.

And that’s the key isn’t it? So many people start as soon as they know where they are going. Fact is, the how matters most. The path ahead will be as smooth or as bumpy as it will be, but you can prepare to enjoy either.

 

Stay Positive & A Few. Little. Tunes. For You. Enjoy Your Run.

 

Are You Ready?

Garth Beyer

You can’t get stuck on this. You can’t wait until you are. You can’t rationalize your way through it.

Truthfully, you’re better off not being ready and moving forward anyway.

Plus, often the best things in life we are never ready for. Why wait until we are?

 

Stay Positive & You’re Not Supposed To Answer That Question

Garth E. Beyer

Turn Your Beat Into A Book (summary: writers)

Garth Beyer

I attended a conference that hosted a panel of writers and publishers. Happy to share what I took from the writers panel with you.

  • 10 tips that one writer gave
  • Think about writing before reporting. Reporting will be natural and more apparent the deeper you get into the story.
  • He or she who hesitates “gets scooped.”
  • What you need:
    • To be gregarious
    • To prepare
    • To know when to cut bait (get out of a situation)
    • To have faith in the project
    • To make something new
  • When writing a book, always try to find more time. Time that is constructed for the sole purpose of writing.
  • “Most important picture is the next one, not the last one,” said a the photojournalist.

Lastly, and worth not having in a bullet point, always try to keep a project going.

Lessons From The Cat In The Box

Garth Beyer

Clover is my cat. Although, I feel it may be more accurate to call her a little kitty despite the fact she is nearly 4 years old and after being with me, has only 3 out of 9 of her lives left. She’s small, cute, has half a tail (rescue kitty), and if you don’t remember, she has a big impact on my writing:( A Writer’s Crashing “Train of Thought” and Why It’s Excellent )

I have a cat story for you.

If your a cat owner, you have put a cat in a box. If you’re not, you now share the same curiosity as those who have as to what will the cat do if put it in a box? Let’s make the box a tall box, and the cat Clover.

Clover got put into a tall box and wouldn’t jump out. Contrary to belief, cats do have fear and it is this fear of the unknown and inability to prepare for the landing that Clover wouldn’t jump out. Cat’s, being very smart, choose not to take the risk. Admiringly, nor do they choose to just stay in the box. They will, just as Clover, put their paws on the rim of the box to try and peer over it to calculate the jump out of the box. It just so happened, as Clover had her paws on the edge, the box began to tip and it is almost as if the box was trying to push her out. Clover chose to try and prepare for the jump, only to find in that preparation that everything fell into place. (Pardon the pun)

See, we can learn many things from life, from each other and even from animals if we only observe.

Lessons Learned:

  • It’s okay to fear, just don’t let it immobilize you.
  • The unknown is not something to jump into, but to fall forward into.
  • If you prepare to try, you gain a forward leaning posture that tips the box, coincidentally pushing you forward.
  • Nothing is impossible, it’s just the angle at which you look at things.
  • Determination is unstoppable.
  • Fear of remaining in the box is worse than the fear of what’s out of it.
  • Freedom of any kind is worth losing 1 of 9 lives for.

Stay Positive & Luck Will Always Be On Your Side, As Long As You Try

Garth E. Beyer

Other posts about preparation (non-cat related): Prep To Destroy, Preparation and Expectation Reversed, Safety First: The Art Of Preparation

Prep To Destroy

Garth Beyer

Have you ever realized how much you have to prepare to destroy something?

Before a house can be torn down, you have to call two – five different “garbage” companies: one for the glass, one for the metal, one for the wood, one for the crud left inside and one for whatever is left.

Figuratively speaking, you even have to prepare for children to kick down the tower of blocks they made. They need to make sure they hit it at an angle that the blocks don’t go flying and hitting the cat or ending up under the couch.

It takes even more preparation to destroy part of something. If you need to do that, you’re better off starting from scratch. The time and effort you have to invest to prevent the parts you want to keep from falling down with the rest can be better spent building something better, more creatively and with a stronger frame.

A bridge won’t last if you only fix up half of it. That is like putting a band-aid on something that needs to be stitched. It may hold for a short period of time but with too much use it will tear open and bleed.

Simply putting it, destroying half or part of anything; a brand, a business, or a tower of blocks will not make you more successful. It will only postpone the total destruction, if not make it worse when it occurs.

There are two points to the “Prep To Destroy” concept.

1. The more simple and less time you put towards building something, the easier it is for someone to tear it down. The smaller and less stable it is, the less time someone has to put toward preparing to destroy it – survival of the fittest (the weakest are attacked first). Build something stable, don’t just focus on the infrastructure, focus on it all.

2. The time it takes to build something is relative to the time it would take for it to crumble down and be destroyed. It may take you 10 years to write that book you want, 20 to start the business you want or 30 to teach and build a team of incredible people but no one will spend that much time trying to tear any of that apart.

 

Stay Positive & Create Something Indestructible

Garth E. Beyer

Preparation & Expectation Reversed

Garth Beyer

Whoever said “Prepare for the worst but expect the best” was wrong, very wrong indeed.

However, something I agree with – that surely you do to – is that “Actions speak louder than words”. Wouldn’t preparing for the best, be best? Putting forth the effort and action required to prepare for something that will be in the top 10% of greatest accomplishments is what is important. You don’t want to prepare for the worst as discussed in an earlier post (Safety First: The Art Of Preparation) So why not prepare for the best but expect the worst? After all, our greatest moments of happiness arrive when something that was positively unexpected occurs. This means that when whatever you prepared for was a success, you will feel a billion times greater because you thought it wouldn’t turn out that great.

After this, it might be better to start saying that actions speak louder than thoughts too.

 

Stay Positive and Keep Doing Better Than Expected

Garth E. Beyer

Safety First: The Art of Preparation

Garth Beyer

While growing up one of the biggest influences in my life was my Uncle Chuck.  All I would ever hear him saying whenever we would do something together was safety first, safety first, safety first. Before we pull out in a car, before we lit fireworks, before we hiked, before we traveled, before we did anything it was safety first. This life lesson has been most prevalent in my life and I respect and admire my uncle for teaching it to me – even though it would often get annoying. Then again that just means it’s important enough to be repeated. And it was.

Knowing me, I have to improve every lesson I learn and change everything I listen to and try to incorporate it to fit my life just as you should do with everything you hear. However, this lesson I learned from my uncle of safety first has evolved itself into every aspect of my life in the form of preparation. The best process of safely succeeding and being safe if failure occurs defines preparation.

There has been no art more simplistic, straightforward and rewarding than the art of preparation.

“Let’s proclaim that art has no greater enemy than those artists who permit their art to become subservient to socio-political issues or ideals. In so doing, they not only violate art’s fundamental sovereignty, they surrender that independence from function that made it art in the first place.” – Tom Robbins

At the heart of “safety first” is preparation. At the heart of “preparation” is the transformation of oneself into an outlaw, a rebel. For the only successful artists are those who break the boundaries, status-quo and socio-pathetic expectations. Now, disaster disrupts thousands upon thousands of lives each week. What separates artists from the disaster is not preparing for the worst, but preparing for the best. Contrary to belief, in life there is always someone there to recover you when disaster strikes. The laws of the universe and connection to all things living incorporate “safety first” into all of our lives. This leads to the necessity of an  interrogation that will find out why so many people prepare for the worst case scenario when the safety net has already been placed. (It is beneficial to know that the safety net is placed as long as you accept the consequence of ill preparation)

As any art form that has ever been created, there are dozens of different ways to look at it. Preparation can compensate for lack of talent. Preparation creates confidence which results in the prevention of failure and assurance of success. Positive life impacts come when preparation meets opportunity. Know safety, no pain. No safety, know pain. By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail. Confidence is preparation, everything else is beyond control.

From now on, I expect and will hold you accountable to always prepare for the best. That is all your focus should ever be on.

Stay Positive and Safety First

Garth E. Beyer