Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
Is the multiplication of our failure rates.
Simply because it’s the quickest way to success. And as my Uncle Chuck has said, it also means you will have tried two, three, four times as hard. That’s an honorable trait to say you have.
Stay Positive & Never Give Up, Never Never Give Up
Garth E. Beyer
The problem a lot of people run into when they are finally having a full-time schedule of productivity is that they are so busy doing things that really matter, that they feel unable to make time for the things that still matter, but matter less.
This is one of the biggest fallout’s for people who feel on a roll. Just because you reach a new level of success and productivity, doesn’t mean that you can say goodbye to previous engagements and expectations.
Take the hierarchy of needs for example … you can work your way up, but being on the third level doesn’t mean that you stop building the first and second.What does this mean to you?
It means that yes, you still have to do the grunt work. Every so often you have to pick up the broom and sweep yourself, you have to make those phone calls and send the emails just to keep up the contact with people who still matter, you have to provide input for others instead of receiving the input, you have to find yourself grunting now and then.
My suggestion: They say Sunday’s are for rest. I say that one day a week of grunt work is all that you will ever need to do. Get in the habit of it now so that it never stops you from reaching the heights you work so hard for.
Stay Positive & Steve Jobs Used To Grunt Everyday (no wonder he was so successful)
Garth E. Beyer
It also does well to note that the more you find yourself grunting (doing the grunt work), the greater understanding you have of how success and progression works. Obvious, but easily forgettable.
As much as we Public Relations Specialists pride ourselves with always being busy, there is a fair amount of waiting involved in every project.
It may be waiting for your source to tell you to come into her office, it may be waiting for the elevator to open for you (or the ride on the elevator), it may be a phone call that you absolutely can not miss, so you wait right next to it. The moments of waiting come in all sorts of variations of time, place, circumstance, and so on.
These moments of waiting are vital to your firm, agency, company, or organization you are representing. It’s in these moments of waiting that you are stripped of your title, any recognition people may have of you, and authority. To everyone passing by you, riding in that elevator, or wondering why you are hovering over your phone, you are just another normal blob in their world. You’re just another human being with nothing special to offer them. Or are you?
I just got home from the coffee shop. Waiting at the door of the apartment complex was a delivery person from a restaurant called Burrito (how original, but that’s not the point). We exchanged only a few sentences, but in those sentences, I could tell he made the most of his job, that he remained positive, that he was grateful for me even noticing him. He was sociable and wished me a great night.
You may be reading this and think that it’s normal. Is it though? When was the last time you actually talked to someone else’s delivery boy and left with a smile? It’s not normal, but it’s memorable.
Let’s jump back. What was the delivery boy doing again? Waiting. And no, I’m not going to order from the restaurant, simply because of the fact that I’m not fond of burritos, but what I will do (am doing) is talk about this experience.
Ask anyone in business which profits them more, one person buying a burrito, or one person writing and speaking to a thousand people about someone who works at the restaurant, basically promoting it? You obviously already know the answer, word of mouth is what makes businesses the most successful.
The delivery persons success could possibly be the same as anyone’s in PR. We all have to wait, but in that waiting, we can make a hundred little ruckus’, we can get people to talk about who we represent, we can very simply, provide an experience for them to remember – and of course the name of the company we are representing.
Next time when you tell someone you are waiting, don’t feel bad. Don’t feel that you’re not making any progress because you’re not working. Clearly, sometimes profits come more from waiting than they do working. It’s all a matter of you making it so.
Unlike my typical book regurgitations, and because I would think there is only a 50% chance that you are an avid reader of literature, I will summarize My Antonia with only six lines from the entire book.
“At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” (21)
“Optima dies . . . prima fugit.” (208) – The best days are the first to flee.
“Primus ego in patriam mecum . . . deducam Musas” (208) – For I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country.
“It makes them feel important to think they’re in love with somebody.” (228)
“Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world.” (234)
“And I don’t mind work a bit, if I don’t have to put up with sadness.” (267)
I also think it’s worth to credit Willa Cather with a quote from her other book O’ Pioneers! “I have a feeling that if you go away, you will not come back. Something will happen to one of us, or to both. People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find. What I have is yours, if you care enough about me to take it” (Part II: XII)
Stay Positive & Finding These Quotes Is Why I Read (well … one reason at least)
Garth E. Beyer
Here is the essay I wrote to go with this book. MyAntoniaproject
H. A. Rey, if you can’t guess from the picture, is the author and illustrator of the children’s book Curious George. Today we are celebrating his 114th birthday! Most people dream about living to 100, let alone, past 100. H. A. Rey has done it.
Let’s think about George for a moment, we can learn a lot from the stories. For instance, there are a lot of questions, and specific questions at that! The books – through George – also continuously preach that it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission; a trait often attributed to the successful risk-takers of the world. But wait, we are not celebrating George’s birthday, we’re celebrating his creator’s.
You’re obviously not falling for the idea that H. A. Rey is 114-years-old. No. You know, as well as I, – if you haven’t Googled it already – that H. A. Rey died 35 years ago! This act of celebrating someones birthday, long after they have passed, is indicative of a legacy.
Rey had focused on creating something that would be remembered long after his death. That is what sets him apart from thousands of other children’s book authors and illustrators, no matter how successful any of them may have been or are now. To create a legacy like that of H. A. Rey, you need to know what legacy you want and use that as your focus point for creation. While you may have a dozen books published or be taking in an annual 1.2 million, if you truly want to know your degree of success, ask yourself the type of question used on every second page of the book; a question that intrigues you and encourages you to turn the page and keep moving forward.
When you die, will your work be remembered?
Stay Positive & Everyone Dies, But Your Work Doesn’t Have To
Garth E. Beyer
Oh heavens above does this feel good. I’ve been writing or researching for my writings for nearly 10 hours now. It’s three hours from midnight and I am still going. This feeling of being what I have always wanted to be excites my emotions and makes me want to assist others in feeling the same. You ask what it takes, I say it takes time (clearly) and effort (even more clearly). You ask how? Well that is what I want to work with you on. Email me: thegarthbox@gmail.com
Sorry Tim Ferriss. Sorry Michael Ellsberg. Sorry to countless of thousands of other people who made a map to success. Sorry to everyone who made a strategy, a game-plan, a step by step process to reach any goal.
Flipping through a folder of all my projects, I came across a printed out version of Tim Ferriss’s/Michael Ellsberg’s blog post 8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials. Basically Ellsberg covers the present circumstances of degree required positions and how to get them without a degree; basically referrals. Knowing people who know people.
He communicates that employers require skills, not degrees and it’s up to you to show you have the skills by “creating your own damn credentials”. After giving all the background information and the reality of becoming successful without a degree, he challenges you to follow his 8 step process. Here they are. (View the full post here)
Step 1: Choose Your New Field of Learning
Step 2: Showcase Your Learning
Step 3: Learn the Basics of Good Networking
Step 4: Within Your Budding Social Economy, Start Working for Free
Step 5: Develop Case Studies of Your Work
Step 6: Develop Relationships With Mentors
Step 7: Learn Sales
Step 8: Sell and Deliver your Services Within Your Social Economy
Reading through all of his steps, they will definitely work. I’ve experienced each one of his steps, in my own way of course, and the results are tried and true. The thing is I read this blog post over a year ago. I read it a few times actually, and never implemented it directly. I didn’t sit down and take it step by step to get where I am today. Maybe if I had then I would be much more successful. I’m not. I’m happy though and I have a lot more real experience and attachment to the journey I’ve taken to get where I am.
See, these 8 steps are just one game-plan in a billion. Think of all the different phrases you can search in Google to find step-by-step procedures on how to become successful, how to get noticed, how to monetize something, how to reach a goal, how to become a real artist in your trade. There are billions of proven plans.
Yet, we don’t take them.
Some part of me thinks that Ellsberg even knows this but still puts out a book of how to become successful without a formal education. We desire to know and that makes him and countless others a profit. However, and what I find most fascinating, is that we desire to figure it out on our own much more. We simply learn and practice certain segments of all these game-plans until we create one ourselves and it’s successful. Then we write a book about it, preach it, and sell it to others. In turn, they do the same thing.
Following the plan doesn’t make progress, creating an entirely new one does.
Stay Positive & Do What Works … For You
Garth E. Beyer
