Longevity is the ultimate leverage

If you want to make money, just do something amazing ten years ago. 

That’s not a joke, that’s just the way opportunity works. You just start doing things. Usually in silence. Without recognition or remuneration. And without a guarantee that any doors will open for you. 

But you trust that, eventually, one of those things will earns its way into the right person’s memory. And when the time comes for them to bring somebody in, your name will moved to the top of the list. 

When I think back to the biggest gigs and projects and opportunities of my career, every one of them started with a prospective client calling me from out of the blue saying something like, I remember reading about you years ago. I can’t recall where I first heard your story, but it always stuck with me. Anyway, we have this thing we’d like to hire you for


That’s not marketshare, that’s mindshare. You don’t buy it with advertising, you earn it by enterprising. 

That’s what entrepreneurs don’t understand. Your credibility is, they’ve heard of you before. You never went away. You stuck around long enough and were ready when the right people finally found you. That’s the level of continuity that gives you the right to pull your chair up to the table. 

At that point, talent is neither here nor there. Because when there’s only one person they can hire, it’s a pretty straightforward negotiation. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you willing to be paid today for the free work you did yesterday?LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “27 Ways to Out the Competitors,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Don’t wait, create

Pathetically puttering around with your fingers crossed until you get that one email that changes everything is no way to live your life. 

It’s an inefficient, disempowering and unsustainable way to manage a career. And unless you’re the one percent of incredibly famous, independently wealthy or impossibly lucky people, consider finding strategy that provides surer footing. 

I was listening to an interview with a famous actor who struggled for years as a young comedian. He explained that back in the eighties, booking agents and casting directors and sitcom producers weren’t interested in his work as an artist, so he took matters into his own hands. He announced to himself, I’m going to do so many things on my own on the outside, that it’s going to force you to give me these opportunities. 

Fast forward to a few years later, and he had more work than he can handle. Not because of magic, but because of momentum. Jeff hired himself, built his own leverage and, through sheer volume, made his work impossible to ignore. 

Had he waited around feeling sorry for himself, cursing the cruelty of the world, he would have disappeared. Had he wasted his resources raging against an unjust fate instead of directing them into the work of creating a better reality, he never would have made it. 

Don’t wait, create. People aren’t here to facilitate you. Uncross your fingers and go make something worth noticing. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you seeking new opportunities through the attraction of working or the arrogance of waiting?LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “24 Ways to Out Grow Your Competition,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Every cent starts as a sentence

Every artist sells. 

It’s not the easiest or most enjoyable part of the process, but without it, we’re just winking in the dark. Like my mentor used to say, if you’re not there to sell, you’re just a visitor. 

The secret is making selling a regular part of your daily creative workflow. Viewing the business surrounding the art as a part of the art itself. 

To do so, you first have to give yourself permission to take off your artist hat and put on your sales hat. Debono called this process parallel thinking, which is the process of separating thinking into clear functions and roles, allowing you to easily focus or redirect your strategy at the drop of a hat. 

For example, every time I create something new, whether it’s an article or a song or a performance or a product, I ask myself a series of questions. 

First, from a strategic standpoint. Now that I have this, what else does this make possible? How can I use this to get more of what I want? 

Next, from a focused financial standpoint. Which organization has money that, when they see this, would consider giving it to me? Which people, who can write a check for my value, can I send this to?

Then, from a relationship building standpoint. Which existing client does this give me an excuse to reconnect with? Which potential client do I now have a valid reason to reach out to? 

That’s parallel thinking. And it’s a reminder that we can’t ignore our enterprise, hiding behind a desk, hoping our art will magically monetize. Artists who don’t sell, suffer. 

Waits famously said that got into the music business so he could write a song and say, now fly away and go make daddy some money. Which is a romantic and idyllic notion, but the reality is, we can’t sit back and wait for people to write us a check. At some point, we have to stop filling the canvas and start pounding the pavement.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What’s your strategic process for peddling every single piece of art you create?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “99 Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Don’t beat yourself up about not getting it

Tweedy is a prolific songwriter, but also a promiscuous reader. 

I once heard an interview in which he explained that he reads a lot, but he doesn’t necessarily pay attention to every word. Jeff said that it’s comforting just to read. That he buys books that are rich in language and are about interesting things, because the words are so fun to just absorb. 

And he doesn’t beat himself up about not getting it. In fact, he doesn’t give a shit about getting it. That’s not the point. He reads for pages and pages and pages and it’s like listening to music in the background. Because for him, reading is a way to think. 

When I first heard that interview, something inside of me clicked. I thought to myself, wait a minute, you’re telling me I can read books without the burden of comprehension and understanding? I can digest and absorb the author’s language without the responsibility of knowing or even caring what they’re writing about? This is great news. Now I can just relax and let the words wash over me. Now I create a space where I don’t feel obligated to do anything other than just soak it all in. 

What a liberation. Every shameful memory of failing those stupid reading comprehension tests in school faded away like a dissolving cloud. And now, I no longer read books, I inhale them. Books are part of my diet. They’re fuel for my body and brain. And I never allow myself to be talked out of buying another one. 

That’s why throwing back five, sometimes ten books a week, is nothing to me. I blow right through them. And I have zero guilt about the process because reading is one of the chief ways I create meaning in the world. 

Besides, there’s no test at the end of the week. There’s no teacher in the front of the room with a red pen and stopwatch making sure I comprehend every word of the story. I’m an adult. I can do whatever I want.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What are you still doing because of guilt?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “11 Ways to Out Google the Competition,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Everyone creates their own story about struggle

You can’t rush someone else’s journey. No matter how badly you want them to succeed, no matter how much you believe in their ambition, you still have to let them fumble, frustrate, flail, and even fail. 

When you jump in too early, too often and to intensely, you fractionize their experiences, rob them of valuable learning opportunities and prevent them from taking complete ownership over their own process. 

Whitman was right. Not you, not anyone else, can travel that road for them, they must travel it for themselves. 

When I think back to all the stumbles and strains and struggles of my journey, I’m grateful that I had cheerleaders, but I’m even more grateful that those people let me make my own mistakes. I made not have realized it at the time, but their restraint helped make me a more proficient and textured businessperson and artist. Had they not trusted me with trouble, I may not have procured the maximum amount of learning from my experiences. 

Proving, that all journeys are better with someone riding shotgun, just as long as that person isn’t grabbing for the steering wheel every five minutes. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you robbing someone you love of the opportunity to hit their low?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “13 Service Phrases That Payses,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

The privilege of doing more work

One of my favorite actors was recently interviewed about his critically acclaimed new movie. 

Ethan told a story about the night before the big award show. Dozens of his industry colleagues sent him messages and prayers of good luck, hoping his movie would take home all the awards. 

Of course, he wrote them all back with the same message. I already won. 

Not because the academy revealed the results to the nominees ahead of time, but because making the movie was the award. Not because he’s a pretentious participation trophy blowhard, but because he doesn’t live competitively. 

It’s a simple formula. An artist got paid to do his favorite thing in the world, with his favorite people in the world, on a canvas that was seen by millions of people around the world. Winner winner, chicken dinner. 

Who needs a gold statue when you have that? The actor even told the interviewer, I’m not going to let somebody spin this into me losing. 

Clearly, he wasn’t playing the finite game of winning and losing, he was playing because he loves to play. Because he loves to keep the game going. And nobody can take that away from him. 

An eloquent reminder that success isn’t about winning, it’s about the privilege of doing more work. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you playing to win, or playing to keep the game going?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “27 Ways to Over Communicate Anything,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Moments of Conception 180: The Bar Scene from 13 Conversations About One Thing

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the bar scene from 13 Conversations about One Thing:




Find any scrap of serendipity. Hugh said that when we try to reverse engineer the
universe from our own ego, hilarity ensues, and that a winning approach is to
just do our work to the best of our ability, and think of every project not so much in terms of
the result we want to have, but as an experiment of, let’s see if this works. That’s about all we can do. We can try
stuff. I
once wrote a dopey little article about sugar packets, and it was republished
by the biggest business blog in the world. Another time I wrote a series of
blog posts about luck, and they were discovered by the largest television news
magazine in the country. Amazing. And yet, despite my best efforts to identify projects that turned out to be wildly popular
and pretend that such serendipity could be reverse engineered, I admit that it
was luck. Pure luck. Yes, people who expect good luck constantly seem to experience
it. Yes, once we start earning luck, we think we know how to get it back. And
yes, we can build systems designed to
make it easier for luck to find us. But
we have to remember, human beings are superstitious natives who have to chalk
everything up to something. It satisfies the human impulse for order. In fact,
that’s why narrative was born. Stories shield humanity from the true randomness
of the world, the chaos of the human experience and the unnerving element of
luck. In what ways can you
prepare for the serendipitous?



The best way to beat the odds is with massive output. Regardless of the blood, sweat and tears I invest in
my work, I still know that every project is just another public bet with my
imagination. There’s no way to predict which idea will stick, there’s no
formula to recreate lightning in a bottle, and there’s no telling which product
might to strike a chord with people. So I just keep on creating. I keep on
showing up every day, even if most people are ignoring me, even if I’m starting to think I don’t understand the world
anymore. Because that’s what professionals do. They play the long arc game.
They trust the process. And they eventually beat the odds through massive
output. Kind of like taking a cross country road trip. When you
miss an exit on the highway, you don’t cross the median and bust a u-turn, you
don’t pull off on the shoulder and put the car in reverse, you just keep
driving. Because in a few miles, you’ll
come across another exit and try again. And who knows? Maybe that turn will be the path to glory. The
one that sticks. Or, maybe it will be another dead end. Doesn’t matter. Winning,
losing, it’s all the same after a while. It’s the risk that keeps you going. When will your accumulation of small breaks
finally catapult you to the next level?



Pessimism blunts your healthy appetites. This movie is a meditation on the things that prevent
people from reaching happiness. It’s a dramatic reminder that optimism doesn’t
increase your success, but it does increase your field of perception, which
allows you to better notice the opportunities that lead to success. That’s why
optimists tend to try lots of new things. They know that mindset helps luck
find them. Troy even says it himself. He believes there is such thing as luck, but
he also believes he’s lucky enough to notice it when it comes his way. People
with bad attitudes, on the other hand, never seem to get better because they
never seem to look for ways to make themselves better. Pessimism blunts their
healthy appetites. And so, the negativity becomes an infinite regression. The
more pessimism they have, the more opportunities they have to be right about it. But
they delude themselves into believing they’re successful, when they’re really
just successful at being right about being a pessimist. The point is, optimism
isn’t just a clever technique to win friends and influence people at cocktail
parties, it’s a practical, intelligent and proven system for increasing your
odds of happiness in the long run. It’s a legitimate strategy for letting the
best have a real chance at you. Are you
willing to practice eternal optimism, no matter what the present tense may be
telling you?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What did you learn from this movie clip?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “11 Ways to Out-Market the Competition,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Environment determines the limitations of your actions

I was listening to a conversation between two comedy veterans who came up in the late eighties. 

Both agreed that having a car was more important than having an act. 

Back in those days, they laughed, if a young comic was reliable and arrived early and acted responsibly, he could get booked every weekend. That was the nature of the industry during the comedy boom. Clubs were just happy to have somebody on stage. And the smart comedians were using that situation to their advantage. 

Proving, that mastering your craft isn’t always as important as mastering your context. Gross’s research on power actually has a perfect definition of the that word. She writes that context is the human environment that determines the limitations of your actions and the scope of the results your actions can produce. And once you lock into it, she says, context provides you with a source of power you did not have before. 

The question, then, is what industrial, economic, geographic or local contexts could you plug into to move your work forward? How could you position yourself to take advantage of existing frameworks? 

I have freelancer and entrepreneur friends who spend a few days a week operating out of local coworking spaces. Not just because their personal energy thrives in the white noise of that environment, but also because those kind of spaces physically give them access to valuable resources that can advance their work, both human and digital. That’s context. 

I’m reminded of something my favorite songwriter use to say. If you want to rob a bank, you don’t need a getaway driver and a shotgun and a presidential mask. Just get a seat on the board of directors, and you won’t even have to ask. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What context might you use to your advantage?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “18 Lessons from 18 People Smarter Than Me,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Focus on activities that have compound interest

Making money is a meaningful metric. It legitimizes your business and feels like success and gives you fuel to keep the train on the tracks. 

But in the early stages of an enterprise, sometimes in the first few years of an enterprise, revenue and profit and income might aren’t always available to you. 

And that’s okay. The money will come in time. For now, release the claustrophobic pressure of having to make money immediately and focus on activities that have compound interest. 

This includes making art, solving problems, honing skills, earning attention, securing trust, establishing platform, enabling connection, cementing expertise, differentiating your brand and building an online legacy that increases in value daily. 

These actions may be slow and unsexy and not economically rewarding in the way you want them to be, but when executed in consistent creative increments, they ultimately create a foundation from which money can flow forever. 

I didn’t turn a profit for the first three years of being in business. And I was living with my parents and working nights and weekends as a valet parker at a luxury hotel. 

But although those three years were unsexy, they certainly weren’t unproductive. Because I spent that time building as much compound interest as I could. And then, one day I picked my head up and realized that I had crossed over. I had generated enough momentum and leverage and volume and value to support myself. And the money was enough to take my business to the next level. 

Conversely, had I spent those first three years solely trying to make money, scrambling to stave off the social stigma of financial legitimacy, I never would have built the necessary foundation of value. And success wouldn’t have been sustainable. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What story are you telling yourself about money?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “10 Reasons Your Business Doesn’t Really Exist,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Pleasure machine versus purpose engine

Dolan’s positive psychology research found that experiences of happiness
fell under two broad categories, those that felt pleasurable, i.e., joyful, content, excited; and those that felt purposeful, i.e., worthwhile,
meaningful, fulfilling. 

The secret, he says, is finding balance between bing a
pleasure machine or and purpose engine. Because while it’s possible for life to
be meaningful but not happy, few people manage to be happy if their lives feel
meaningless. Human beings simply have too many existential needs to strike that
kind of balance. 

When I was just out of college, I experienced significant
amounts of pleasure, but hadn’t yet cracked the code on purpose. Not that my
life felt meaningless and unfulfilling, it’s just that my relationships, both internally to my identity, my body, my mind
and my spirit; and externally to my friends,
to my family, to my work and to my community, hadn’t quite matured yet. 

But as I take more laps around this race called life, I’m starting to understand the difference between pleasurable happiness and purposeful
happiness. 

Both are available. Both are necessary. But the latter is more
sustainable. 

And we tip the happiness scale in our favor if we major in purpose
and minor in pleasure. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Would the five people closest to you think of you as pleasure machine or a purpose engine?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “7 Ways to Out Leverage Your Competition,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2015-2016.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

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