Resistance

We’re All Fighting Our Own Battles (FALSE)

Garth Beyer

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A friend recently returned from his trip to Switzerland. He came to my station and handed me a magazine from Switzerland called Swiss Review: The Magazine For The Swiss Abroad. Reading through the stories inside, I expected to be overwhelmed with new and different information. What is happening in Switzerland can’t possible be the same as what is happening in the U.S.

It surprised me to find that is exactly what is happening.

It made me realize that though distance, culture, and goals can be different for one person, one state, or one country, we are regularly faced with the same hardships and hindrances.

We’re all fighting each other’s battles —  which happen to also be our own. The simple truth is that we share plenty of the same troubles, concerns, and doubts; we are confronted with similar criticisms, obstacles, and resistance. We’re a lot more alike than we care to admit.

 

Stay Positive & What To Do About It Is Another Matter…

Garth E. Beyer

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Some Now. More Later.

Garth Beyer

People are talking now. Not so much about you, but to you. That you’re crazy, that you’re weird, that what you are doing isn’t going to work out. Some are even saying (for a fact, they are at least thinking) you will fail.

I am amazed at how many people have the guts to say things to our faces that they would normally have only said behind our backs. This leaves us – the dreamers, those with ambition, and those who try new things all the time – with a new challenge to face.

So for those that are being talked to (negatively) now. I have one piece of wisdom that will meet the challenge.

Just remember that people talk later more than they talk now. Will they say that you gave up? Or will they say how they used to know this crazy person that actually went off and made it as an artist, a fitness expert, a writer? Will they say how they got you mad and upset and question if you’re doing the right thing? Or will they say how despite all resistance, you carried on doing what you knew was right?

People talk. Some now. More Later.

 

Stay Positive & Keep Going

Garth E. Beyer

Two Types Of Art

Garth Beyer

The first is risk-free. It’s the type of art that you can destroy without second guessing yourself; the type of art you can return, get your money back, or just give away to someone else because you’re not attached. This type of art is noncommittal.

But it’s still art. In fact, it’s invaluable art.

This type of indefinite art is about expression as much as it is exploration. We can peck at it, flip it, and stick the end of our tongue to it to see what it tastes like. This art is about discovering through creating what we don’t understand. This art is to be played with.

The transition toward the second type of art is made through what all art shares: facing unresolved issues – the meaning of life, why this and not that, where do I belong.

Popular art – the second type of art – is when a creation contains answers.* The second type is about sharing findings, sharing answers, sharing your conclusions – egotistic or not. This is the most difficult type of art. To creat the first type, all you need to do is turn rumination into something tangible. For the second type of art, you have to commit, you have to accept all the criticism you will receive before you receive it. What ruins art creators is when they underestimate the amount of resistance they will have to face, internally and externally. The second type of art is simply art shared.

*[Right or wrong, they are answers. Popular art becomes such through connection, acceptance, and reality. It may not be the right answer for you, and it may be the wrong answer for her, but, essentially, it’s an answer for someone.]

 

Stay Positive & Create A Little Art. One Type Or Another

Garth E. Beyer

Chasing A Dream

Garth Beyer

While we are chasing our dreams, we can’t forget that there are people around us also chasing theirs. And you know what? You may be working on different projects, but you’re still in the same boat.

Tim Gallen is a friend of mine who is chasing his dream. Here is what he has to say about it. (Thank you, Tim, for writing this up.)

Stay Positive & Enjoy The Read… And The Chase

Garth E. Beyer

 

Enter Tim: 

They say a funny thing happens when you chase a dream.

They say the more real you try to make it, the more you try to birth an idea, make a dream come true, the more doubt gets in your face.

I didn’t NOT believe this, of course. I mean, I’ve been around the InterWebs, have heard through the digital grapevine whispers of such incidents. Times when people – excited, energetic, passionate people – pursued their dream but kept feeling uncertain: What if this doesn’t work? What if I fail? What if I’m not cut out for this?

But reading and hearing about something is completely different from feeling it firsthand.

I know this because I’m experiencing it right now.

For years, my brothers and I have had aspirations to tell stories using video. In other words, we’ve wanted to make movies.

This is a dream we’ve talked about ad nauseum. And for the longest time, that’s all it was: talk. Short bursts of excitable, dreamy-eyed chatter that gave way to the pressing obligations and reality of day-to-day life.

Until last year, when we finally reached a point of enough-is-enough. It was time to make a go of this dream of ours. We planned and plotted, recruited and recorded. It took us longer than we originally hoped and wanted, but we created a promotional video for a spoofy web series called Harbor Shores. It was an idea we’d had for a while and one we thought was perfect for launching our foray into visual storytelling.

I can’t speak for my brothers, but you’d think at this point, I’d be feeling the doubt creep up my spine. Well, honestly, I didn’t.

You see, we used this promo as part of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to produce our first season of our show. From the middle of March through the middle of April, my brothers and I – along with some amazing support from friends and family – blasted social media and talked up our project. We managed to raise enough to fund our project.

And, while ecstatic about chasing the dream, a tiny voice called from my subconscious: “Why are you wasting your time?”

Truthfully, I may not have heard it the first few times. But you gotta hand it to forms of resistance – fear, doubt, anxiety, et al. – they’re nothing if not persistent. They gnaw away at you like a dog chewing a bone. They wear you down, tire you out. Persistent.

My brothers and I are knee-deep into our dream: putting together our Kickstarter rewards, securing locations, and filling the final remaining roles in the cast. We begin filming later this month.

And ever-present, I hear that voice whisper inside: “You’re a fake! Why waste your time with this? You’re going to fail!”

In my weaker moments, I wish I could somehow eliminate it completely. But I know all too well how resistance never goes away.

Knowing I will never completely be free of the fear and doubt, I choose to use them as a signpost. When I hear that whisper of doubt, when I sense the prickle of fear climb up my spine, I know I’m on the right track, chasing a dream.

“I think that’d be really difficult”

Garth Beyer

I had an idea for an app, much like the Google Goggles. It came to me after I saw a wicked font on a banner. I thought to myself, why not create an app that takes pictures of a font and can match it for you. It’s like Shazam for writers and designers. In addition, it would link you to websites where you can download or purchase that font.

I pitched the idea to a friend, and my friend said, “I think that’d be really difficult. There are so many and most are licenses/pretty expensive”

So is anything else of value. My friend obviously isn’t into the risk taking, or the “if there is a will, there is a way” mindset, or even into the idea of just giving it a try.

I couldn’t help myself but reply back, “Yea, but nothing worth it ever came easy.” If anything, because his response was such, I am even more convinced that it could be a phenomenal product. What do you think? Have any ideas yourself? Do you get this type of response when you pitch them to friends? I hope so.

 

Stay Positive & So It Goes

Garth E. Beyer

Quadruple Book Regurgitation

Garth Beyer

Following my breakup with girlfriend, I have decided to streamline my goals to accomplishments. At the beginning of 2012 I had decided that I wanted to read 25 books before the end of the year and last night, or this morning – I don’t recall what time it was – I completed that goal.

In the last week I have read four books that I would now like to regurgitate for you. However, unlike past book regurgitations, these will be more similar to reviews, as I did not highlight or pull out too many examples to share.

Ironically, during pre- and post- breakup I was reading The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz.

I firmly believe that this book should be read by every adolescent of love. I would define an adolescent of love as anyone who has not read the book. This makes it very black and white as to who I think needs to pick it up. Did this book help me save the relationship? Obviously not. Could it have if I read it earlier, yes, but everything happens for a reason. (And that reason is usually based on the fall of three aspects, which you can read more about in my Twelve Pillars regurgitation toward the end of this post).

While you may solely believe that the book is supposed to help you master love, develop an honest and stable relationship and build a stronger chemical bond between you and your partner, you have correctly assumed only half of it. Reading this book during the break-up assisted me in making realizations and accepting them. The key to it though is not necessarily the eye-openers or realizations, they come naturally if you remain objective. However, if I had to simplify it for you, love is about acceptance.

In short, no matter when, where, or why you would pick this book up, you are going to feel that it was written for you, just you, at just the perfect time. Love is all there is, better to learn how to master (accept) now than later.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 4.5

—

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

This book was on my 50+ book list to read and to be straightforward (when am I ever not?), I got exhausted from reading all of the references to this book, all of the reviews and people suggesting others like me, to read it. As a writer, the more I know about the Resistance the better and who better to learn from than the one who put a title (the Resistance) to what prevents us from being creative.

After reading it in nearly one sitting, I was disappointed. Not in the sense of how it was written, or the advice in it, actually, the book is perfect but…

It’s perfect for someone who doesn’t know about the Resistance yet. For me, I’ve been aware of it, dancing with it and fighting with it for a fear few years now. As I set the book down, I really do believe that it should only be read by anyone who either has no clue about the Resistance or who is just starting to learn what being creative really entails.

If a blank mind opens the book, it will be taking in the knowledge Pressfield presents quicker than the desert floor absorbs a bit of rain, and craving more all the same.

While most of what Pressfield shares is only a reminder to me, there are certainly a few actions I will take as a result of reading it. One specifically is in response to reading the chapter “The Definition of a Hack”.

“I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.” (pg 152)

For quite some time I have been eliminating multiple sentences and sometimes entire paragraphs, rewriting portions that I think are too personal or that the reader wont give a damn about, excluding swear words and even holding back a bit of my real potential. Possibly more times than not, I’ve been a hack.

Rest assured, that phase is over thanks to reading The War of Art.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 5 if you don’t know what the Resistance is, a 1.5 if you do

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These next two books are ones that came with the Success book package I purchased last November to jump-start my pursuit for just that, success.

An aside about reading Success books: You don’t need 20 of them. You probably don’t even need 10. A strong handful will do since they regularly repeat themselves in different forms. Also, you can purchase huge packages of 20-30 books on Success but what I have learned is that when you make and devote time to reading on personal growth, you have less and less time to continue doing so. Why? Because you are putting thoughts into action, advice into results and lessons into experience. By the time you begin going through your whole list of personal growth/ success books, you will have already changed your life so much that you are living the life you read about.

My immediate reaction upon reading and resting The Seasons of Life by Jim Rohn on my side table was that it’s a book that should be read in the Winter. It is a highly motivating take on the cycle of personal growth and from experience, most people are already feeling the height of their life during Spring/Summer. The Seasons of Life is not set to make where you are standing now even better, it is to give you a deep understanding of why you are standing where you are at this moment and advice on how to control where you will be standing one season, two seasons or three seasons from now.

Something I really enjoyed about the book was that it did not overdo it with the seasonal/nature analogy. There was a depth of optimistic realism – yes, that may be an oxymoron – that enables you to relate your life to that of trees, flowers, leaves, or the seasons themselves.

We all know that in the Spring we are often times ecstatic, in the Summer we are happy and content, in the Fall we are at peace but at Winter we are depressed. Reading The Seasons of Life does not present to you a way for balance or consistent happiness, but a mind-set and strategy to make the absolute most of every season.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 2.5 and suggest again to read it during Winter

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The next book in my “success series” we can call it, was Twelve Pillars by Jim Rohn and co-author Chris Widener

They took a fictional approach on telling the Twelve Pillars of success. It felt real in the sense that we all wish it would happen to us, so there is an instant connection between reader and protagonist. Speaking of it being fiction,  it was slightly predictable, at least the plot twists were but nevertheless the foresight did not degrade the story in any way.

There is truly a plethora of incredible quotes. For example,

“‘That’s great,’ Charlie said. ‘I am so glad for you. You will have to keep me posted as it progresses. Just remember that once a flower blooms, it still needs water and sun to keep it from wilting. The work isn’t over when the color comes out.”

The Twelve Pillars:

  • A Chance Encounter (Personal Development)
  • Live a Life of Health
  • The Gift of Relationships
  • Achieve Your Goals
  • The Proper Use of Time
  • Surround Yourself with the Best People
  • Be a Lifelong Learner
  • All of Life Is Sales
  • Income Seldom Exceeds Personal Development
  • All Communication Brings the Common Ground of Understanding
  • The World Can Always Use One More Great Leader
  • Leave a Legacy

Overall, Twelve Pillars was an entertaining read that allows you to put each pillar into action in your own life at the end of each chapter.

1-5 with 5 being read it right now, I will give it a 3.5

– As stated with the first book regurgitation on The Mastery of Love, I will now go into a quick insight about love/relationships from a combination of these two books, plus experience. Building a relationship is based on three factors: time, effort and imagination. HT to Jim Rohn, but I think I’ve taken it a step further than that.

Time can be based on quantity or quality, but in the real world, “time” is more “timing” than anything. It’s about spontaneity and creating the perfect moment.

Effort can be dwindled down completely to compliments. Women do not receive enough of them and once you begin to put in the effort, you will realize just how many they deserve.

Imagination is doing something fun, weird, and different together. It’s about getting her to think about the crazy things she has always wanted to do but never has and doing them! Dates, dinners and distractions have their place in a relationship but nothing will make a girl more happy than to do the oddball things she has always questioned about life.

Let me know any of your responses to my thoughts or your thoughts on the books in the comments section and keep coming back for more book regurgitations. After all, I have more time to read now. Is that an up side?

Stay Positive & Genuine

Garth E. Beyer