Sucked into an ego vortex

When you interact with a friend’s baby and it suddenly starts crying, you don’t take it personally. 



You don’t get all defensive and suspicious and cynical, ruminating to yourself, man, that baby is out to get me. Little punk doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. 



Instead, you simply look for the benevolent, human explanations for that child’s behavior. 



Aww, he must be hungry or cold or tired or restless or wants his mommy or needs to poop.



Meanwhile, when we interact with another adult and they suddenly start acting in a way that’s surprising or bizarre, all of our patience, kindness and humility go out the window. 



We forget the fact that everybody we meet is carrying a heavy burden. We forget the fact that we never know what’s going on in people’s lives when we encounter them. 



And so, we plunge headfirst into the ego vortex, projecting our own autobiography onto the situation. Now that’s really precious. 



A smarter move is to flex the muscle of wonderment. To look at that person lovingly and think, wow:



I wonder what transitions they might they be facing right now? I wonder what emotional continuum might they be negotiating today? 



Questions like these are the adult version of having a poopy diaper. And they can help us meet more and more of our interactions with kindness and understanding. 



Nobody is trying to ruin you. Stop looking solely through the narrow keyhole of your own personal existence. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are people truly out to get you, or are they just tired, hungry and restless?

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!


I work for ideas, not people

All great ideas feel daunting at first. But a single soul with faith in that idea can reinvents an entire marketplace. 

Secondly, if everybody thinks your idea is crazy, you just might be onto something. And so, it’s worth taking every idea and vision at least one step, just in case. 

Third, most innovators never intend to start a business until they came up with good ideas that the people around them weren’t interested in. Proving, that the only thing more powerful than an idea is the culture that nourishes it, or that prevents it from taking root. 

If you want to monetize, polarize. 

Instead of hiding behind the idea that makes everyone feel equally indifferent, execute something worth being criticized.



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Do you work for ideas or work for people?



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!


Busy with gasps of delight

I recently overheard a conversation between two women, one of whom said to the other:



My schedule was so busy, I peed on mute today.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Apparently being busy is the great badge of honor. 

What’s interesting is, nearly a century ago, the greatest fiction writer of her times wrote the following passage. Rand said:

People hurry because they’re afraid. It’s not a purpose that drives them, it’s fear. They’re not going anywhere, they’re escaping. And they don’t know what it is they want to escape. They don’t look at one another. They jerk when brushed against. But it’s not joy, it’s pleading. 

Fast forward to today, and another popular fiction writer wrote the following. Krieder said:

Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. But people aren’t busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, but because they dread what they might have to face in its absence. The big picture questions they’ve successfully kept at bay. 

Proving, that after almost one hundred years, human beings are still hedging against emptiness. We’re still searching for existential reassurance. And we’re still filling any space in time with busy work because we feel insecure doing nothing. 

Because we’re terrified to release our grip of control on life and just let the joy carry us. 

The liberation, of course, is when we realize that we don’t have to respond to every magnet. That we’re not obligated by some busyness committee to introduce more new objects of attention in our worlds.



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you busy with gobs of demands on your time, or busy with gasps of delight in your heart? 
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!


Greatness by choice, gravity by chance

Making a name for yourself is good for the ego, but helping others make a name for themselves is great for the soul. 



Rand famously said that it takes two people to make every great career, the one who is great, and the one who is great enough to see greatness and say go. 



And so, once we’re flushed all of the selfishness out of our system and made our mark on the world, that’s our next imperative. To show people their own wings. To be a stand for their greatness. To give them a front row seat to their own brilliance. And to push them off the cliff and watch them soar. 



Of course, it’s not entirely altruistic. Seeing greatness and saying go reverberates back into our lives as well. We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own. 



I once met a stranger on a bus who passed along my business card to the editor of the local newspaper who wrote a four page article about my first book that went viral, launched my career and changed the trajectory of my life forever. 



Never saw the guy from the bus again, but I never forgot the impact he had. He saw greatness and said go. He pushed me off the cliff before I even knew how to fly, and trusted that I would figure it out before I crashed into the rocks below. 



And now, any chance I have to do the same for somebody else, I take it. Because you never know. Sometimes you’re the guy on the bus, sometimes you’re the guy sitting next to him. 



But both people need each other. For the goodness of the self, but also for the greatness of the soul. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

If you’re so great, how come you don’t make other people feel great? 

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!


The simple and finite world of black and white

When asked why they couldn’t execute something on time, people often attribute their failures to forces outside of their control. 

In contract law, attorneys will often use the legal term act of god, which is an implied defense under the rule of impossibility or impracticality. Events for which nobody can be held responsible. Chalking nonperformance up to divine intervention, fate or destiny. 

But here’s the thing. Most of life is forces outside of our control. With the exception of water pressure in dams releasing a geological fault or geothermal injections of water provoking earthquakes or illegal drilling causing a mud volcano, odds are, forces outside of our control is yet another way of not taking responsibility when things don’t work out. 

Hiding in the cozy grey areas of life to justify poor choices and mediocre results. 

And not to be insensitive to people’s life situations. I understand that life is a subjective experience, and there’s no need to burden ourselves with too many absolutes. 

But the simple and finite world of black and white has its merits. It knocks out excuses, reduces our experience of anxiety, prevents the rationalization of failure and enables daily decision making to be significantly easier and faster. 

And so, for the sake of our sanities, and the sanities of the people we work with, just own it. 

Let’s just assume that all forces are outside of our control. 

Either we did enough, or we didn’t. Either we had an idea, or we had an I did.

Life doesn’t have a preheat setting. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you evading responsibility by believing you can control outcomes that you demonstrably have no influence over? 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!


You don’t own enough of yourself

Goffman’s social psychology research found that true identity is formed when people assert pride in the thing that made them marginal. 



When they realize, oh wow, what I thought was wrong with me, that thing that everybody always used to make fun of me for, is actually the very gift that I can use to belong to and create value for the world. 



What a glorious relief. Sweet liberation. Especially in our current culture, where every sickness, struggle, disorder, disability, illness, obsession, fetish and deviance has some kind of community attached to it. Virtual, physical or both. 



Which means, we don’t have to suffer silently and secretly anymore. We don’t have to shoulder the unnecessary burden of thinking we’re freakishly different and doomed. 



We just have to own it. To bravely shed our cloak of invisibility and engage in efforts to forge new connections with kindred spirits. Then and only then, the shimmering luxury item known as true identity will be ours for the taking. 



Listen, none of us needs to be caught in a story that’s less than who we are.



Not if we asset pride in the thing that makes us marginal. 



Not if we declare our identity with conviction.



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

If you were arrested and charged with owning your authentic self, would there be enough evidence to convict 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!


Aim some creativity at reframing your own experience

Frankl famously said that to
live is to suffer, but to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. 

The key
word, of course, is find. Which suggests a significant amount of
intellectual and existential work. Searching for aspects of our circumstances
that we can view as gifts to be treasured. Forgiving reality for being what it
is, but then cognitively reframing the story we tell ourselves about what that
reality means. 

That’s one of the reasons daily journaling is a deeply
therapeutic practice. Because it forces you to explain your own life to
yourself. It challenges you to acknowledge the meaning of experiences. And not
for any outside reader, but for the clarity of your own understanding. 

What’s
more, if you’re daring enough to revisit those daily entries weeks or months or
even years later, rereading them chronological order gives you a chance to
study your own mind. 

Nobody can deny the meaningfulness of that journey, nor
can they take it away from you.  No matter how horrible the suffering felt along
the way. 

I’m reminded of a comic book artist friend of mine, who once said that
writing down the difficult moments of your history lets you own it. The events
then belong to you rather than you belonging to them. 

Remember, creativity is
the most important human resource we have. Don’t blow it all at work.
Pay yourself first. Aim some creativity at reframing your own experience. 

Use
situations as catalysts to grow and evolve, not to beat yourself up. 

That way,
you’re not suffering, you’re surviving. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Which misfortune in one area of your life is waiting to enrich the rest of it?

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!


I’m not finished participating in wonder

Here’s what I’m searching for in life. 



Moments when I suddenly know a different sense of living. Experiences when everything I thought I knew about my life comes to an end. When all my little rules go out the window. Milestones when I awake to a new sense of a responsibility, feel a fresh sense of energy flowing through me and start walking down a path toward a better way of being in the world.  Because a brighter future is mine to write. 

Of course, these moments can’t happen every day. Or every month. Or even every year. Nor should they. 

But we all need things to be awed by. It’s an existential imperative. 

In fact, when I think back to the handful of those moments that changed me forever, man, it felt so good to feel that way about something. What’s more, the knowledge that nobody could take those moments away from me, felt even better. 

That’s why I champion the practice and the discipline to see the world with wide open wonder. I try to challenge myself to resist the intellectual temptation to stick a pin in every moment and consciously drain it of its power to affect me. 

Because I don’t ever want to be finished participating in wonder. I don’t ever want to interact with the world in a way that reduces my chances of experiencing meaning, taking the magic and mystery and potency out of life. 

I just want to keep exploring mysterious desert islands of wonder. Trusting that eventually, maybe every few years or so, one of those moments will sneak under the door. 

Einstein was right. Whomever can no longer wonder and marvel is as good as dead.



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you looking at the stars with the wonder they deserve?  

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!


The right path is the on we choose

We don’t always have to bring knowledge to the path. 

Sometimes we simply have to trust that the function of the path is to equip us with what we need, and the moment we announce to the world that we’re ready to take that pivotal first step, the path will being to illuminate itself. 

But the terrifying part is, we have to commit. We have to believe that the right path is the one we choose. And we have to have faith that once we’re on it, things will inevitably fall into place. 

The universe will keep laying track down in front of our train, as long as we hold up our end of the bargain by being truly serious about the journey. 

I recently did an interview on a television show. Towards the end of the segment, the host asked me what the next step in my career was. 

But all I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, I have no idea. Which isn’t the most satisfying answer for the viewing audience, and I wasn’t trying to be funny or difficult or evasive, but it’s the truth. 

What’s next is a complete mystery to me. In fact, every time I hear the old adage, he who fails to plan, plans to fail, a small part of my soul scrams. 

Because in my experience, it’s the opposite. 

If you don’t know where you’re going, nobody can stop you. Including yourself. 

Sounds like a more interesting path to me. One where freedom asks us to invent our own steps. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you on a path that has lots of signs, or a path that aligns your actions to your values?

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!


Are the stakes of interacting with you are too high?

The paradox of the banking world is, in order to secure a loan, you must first prove you don’t need it. 

That’s why the entrepreneur who shows up at his local branch with a coherent business plan, a high credit score, organized bank statements, tons of pay stubs, substantial industry knowledge, significant collateral and a twenty percent down payment, almost always qualifies for the loan. 

Because the fact that he survived the process confirms that he’s a man of action with the desire to succeed even more. His enterprise is going to thrive with or without the bank’s help. 

It’s not the bank’s loan that will take his business to the next level, it’s the fact that he’s the kind of person who qualifies to secure the loan that will. 

The money is merely a formality. 

It works the same in the publishing world. If an author already has a huge marketing platform and a history of selling tons of books, they don’t need an agent. And that’s precisely why that author gets pitch letters from agents.

The good news is, you don’t have to be a business owner to take advantage of this paradox. Whether you’re applying for a new job, competing for a major promotion or romancing your way to a second date, the psychological principles remain constant. 

Don’t telegraph your neediness. Don’t imply that the stakes of interacting with you are too high. And don’t make people think they’re going to have to be the first one to trust you. 

Because you’ll end up behaving in ways that push away the very people you need to align with in order to get where you need to go. 

In a world of chaos, humans gravitate to that which has already been anointed. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you the kind of person that you need to be in order to get what you want?


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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