Reading

In The Box Podcast

Episode 27: Getting The Credit, Supporting Someone’s Passion, Giving Gifts And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we chatted about being okay with someone else getting the credit for something you may have had a major influence on, what makes a goal a “good” goal, the best way to support someone else’s passion, some things to consider when receiving a gift, and whether it’s better to read fiction or non-fiction.

Enjoy. You can download and listen on iTunes here.

Episode 27: Getting The Credit, Supporting Someone’s Passion, Giving Gifts And More

Credit – Is it okay with you if someone else gets the credit?

Goal – What is one thing that makes a goal a good goal?

Support – What is the best way to support someone else’s passion?

Receiving – What is one (best) way to learn to receive gifts from others?

Bonus – Is it better to read fiction or non-fiction?

 

Stay Positive & Fiction/Non-Fiction Blend It Is, Right?

Why You Pick Up To Read

Garth Beyer

I’ve never understood why people write books with the purpose of offering a blanket solution or mindset for working with clients, starting a business or becoming successful. Equally so, I can’t fathom how people purchase them.

I simply can’t buy into the idea that what an author may be suggesting works for any and every situation I could find myself in.

Yet, authors sell books in the form of fake guarantees, rather, we assume there’s a guarantee that if we follow all the steps described then we will become equally successful.

False.

The books that matter, the books I can buy into are the ones that get you to think differently. Seth Godin, Tom Robbins, Gregory Berns, to name a few. They make you uncomfortable. They make you feel slightly inadequate, but feed you the motivation to be different, to claim your self-worth, to think about things differently.

The interesting angle to all of this is a book’s benefits is based on the mindset you go in with when reading it. Are you looking for safety, certainty, security? Or are you looking to be challenged, for a fresh perspective, to think about things differently?

The motto ringing true in my life recently is new is always better. New thoughts. New perspectives. New world views.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not So Much What You Pick Up, It’s Why

(HT to Alex & Maggie)

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

Photo credit

“I Don’t Have Time To Read”

Garth Beyer

Words made famous by almost everyone.

Consider this by Michael Ferber, there were about 350,000 new titles or new editions published in the U.S in 2012, of which perhaps 75,000 were in adult fiction. The number of self-published books and print-on-demand books form extensive backlists. Britain published more than 200,000 books. Add Canada, Australia, and so on, and we can safely assume that about 1,000,000 new titles in adult fiction appeared in 2012 in English alone.

What does this mean for reading and becoming successful? It means that if you spent all of your time reading, you wouldn’t have any time to act on what you learn to become successful.

I’ve met so many people who think they need to sit in a library every day and read up on all they can. Alert! Here’s a cool chart that reflects what happens to your likelihood of success the more you read.

Reading Your Way To Success (Or Failure)

Malcolm Gladwell covers the inverted-u concept. Zig Ziglar and Seth Godin tell their audience if they want to become successful, they should read a book a week. It might work perfect for them, might even work perfect for you. It doesn’t work perfect for me. I’m a two books in a day then no books for a week kind of guy. I don’t advise this for you. What I advise is you try to find how many books a week you can read to get you at the top of the inverted-u. Success.

 

Stay Positive & I Know You Can Do It

Is It This Or Is It That

Garth Beyer

Hanksy

It’s frustrating that everyone wants to categorize, compartmentalize, and label everything that enters their life. It seems as though our brain was designed as a sorting structure. I can just picture little minions analyzing each thought and deciding what folder to place it in. That may be how it works, but that’s not how we grow.

Reading up on street fartist, Hanksy, I came across this interview gem.

EA:  Speaking of serious, it seems like the moment you try and talk about art that is on the streets, you immediately run into these competing definitions—street art vs. tags vs. graffiti. Do you think the insistence on different categories has a place in the conversation about art, or is that boring?

Hanksy:  You run into all the time. It’s frustrating. It’s like asking “What is art? What isn’t art?” I feel like the terms mean different things to different people. One person’s vandalism can be seen as another’s artistic expression. It is what it is. The internet, and people in general, will always attempt to lump things into categories. And they’ll always argue over it. When I first moved NYC, I’d go on these long runs, all throughout lower Manhattan. And I’d see Muffin Milk everywhere. Different versions. And I’m like, “Wow this guy sure loves cursive.” Turns out it’s a t-shirt company or something. Is that street art? I considered it to be, despite the end goal of selling merchandise.

It’s one thing to be objective, it’s another to be subjective. But that categorization of either is exactly my point. Everyone has their own view. We grow by understanding how others categorize and label their experiences, not by doing so to ourselves.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Just Read, Read Others

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

As promised from yesterday, here are five new sources I read from.

TED talks are lying to you – I don’t usually read Salon, but this was cool.

Arts & Letters Daily – always a good place to find variety

Dreamscape – images and music speak as loud, if not louder than words

It’s Nice That – it’s nice that this is so nice…just awesome

Neotorama – nothing more than neat stuff (not really something to read, but a swell way to break between reads)

Bonus: Here’s a test to discover if someone sees your point of view (HT to David Pink.)

The Routine We Often Forget To Break

Garth Beyer

193503222_30e038a562

Just as what we eat influences the way we appear and feel, so it is with what we read.

I’ve read stories from the same 10 sources every day for the last six months. My brain is on autoconsumption. I’ve read enough from these authors that I can guess where they will go with their story after reading the first few lines.

As anything goes in life, you have to remember to shake things up.

This is a challenge to both you and me. We can do better if we broaden our informational horizons. At the end of my story tomorrow, I will post five different blogs/news sources that I’ve checked out. I encourage you to do the same by posting what you find in a comment to this or tomorrow’s post.

 

Stay Positive & Explore, Taste Something New

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit click the photo to read other stories I've written

 

Turn Them On

Garth Beyer

5204120624_51bde1c021_b

The most basic reason we read is to find out what happens next.

The same works in the world of creativity, art, and design. It’s this basic reason that artists who try to create the next big thing and then quit are unsuccessful. Once the next big thing is made and the creator backs off, there’s no anticipation, there’s no urgency or curiosity – everything that encompasses “what happens next” is gone.

To turn your clients on, you have to get them expecting, desiring, practically dying to find out what happens next.

 

Stay Positive & Seriously, Though, What’s Next?

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit