Not even a hundred years ago, everything was work. Food on the table. People relied on each other. You got what you made. Blood, sweat, and tears.
Then we hit the industrial revolution, and as a result, work became less of a worry. What took our attention is all the free time we had. What would we watch on television? What would we listen to on the radio? What activities and groups would we now participate in?
Then the post-industrial revolution happened. This revolution is lead by this current generation. This revolution can be summed up like this:
everything that had become free time, has now become design.
And if your mind goes to robots designing everything, I would argue that. Sure, robots can help us create things. But they can’t design them ahead of us. We crunched the numbers and wrote the program before a calculator could tell us the square root of 64. So it is with everything that is designed. And I’ll tell you, everything, and I mean everything is being designed.
In a world of give-and-take, two-way streets, and a general goal of balance, I have come across some remarkable people who dance on both ends of the stick.
The middle of last year, I began writing an Unlocking Potential series. While the process was to mention people who were… well, worth mentioning, the goal was to unlock more of their potential through sharing their story, their personalities, and their creations.
It was an instant success with some interviews hitting over 1,000 views in one day.
Seeing Vanilla Ice
Walking down State Street, I saw Vanilla Ice starting a fight with – what appeared to be – an innocent bystander. Ice pushed the gentleman’s face and kept shouting at him. (I call the bystander a gentleman because he did not fight back, he was passive, true to the title of bystander.) Ignoring the forceful push-to-the-face and spit of vulgarity, he started to dial 911.Vanilla Ice then started walking away with his posse.
Of course this wasn’t really Vanilla Ice, but it sure did look like him. (Blame Google for not coming out with Google Glass sooner. Vanilla Ice was an early idol of mine, you’ll have to take my word that it looked like him.)
The world is filled with opposites, and the reason I mention this experience is to provide contrast to the next experience.
Tyler (spiderman) and Adam AG (rapper)
While there are those who need a little nudge to unlock their potential, other’s are already an open treasure chest. Tyler Babb (T-Babb Films) and Adam (Adam AG) are two of these people. And in light of that, this is more of an unlocked potential series than anything else.
In one scene, I see Vanilla Ice throwing his credibility and respect away. The next I am face-to-face with Tyler and Adam – two people who see the bigger picture.
And that’s no filming pun.
Unlocked Potential
There was no need for me to do any convincing when sitting down with Tyler and Adam, if anything, they were convincing me that I’m not the only one with this mental attitude of positivity, work ethic, and attainable success. Some repeated comments were:
Take steps
Work hard on what you love
Skip the general bullfeces
Take things seriously
Connect all you can
Most significantly, we’re in a revolution; for the first time, a revolution we know we are in.
In the past – regardless of the economical or political situation – there were credible idols in every niche saying, “There has never been a better time than now.” And they were right.
The difference between then and now isn’t that we no longer hear this uplifting phrase, rather, as opposed to the past, we actually believe it.
The past who preached that “the best time is now” had to convince their audience. Now, speaking for the current generation:
We’re not ignorant. We know that we have everything on the shelf, all the resources, tools, and assistance that we could need. We know that all that we need to do is pick and choose out of what is available, to create. We don’t need convincing that now is the perfect time to do something. What we need is someone to teach us how to be creative enough with all the potential at our fingertips to make and do things that one day we will look back on in awe and jaw-dropping amazement.
The reason I write about Tyler and Adam is that they are the teachers – not waiting for someone to help them fulfil their dreams and bringing as many as possible up with them.
It’s true we feel that in order to make any change in the world, any real impact, any worthwhile improvement that we have to be original.
We can’t change the world in a massive way by donating $5, volunteering 20 minutes of our time or inventing an imitation drink of Pepsi and Cola.
Naturally, deep down, we want the next big thing and anything less than that we want nothing to do with.
We use the fact that we’re in this huge technological and inventive revolution that we have to create something completely original to make an influential ruckus in it. In other words, we can’t be part of the revolution if we aren’t original in our work.
That’s all good but so many forget how to be original. They don’t know what original means.
You must understand that the more experiences and perceptions of the world you have, the more original you become.
See here,
You have to be a part of everything to be different, to be original. It’s the greatest paradox of creativity and ingenuity.
In other words, originality is alchemy of life. It’s about combing different things, thoughts, perceptions, experiences, etc., together to create something original.
Only in that originality can you change the world.
After all, something can’t come out of nothing, yet that’s what so many think “original” is.
Stay Positive & Go Change The World
Garth E. Beyer
A guru once asked me to think a thought that no one has ever thought before.If there is anything that is impossible, it’s this false definition of originality.
It’s been over a month and a half since I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca (NY). There’s a specific reason I waited so long to reflect on the event. I wanted to prove a point, not just about Seth Godin, but what any business must produce, whether in product or experience.
Simply put, it must be astonishingly remarkable, something so memorable it is still thought of and excites a person’s senses a month, five months or a year after the product is purchased or the service is used. Essentially, that is what Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event manifested, so it is with easy honor that I will hit some points from it again along with my own curves and twists of ideas.
I had no inclination to write this so soon. I decided to after I created a new motto the other day, tweeted it and it got retweeted by a few people. It was just another tweet, another 140 characters that my mind spit out and that I needed to share.
My motto: Give yourself authority.
It was only after I expressed the motto on twitter that I was tapped by the memory of Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event, which it’s theme was to not wait for someone to pick you, not wait for an authority to notice you, to get lucky; but to pick yourself, solve the problems yourself, find the opportunity yourself, to lead yourself and quite plainly, as my motto states, give yourself authority.
72 Steps To Starbucks Coffee
While in New York City every 72 steps, either if I turned left or right, I would be facing a Starbucks. In Manhattan alone, there are approximately 300 Starbucks stores. That means that out of all the registered Coffee Shops in New York, Starbucks consists of about 60% of them. In a city dominated by the outlier of the Coffee Industry, how can any other coffee shops even make it?
That’s a simple answer that you can come up with. The better question is how Starbucks was able to take a symbol from Moby Dick, use it as it’s logo, and create a brand – an understanding of when you see the symbol, you are going to smell the richest Coffee in town and get free Wi-Fi along with the absolute best customer service.
It’s A Revolution
The dictionary says that a revolution is a single turn of event. Our revolution, the one we don’t quite understand, the one we thought could be easily understood, the one that is making us question nearly everything, is not a single turn of event, it’s a million turns. This revolution is something that is a collective change in one sense, but deep down to it, it’s about the turn each one of us makes, a turn that may be different than the person next to us. While putting it in the most simple form, the revolution is about giving yourself authority, ridding yourself of the chains of tradition and following your passion to create art. Yet, to do each of these things is not something that we can do collectively, being collective is what got us in this grave. No. This must be done individually; each person must make the choice, must give themselves authority and use it. In its entirety, this revolution will turn Perfect into impossible
Instead Of Giving It Our All
Seth gave a long description about the industrial age and this new age of connection. The one take I want to share with you from the event is this.
“So one quick example, just to show you how deeply ingrained this is. If you don’t mind, raise your right hand just as high as you can. Okay, now raise it just a little higher.”
Instead of giving it our all the first time, we give enough and then a bit more when told to. Some people raised their hands 20% higher, others 5% higher when told to raise it a bit higher. In a room of about 200 people there was about 4,000% of potential not being used until told to. The way I see it, even if you gave 100% and raised your hand as high as possible the first time, you would still find a way to raise it higher.
I No Longer Market To You
I had no clue what real type of marketing I was doing on my website until I heard Seth Godin say this, “Because marketing has shifted from me marketing at you, to you marketing to each other.” So, when creating a product, running a business or writing a blog, you can provide all the strong content you would like, but unless you know what you want to do with your audience, your tribe, unless you know how to give them strategies to market to each other and other people that will join your tribe, you have nothing.
Juggling
Seth Godin also inspired me to write this post: The Juggler’s Perfection. On the note of Juggling, of doing what you love, of taking that risk…
“Is it worth getting arrested for?” – Seth Godin
Bluffs, Excuses and The Promise
You think you have a hundred reasons not do something, not to take leap, not to go out on your own or start your business or take a risk to achieve what you really want. Actually, you probably only have 15 to 20 excuses, or rather, they are bluffs. When you sit down, write the list of the 15 to 20 bluffs, and work through it, you will find that either you don’t have anything holding you back, or you just need to work out a way to get around one or two excuses (a lot easier than working around 20). What it comes down to, what it really comes down to is that you want a promise it will work. You want the paper to say, after you have crossed all your bluffs out, that it will work indefinitely.
There will never be a promise that it’s going to work. Once you realize that, you realize there’s no point in making a list, not because there’s no point in achieving your goal anymore, but because you realize that you are going to have to take a risk and that there isn’t a promise, you will say “something is better than nothing” and get on with it, ship the product or start the business. As humans, if we are not promised lobster (perfection), we would rather have crawfish (anything) than nothing at all. Once you realize there is no promise of perfection, no lobster, it makes doing the thing you made a list of bluffs for, all the more easy. You may even find that you like crawfish more than lobster.
A couple of sayings to use/share
Money is a weight you can run much faster without
You will be wrong a lot, but you will be right a lot too
All you need to care about is being human
The Two Achievements I Made After The Event
Seth made a simple, yet such an extremely interesting point about entrepreneurship and freelance. A freelancer gets paid when she ships, delivers the product, finishes. The entrepreneur gets paid while she sleeps. I am happy to say that, while I still do freelance writing, I have crafted a segment of it into a businesses in which I have hired two employees already! I now sleep easier (because I know I’m getting paid for it) and I have more time to do $100 an hour work that makes a much larger impact on the world – which leads me to…
The second achievement is nearly ready to be shipped. My 30,000 word manifest on what school is for: a view from an 18-year-old graduate who received his associates degree and plans to go back for a master’s degree. Not for the diploma, but for the information and experience being within the system will produce, in order to write a 90,000 word sequel upon graduation. The eBook, Start Schooling Dreams will be released at the beginning of August, 2012, completely free. More background information to come soon.
Stay Positive & Take The Authority, Make A Badge Even
Begin taking responsiblity for everything in your life, even if you had nothing to do with it.
Implement an everyday attitude check: Are you believing in yourself?
Just do it… yourself. Don’t waste time telling others to do it. Do it yourself, take responsiblity. The more adapt you get to taking responsibilities, the more successfully you can handle your dream job.
Mistakes teach you what you should have prepared for. Learn them and appreciate them.
Invest in yourself.
Write a plan even if you never look at it again.
Stick with it until you win.
^ Quit quitting. Finish. Ship. Just freaking complete it!
Do as much self teaching as you would learn from others.
The world doesn’t just give luck to anyone. Only to those with a positive attitude and who work hard.
You are the best, take people’s time, you deserve it.
Until we change what school is for, no one is going to stop and make sure you get your daily dose of inspiration.
Don’t wait for someone to come to you.
^ People die standing still.
Procrastination is more expensive than the resources it would cost to achieve your goal.
Everyone believes they deserve better. At some point in your life, the only way to receive better is to quite complaining and do better.
The things you give for nothing can never be replaced.
The goal is new ideas and approaches, not consensus.
It will always be “the best time in all of history”.
Everything is dynamic.
If someone isn’t willing to buy, it’s not a loss, it’s a chance to improve.
Success is relative to the quality of the process.
Always seek to be surprised.
Trying gives you the right to try again.
Stay Positive & Share Your 25 Life Lessons In The Comments Section
And if your mind goes to robots designing everything, I would argue that. Sure, robots can help us create things. But they can’t design them ahead of us. We crunched the numbers and wrote the program before a calculator could tell us the square root of 64. So it is with everything that is designed. And I’ll tell you, everything, and I mean everything is being designed.
