Thinking About Things Differently

The Forgotten Market

Garth Beyer

There’s a huge market comprised of people who notice, who are patient, who are watching to see if you show up every day, and if you show up with a consistent passion and focus in your work.

Bernadette is likely the best-type of friend you can make if you’re a brand. She notices good work. She’s part of the forgotten market.

She’s part of the tortoise market, rather than the hare market.

Social has brought us to think we have to appeal to the hare market to succeed; we have to be first, we have to share the most information, we have to continuously thrash (which has it’s place), we have to spread ourselves out, but so much of the racing is to the bottom.

I get caught up in the race from time to time when doing work for clients. Rushing means missing out on thinking about things differently, which requires information to sit for a bit. Thrashing has its place, but only if that’s the market you want to live in.

Think about it, Bernadette would have never talked to the painter if he were racing each day to get the job done, if he had thrown the tarps on the ground instead of graciously laying them out.

You have the choice to be picky about who you appeal to, and I suggest you consider it because all of not only what you do, but how you do it is dictated by the market you’re communicating with.

One isn’t better than the other. It merely does you, your work, and your clients justice to consider what market you want to speak to.

 

Stay Positive & Each Market Is A Lifestyle, Not Just A Marketing Style

Seeking Clarity

Garth Beyer

I hear a lot of good ideas. (Yes, nearly everyone I meet I ask what they would work on if they had all the time and resources to make it happen.)

I see a lot of people quickly give up on their good ideas because when they communicated them, they didn’t communicate them clearly and got discouraged.

Certainly if you can’t communicate your idea, it’s not a good one, right?

You see where I’m going here.

We need to surround ourselves with people who don’t criticize our ideas, but point out the spaces which aren’t clear.

When people ask about your idea, (usually) they’re not trying to break you; they’re sharing their confusion with you.

When I ask a question to flush out someone’s idea and I know they can’t respond immediately, I say, “you don’t need to respond right now. Think about it differently and get back to me later.” Sadly, few understand clarity is something figured out over time.

For now, know you have permission to go back to the drawing board, you have permission to suck, you have permission to think about it a bit more.

For great (not just good!) ideas follow these steps:

1) share your ideas

2) listen to people’s confusion so you know what you need to clarify

3) break. think about things differently

4) share your idea again

5) repeat steps 2-5

 

Stay Positive & Please Don’t Get Held Up On Step 1

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)

“Everyone else does it.”

Garth Beyer

Ugh. Just typing that title makes me cringe.

When we reason with it, we forfeit our freedom, we forfeit our desire to create, we forfeit exercising our brain to think about things differently.

When we go along doing, saying, thinking what “everyone” does, says, and thinks, we don’t just stand still ourselves, we don’t just stop our own momentum, we put the brakes of progress on all of society.

People die standing still. By rationalizing your actions on the basis of “everyone” doing it that way, your quickening that death for you and the community you’re now representing.

The only and best option, then, is to catch yourself, change your path, and do things differently.

 

Stay Positive & “Everyone” is almost always wrong.

*I used “Everyone” in quotations because “Everyone” is a specific group.