Ship

Is It Ready To Be Shipped?

Garth Beyer

The true answer is no. It never will be.

The stories in Curb magazine have been edited by at minimum 5 other writers, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more people edit them. Also, the authors have all sat with at least two other experts to review their work. All in all, each story has been read for edits at least 20 times. Yet, they will never be ready to ship. There will always be more tweaks that can be made.

Alas, we’ll ship them because they are good enough.

As in, good, now enough.

So asking if it’s ready to be shipped is the wrong question. As long as it’s good enough to get the message across appropriately, then ship. Don’t waste time you can better spend working on the next project.

 

Stay Positive & Ship Something Everyday

Taking Inventory

Garth Beyer

I’ve written a bunch about starting fresh this new year. This post is by far my favorite

Ship or Delete

Taking Inventory

Nah. It’s more like getting rid of your inventory. Very cut and dry.

Go through all of your lists right now: your projects, your folders, your notes, your journals, your goals, and either ship or delete them.

Simple right?

Well you’re going to come across a project and think to yourself, “Well this is something that I can’t ship right now because it’s unfinished and it’ll take time to be finished.”

Decide right now whether you will actually finish it within the next two months. If yes, then do it. If no, then either delete it or ship a short version of it. Put it out there for someone else to work on.

There are a couple of concepts at play here.

The first is that if your idea was remarkable enough, you would be working on it constantly or would be passionate enough to complete it within two months.

The second is that if you can withhold one of your ideas, one of your projects, then you are saying it’s not important enough to be delivered right away. (If it is, then now I’m mad that you’ve made me wait so long and won’t buy into it when you finally deliver it.)

The new year is about starting fresh. You have 21 days to go through all you have and either ship or delete. Ship or delete. Ship or delete.

In order for a door to open, you must close one. Actually, the cool thing about life is that when one door closes, a million open for you. How many will you have opened for the new year?

 

Stay Positive & Make Room For New Inventory

Garth E. Beyer

 

Why I Interact With Everyone: My Hope

Garth Beyer

My hope is that you remain discontent with how society defines success;

that you understand some rules are unjust and are meant to be broken;

that you use the broken pieces to build your character;

that you will light the match which ignites the fire in your belly, the warmth of your heart, and what is necessary for passion to turn into something tangible;

that you either walk away or plow over the naysayers;

that you never stop transforming;

that from time to time – the more often the better – you just start and ship something immediately, just do what you need to do right away and feel that special sense of completion;

that you manage to find a way to always keep your head up;

that you would be willing to get arrested for what you do;

that you always try;

that you be you;

that you

 

Stay Positive & Remember I’m Here For You

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

What Makes It Different

Garth Beyer
Justins Peanut Butter Cups

I have never seen or heard of these until I went to Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event and had one.

Then I had another, this time the milk chocolate kind, as opposed to the dark chocolate.

Then I had another, the same day within a span of four hours.

Then I grabbed two more and put them in my journey bag, I gave a third one to someone else and grabbed a fourth to eat while I grabbed a fifth one to eat on my way out of the event after I finished the one I was holding.

I then presumed to eat the two that I stored in my journey bag throughout the evening. Note: By “one” I mean the two chocolate peanut butter cups in the “one” package.

Total: 16

Depressing? I could fight and say they were organic although it doesn’t help my case too well. (More on organic in a moment)

To say they are delicious is an understatment which is something people often say about Reece’s peanut butter cups.

However, to say that Reece’s peanut butter cups are the most delicious ones in the world would be half-true. (As is the case for Justins) They are the best if you ask the niche audience that they are marketed to and consumed by.

Whereas, if you ask the niche group Justins markets to, they would say Justins chocolate peanut butter cups are the best.

What I’ve learned about products, not just chocolate peanut butter cups is that:

1. You can always improve but what you can improve on may not be exactly the product itself, the chocolate. It may be the shipment, how the ingredients are grown, the graphics of the wrapper, the mission statement on the box or in this case, the audience you are targeting.

2. All in all, precision meets profit. You can always find a niche market to make a profit, especially in organics. In other words, there is always a way to make it different for that special tribe who likes it that way.

Justin’s chocolate does just that. They reach out to the audience who doesn’t buy just cheap chocolate.

Afterall, for some people, going big means buying not just buying any kind of chocolate. If they are going to go big buying chocolate, they are going to spend an extra 40 cents or a dollar for the good chocolate, the rich chocolate, the organic chocolate, the chocolate that makes them feel they are benefiting the world by eating.

This is a small niche audience and Justins makes their chocolate different so it’s target is precise.

Stay Positive & Thought It Was Worth Sharing

Garth E. Beyer

Is there something you have had too much of?