It’s much safer to see ourselves clearly

In my lowest and most loathsome moments, I forget to treat myself as I’d like to be treated. 

I start using cruel language to cut myself down. And I say things that, if I said them to another person, they’d probably punch me in the face. 

But then I remember, having compassion for myself is how I bounce back from failure and struggle and hopelessness. It’s one of the most powerful sources of coping and resilience in my emotional arsenal. 

And contrary to popular conditioning, directing compassion inwardly doesn’t undermine my motivation to push myself to do better. It’s not narcissistic and selfish and indulgent. And it doesn’t mean I’m not trying hard enough or letting myself off the hook. 

Compassion is simply the safe choice to see myself clearly. To give my inner critic some slack. To believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful or ugly it may be. 

Neff’s pivotal research on the practice of compassion found it to be critical for understanding the myriad causes and conditions that lead us to act as we do. It’s how we gain perspective on ourselves, she says. 

Compassion, after all, is wise and sees through the illusion that we have total control over our actions. And it’s one of the few things in life that acknowledges the truth that we’re limited, imperfect beings who are impacted by things over which we have no control, like our genes, early family history, culture and life circumstances. 

Next time you start beating yourself up for beating yourself up in the vain hope that somehow it will help you stop beating yourself up, turn compassion inwardly. 

Accept that you share the human condition of imperfection. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you making the safe choice to see yourself clearly?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Where there’s one, there’s a ton

When times are tough and sales are low, you take your confidence and momentum wherever you can get it. 



Otherwise you’ll never free yourself from the tyranny of pessimism and get back into the game. 



And so, instead of forecasting and foreshadowing every possible negative scenario you think might occur, start looking for signs that the universe is on your side. 



Treat it like a game. Use optimism to increase your field of perception, allow yourself to better notice and capitalize on new opportunities, and watch openings start to show up left and right. 



It’s not magic, it’s confirmation bias. A frequency illusion. A cognitive cartwheel. Like buying a new car and seeing it everywhere. And frankly, there’s nothing wrong with employing it to dig yourself out a hole. 



That’s why I treat every client refusal and failed interview and rejected proposal as a victory. Because the fact that it happened at all means that it’s possible. The fact that some stranger cared enough about my work to reach out and have a conversation about enlisting my skills to solve their problem, even if they don’t ultimately hire me, it’s still a sign that the universe is on my side. 



And it’s only a matter of time before the right one clicks. 



Brown’s book on the winner’s brain said it best:



Winners are continually scanning for blips on life’s radar screen, and when a blip looks interesting, they investigate. And even if they fail, each time they rebound, they build more momentum. Because they trust that the next bounce might lead to success.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you shutting the door on opportunity, or taking a moment to find a whole new world awaiting you?


LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


A deep reservoir of empathy and care

Hell isn’t other people, hell is trying to change them. 

Unfortunately, that’s the crux of every argument in human history. It always boils down to one person silently asking another, why can’t you be more like me? 

And so, if you want to deepen your reservoir of empathy and care, start by never assuming other people are having the same experience you’re having. No matter how tempting it is to respond to them by saying, oh, big deal, remember that it’s not up to you to determine what should constitute a big deal to somebody. 

It’s not helping the situation to tell people, tough shit, snap out of it. 

Jump out of your narrow soul for a moment. Contextualize things in the larger ecosystem of humanity. Instead of identifying with perfect precision what’s wrong with everyone else in every situation, start asking people, hey, what am I missing here? 

Instead of making people feel stupid for having a different thought than you did, start asking them, what are you seeing that I’m not seeing, that I need you to help me see? 

That’s a reservoir of empathy and care. Being the one trying to connect, versus trying to correct. Knowing everybody is fighting a battle you know nothing about. 

And trusting the possibility that under certain circumstances, it actually makes perfect sense for people to think and behave the ways they do. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How willing are you to look at others through the eyes of compassion? 
LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Tie goes to the runner

One of my clients is an insurance company who specializes in writing policies for farms. Their claims department abides by the motto:



If it’s grey, we pay. 

Meaning, if there’s ambiguity whether the policy covers a claim or not, the priority favors the customer, not the company. If it’s not clear from the available evidence whether an insurance claim is genuine or not, the company still pays out. 

This motto is reminiscent of the classic but controversial baseball rule, tie goes to the runner. When a player is tagged at the same moment he reaches the base, he’s considered safe. The runner gets the benefit of the doubt. 

After all, there are so many close plays in baseball that the human eyes and ears cannot possibly resolve. That’s why it’s helpful to have a rule that pays heed to the umpire’s imperfect humanity. Especially when instant replay isn’t available or appropriate. 

The question is, where are the grey areas in your business? What are the moments and situations and interactions with your customers in which the results are simply too close to make a definitive decision? 

Every company has them. It’s part and parcel of doing business. And organizations must be willing to create policies that allow their balance of probabilities to fall in the customer’s favor. 

It’s power to the people. Peace of mind for the buyer. Proof that you’re strongly aligned with marketplace interests. 

And a statement to your competitors that your company is dedicated to true customer centricity. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How does your company make the tie go to the runner?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Look around in the course of a day for examples of inconvenience

Innovation starts with pursuing our own thoughts in the privacy of our consciousness. 



Answering the questions life is asking us.



And the good news is, this process doesn’t require extraordinary effort, merely habitual attention. 



Debono, the godfather of innovative thinking and creativity, once released an obscure book about this very issue. It contains dozens of previously unreleased, privately subscribed issues of his lateral thinking newsletter from the early eighties, outlining strategies for thinking in a groundbreaking creative way. 



One technique that caught my eye was called setting a framework for directing attention. Debono teaches students to look around in the course of a day for examples of inconvenience. Little human moments of frustration and annoyance and awkwardness and hassle and disruption. Troubling interactions that make people shake their fists to the heavens like skinny little antennas, cursing and wondering what they must have done in their past life to deserve such inconvenience. 



It’s a bit melodramatic, but it’s also where innovation is born. 



I wish there was a blank so I wouldn’t have to blank. 



Imagine how many of the world’s greatest creations are rooted in that sentence. 



Proof positive that necessity isn’t the mother of invention, inconvenience is. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What’s your framework for directing creative attention?


LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Please don’t tell me how to live my life, just love me

We assume that proselytizing and soapboxing will result in people rolling on their backs with their paws folded, waiting for us to rub their bellies. 



That if we can just finagle a way to steer the conversation in direction that satisfies our agenda, eventually, people will see the light and come to their senses and embrace our worldview. 



But as it turns out, most people don’t want to be our little project. Not everyone appreciates being the object of our curiosity. 



That’s why I’ve given up trying to convince or convert people of anything anymore. It’s too much work for too little return. Tempting as it may be to feel around the rim of someone’s soul for cracks, and then squeeze an entire tube of my philosophical caulk down their throat, I’d much rather let them be in love with their own opinions. 



I’m reminded of a passage from a book about the many paths of meditation. Ramdass suggested that there’s no need to proselytize because our own quiet changes are the most convincing statement. 



That even if we do possess a philosophy or belief that has worked for us that we have never doubted, it’s still easier to demonstrate divine love by being a living example, rather than by referencing a historic death. 
LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you still forcing others to live by the lights of your worldview? 

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Add a layer of intention and attention

Progress equals happiness. 

Even if you’re not certain where you want to go yet. Even if you don’t know what it will look like when you get there. 

At least you’re on the path. And that’s the most important thing. 

Because with any form of progress, be it dull or spectacular or somewhere in between, you automatically create earned feelings of joy and meaning and engagement and satisfaction. And those are the very forces that allow you to continue. 

The goal, then, is designing action rich environments for yourself where you can see the progress of your work. This helps reinforce your sense of momentum around the project at hand.

When I’m composing songs for a new studio album, for example, I’ll use the voice recorder app on my phone to monitor my progress. This allows me to document each step of the songwriting journey, from capturing source melodies to writing verse ideas to testing chorus options to tinkering with bridge variations to testing songs during live performances. 

That way, by the time the tune becomes a living, breathing product in the world, I can always look back to that original compilation of work files that led to its completion. Which, many months later, often sounds completely different from the final album version of the song. 

That’s progress. Which leads to happiness. 

Doesn’t cost me anything. Doesn’t add any time or labor to my process. 

It simply puts a layer of intention and attention on top of the work I’m already committed to doing. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How are you creating a work environment that reinforces you sense of momentum?


LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Creating a wave of recovery to balance the scales

Anxiety is never a one size fits all experience. 



There are as many triggers, intensities, frequencies, responses, durations and forms of anxiety as there are people to experience them. 



And so, the question isn’t whether or not we become anxious. That bug bites each of us eventually. The question is how easily and quickly and effectively we calm down after becoming anxious. 



For example, I’ve had experiences where anxiety took me completely by surprise. Like that time in my early twenties when I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with my life and anxiety completely knocked me on my ass and resulting in curling up into the fetal position and crying alone in the corner of my apartment until I fell asleep from exhaustion. 



Not a great weekend. 



On the other hand, I’ve also had experiences where I was acutely aware of the incoming tremors on my anxiety seismograph. Like that time in my mid thirties when I was at a meeting, noticed and named my feelings of claustrophobia, nausea and disconnection, calmly removed myself from the situation and took a long walk while breathing deeply and listening to my favorite album. 



And within the hour, I was back to normal. 



Take that, existential crisis that never happened. 



In fact, I was quite proud of myself for recognizing, responding and recovering in such a healthy and expedient way. Too bad it took me thirteen years to learn that lesson. 



As my guitar teacher once said, it doesn’t matter if we break a string, only how quickly we return to the music



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What’s your method for creating a wave of recovery to balance the anxiety scales? 
LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


Every profound innovation is based on an inward journey

Reacher once observed that that anything can be reverse engineered:



If one human or group of humans put something together, then another human or group of humans can take it apart again. It’s a basic principle. All that’s required is empathy and thought and imagination. 



That’s why I keep an innovation journal. Been doing it for years. It’s an ongoing list of ideas for products, services, inventions, businesses, organizations and other media.



And the majority of the entries are the result of simple reverse engineering. Walking through the world, noticing problems, making assertions, thinking about how someone might build an organization to own that process, figuring out where the leverage is, deciding what the resources are and then imagining how that invention might ultimately help move the world forward. 



It’s not only fun, but it’s also a daily practice of empathy and compassion and imagination and curiosity. By assuming the role of an innovator, I’m forced to say yes to every shred of curiosity that I notice around me. I’m primed to disrupt my own point of view. I’m constantly searching out to find regularities and relationships in my environment. And I’m invited to presume that there might be something outside my own experience. 



In fact, I give away ten of those wacky ideas on my blog every week for people to steal. 



Want to execute a little reverse engineering of your own? Next time you come across a ridiculous new product that you can’t believe actually exists in the world, try this. Set aside your judgment for a moment and imagine yourself sitting in the original marketing meeting for the company that launched it. 



Who was there? What questions were asked? Who was trying not to get fired? And what was the critical moment that led to the company ultimately green lighting production? 



That’s reverse engineering. It’s like doing curls for your imagination. 



Remember, every profound innovation is based on an inward journey. Both inside your own head and inside the heads of others. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What innovation might you be kicking yourself about in five years? 

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


These pills protect me from all of my feelings

I once overheard a psychiatrist say that she refused to be a shrink from the wrist down. 



Meaning, when her patient came through the door, she wouldn’t just default to writing scripts and pushing pills. Medication management certainly helped, but it wasn’t only house on the block. 



The overall goal was to achieve true healing by treating the whole person. And that required much more than just the doctor’s pen. She had to engage her intellect and compassion and empathy and whatever other tools she had in her therapeutic arsenal. 



It’s an encouraging case study for the mental health profession, but also a useful mantra for any profession. Because each of us should aspire to enlarge our value beyond some arbitrary title on our business card. Each of us should aim to be a source of holistic improvement for our customers and coworkers. 



Otherwise we’re doing our talents a disservice. We’re narrowing our appeal and our ability to create value. 



In the wall of my studio, I have a diagram of a buffalo, parsing out every part of its anatomy with its commensurate value to the native people. Looking at it on a daily basis inspires me to fire on all cylinders, make use of everything I am, exploit each of my talents, keep all of my passions in play and use my gifts to make a difference in all parts of my life. 



In short, it reminds me not to work from the wrist down. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How will you remind yourself to open up your potential to be pursued for a wide variety of client improvement?LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 


The Nametag Guy in action here!


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