Problems

Remarkable Work

Garth Beyer

doesn’t have a schedule. Remarkable can happen any time of the day. The old 9 to 5 plan is just that, old.

The calendar of an artist is messy, clustered, and generally, all over the place. There are work meetings and social coffee meetups spotting throughout the week. The frantic-ness, the hysterics, the last-minute changes of plans perpetuate remarkable work. Why?

Because the lack of true routine allows you to connect with everyone better, allows you to attack a problem from multiple angles, and allows you to maintain an open mind about everything.

It should go without saying here that time needs to be made to relax, to be with close friends and family and to have some real reckless fun. However, these activities become greater memories when they’ve got to be fit into your day. You enjoy them more, you look forward to them more, you get lost in them – often finding the solution to a work problem. Go you.

A real artist is always on.

 

Stay Positive & Laugh When You Are Asked What An Average Day Is Like

What Comeback Success Stories Forget

Garth Beyer

We have all heard the good stories. Someone who starts with nothing ends up becoming successful. Someone who starts with something, but loses it ends up working smart enough to earn what they lost plus some. Someone who grew up in poverty broke the family tradition. Someone who had nothing growing up, started a successful business and now gives back to the community where they struggled.

The stories are all remarkable, but each person I’ve heard tell their comeback story forgets to note the most important factor.

You don’t need to fall down to make a comeback.

To be as successful as these people, you don’t need to make the same mistakes.

 

Stay Positive & Make New Mistakes To Talk About

Are You Cereal?

Garth Beyer

Why have they not made cereal bags that you can open without ripping the bag in half?

Or why have they not made spoons that prevent milk from trickling down your chin?

Because of some very important factors.

  • 99% of the time, seeing someone trip is funny. So is watching someone try to open a bag of cereal or when milk trickles down their chin.
  • Broken things are remarkable, as in, worth talking about whether it’s bragging or complaining.
  • They let people connect with each other. Nothing says we’re perfect for marriage than knowing you both can’t open a bag of cereal without tearing the side of it.

It’s not just cereal. As long as the real thing – whether it’s cereal or your own invention – is great, the trouble getting there is worth it. Think about your art as a toy at the bottom of a cereal box. It sort-of sucks to get it. It’s not convenient, but it’s an accomplishable and sometimes entertaining challenge.

It gets people talking about the toy without actually talking about the toy. By having them share their stories about how they got the toy (and almost vomiting while finishing an entire box of cereal in one sitting), your “toy” becomes part of a real, emotional, personal memory.

This is why perfect art is worthless. You can’t have remarkable cereal without the bag.

 

Stay Positive & Your Art Is Never Just Art To Someone

Garth E. Beyer

What Is It That Drives Your Motivation?

Garth Beyer

Dear Garth,

I have been engaged in a series of processes, trials and tribulations in enacting a major lifestyle change, choosing to best emulate my thoughts and emotive responses in a physical manner. I find the faith in human ambition frighteningly low amongst many of my peers and I have a pressing question on my mind, as a friend. What is it that drives your motivation? You are perhaps one of the most influential and inspiring people that I have come to know and even the slightest of conversation on the question would be unfathomably appreciated. As always, I feverently wish you the best and I hope to talk to you soon. Feel free to respond at your leisure, I understand you are a busy man!

With the out most sincerity,
Seeker (maybe not so obviously not the real name)

 

Dearest Seeker,

If you are willing, I can offer even better assistance if I had more background knowledge on what has produced this current state of mind and tribulation.

However, I will still go ahead and explain a few theories of mine. Please note that I have made these realizations after much mind-ache and set backs, but I believe these are the golden nuggets of the little wisdom I have.

1. This is the most complicated one, so I thought I would put it first. You have to choose not to have a choice in whether you can be motivated or not be, whether you will kick out your to-do list or not, whether you can sleep in or not.

When people have a choice, it’s easy to choose the easy route, follow the status-quo, and do little. If you revoke this choice upon yourself (don’t feel that I am suggesting a dictatorship of humankind, only YOU have control of yourself, that is was I am aiming at)… as I was saying; If you revoke this choice upon yourself then “getting **** done” so-to-speak is not an option, it’s a life style.

2. There are two hard parts in the process of being motivated. The first is getting started. Starting an addiction that isn’t based on nicotine is as difficult as stopping an addiction that is. It’s going to suck and your life is going to try and reject your pursuit. I can’t tell you how many times I got headaches, sick, and all symptoms of sleep deprivation from trying to wake up earlier to write or stay up later to write. My understanding is the more times you bounce right back after getting knocked down, the more durable you become. It’s like building calluses around your passion.

The second hardest part I have come to find is what I call “the last 3,000 words”. It is gathering that positive mindset that starting and writing the first 32 thousand words will be easy and if you are going to believe that any part of it is going to be hard, let yourself believe the last 3,000 words will be the hard part (your goal is obviously 35,000 words). The reason being is that naturally we want to have reasons to stop, to not finish, to fold and throw down the towel. Too many people think the first 3,000 words are hard, or that halfway through, it will be too difficult, so they quit early. Fight that feeling. Imagine the last 3,000 being more difficult than everything else added up. The reason being is that when you go that far, when you get to 32 thousand words, the last 3,000 are easy, they always are and you will never quit that far into the game.

3. This one is simple. You have to fall in love with shipping. Shipping a product, shipping a song, shipping an idea, shipping a poem. Whatever it is, find a way to ship something everyday, fully completely finish something every day and give it to someone, share it, spread it. Once you start to ship, you can’t help but fall in love with it, so just keep shipping.

— I hope this helped and I look forward to discussing any matter further with you. I am never too busy for a friend.

Alas, reading over your request I fear that I may have neglected to answer your question specifically. You ask, “What is it that drives your motivation?”

To answer that question, it is my desired combination of selflessness and selfishness. I want as phenomenal of a life as possible, but I refuse to be the only one. The more happy I can make others, the more motivated I make others, the more I love others, the more happy, motivated and loved I can be.

With hope that I inspired,
– Garth E. Beyer

 

Stay Positive & Fearless: to ask, to try, to ship…

Garth E. Beyer

Everyone

Garth Beyer
.

Everyone has their problems, their battles, their emotions, their wars, and their own issues. Realizing this, knowing this, understanding this does not mean to put you to inaction. It does not mean to hold back, to deal, to settle, to not complain, to not feel.

Humans need to be better and if there is one way that is more available to us than not doing anything, it is doing something. It is taking action, reacting more passionately, releasing our empathy, our sympathy, our hopes that others can win their battles.

It is to encourage your neighbor, your tribe member, a stranger, that you not only acknowledged that they are having their problems, but that you have their back, support them and encourage them.

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. – Robert H. Schuller

If there is one thing humans have the biggest habit of, it’s creating a mess of our lives, of making more problems and provoking difficult situations to arise. We’re not stupid, we just kind-of suck but we are aware that we can do better. We just have to act on it.

Everyone has their problems. It’s up to you to offer solutions because doing so starts an endless cycle of understanding, encouragement, togetherness and above all, -not less problems, life would be boring without them- but more solutions. And that gets us somewhere.

 

Stay Positive & I Feel Good For You Son

Garth E. Beyer

There Are Too Many Unasked Questions

Garth Beyer

It’s been nearly two months since I added the “Pose A Question” page to my website. Through this trial, I have also altered the name in hopes that it would stand out for viewers to ask a question. Zero questions have been asked. I’m not disappointed, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t disappointing. Disappointing because there are so many questions that need to be asked and are not being voiced. I was thinking about it and of course, when you mull things over for a long enough time, the answers begin to float to the surface.

The reason I was not asked any questions (questions that had absolutely no boundaries) was not that I am not a great source of information, it’s not that I don’t have the credentials, experience or willingness to find the answer because I do. If anyone has even glanced at my website, they know I’m in a full-scale warfare against the world and to find every secret to success possible, no matter the definition of success. It’s clear. I can give you an answer. One that solves a problem, one that get’s you to think, one that opens your mind, one that makes you question further, one that requires you to ponder, one that is funny to read, one that can change your life. Still no questions.

The real reason people have hundreds of questions related to their muse and never ask them is because knowing the answer calls them to take an action. Always questioning what is right, what you should do, what is the best/quickest/easiest path to take to get X is simple, it’s easy, it takes no energy and it produces no results. There is no action in an unanswered question. There is no next step. You can stay on the stone you’re on now for a lifetime and only when you ask and receive an answer is when you need to take the next step.

That step is scary. It’s dead frightening. It’s paralysis. It’s fear keeping you from seeking answers because fear likes to play a safe game and doing nothing is safe and as a result, you die very safely. See, fear of action is the dullest of fear. It is what a person who has never had a real experience feels. What happens then when you do ask a question and get an answer. You will have to conquer your fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of risks, and fear of life. If you do not wish to live a safe, dull, banal, mortal, boring life, then you need to ask questions. Questions you don’t want to know the answer to.

Trust me, you have a lot more to worry about once you get over your fear of knowing the answer. But hey, we will get there. I’m here for you for your first question, second question or 1,000th question, I’m here.

 

Stay Positive & Will You Take That Step?

Garth E. Beyer