A return with no investment

The challenge with joy is, it comes wrapped in a bow of guilt. 

Thanks to our puritanical origins, entire generations of people have been reticent to embrace joy when it comes. Because they’re terrified of feeling shameful or indulgent or depraved. After all, those who take uninhibited pleasure from what they’re engaged in at the moment have been historically viewed as sinful and immoral. 

And besides, who are we to feel such joy when there is so much pain and suffering around us? No thanks. 

Of course, the joke’s on us. Because there’s nothing indecent or immoral about leading a joyful life. Quite the opposite. Joy is critical to the health of the human psyche. It’s been scientifically proven to increase our overall health and well being. 

We should treat the inability to experience it as a public health crisis. 

But people’s reluctance makes sense. Rand famously said that which has the power to give us joy is always guarded as one’s deepest secret. And so, to confess joy is to stand naked. 

To stop hiding from our power and surrender to the moment and own our direction and walk toward our light and have the life we imagine, that takes courage. 

To have agency over the kind of joy that is not even conscious of being joy because it is so steady and natural and unchangeable, that takes courage. 

But it’s worth it. Our bravery will be rewarded. 

We owe it to ourselves to stop allowing intellectually embarrassing mythology to use guilt as a weapon to hold us in its grasp. Instead, we must try harder to build up joy for ourselves within the misery of life. To find little scraps of it whenever we can, to find loved ones we can share it with, and to find people whom we can pass it along to. 

Because the extraordinary thing about joy that nobody tells you us, when you give yourself permission to embrace it, it feels like a return with no investment. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Why are you still reluctant to allow spontaneous joy into your life?


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’re less alone than you think

Success never comes unassisted. 

There are people in the world who will gladly take you under their wing and help you fly to the stars. 

Of course, that kind of relationship can only commence under a few conditions. 

Internally, you have to let it be okay that you need other people. You have to humble yourself at the feet of those who have already walked the path. You have to make yourself vulnerable to the very real pain of leaving your olds ways of understanding behind, and you have to be open to hearing how your world is going to change as a result. 

Externally, you have to make it easy for people to push you forward. Because they can only help you if you give them something to help you with. 

When I was writing my first book, every request for help that I made, whether it was for advice or resources or mentoring or networking, was at best politely rejected, and at worst completely ignored. 

But once my book was published and real and I could slap it down on the table and let it do the talking for me, suddenly, help started arriving in droves. 

Because now people had a handle by which to carry me. The book was the key piece of leverage that made it easy for them to sing my praises. 

It’s like my grandfather used to say, you can’t sell from an empty wagon. 

And so, if you’re feeling doomed to forever aspire but never achieve, ask yourself how amenable you are to people’s help. 

And ask yourself what kind of leverage you can create to give those people something to help you with. 

Because nothing makes it harder to move forward toward your goals than chronic vagueness. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Who has already walked the path you’re about to embark on, and what could you put in their hands to help them help 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!


Wanted. Those seeking transcendence. Triumph certain.

Woody’s latest film reminds us that the world may not be without purpose, but it’s not without magic. 



That’s a deeply comforting thought. One that can help inform and ennoble our existential priorities. 



Because no matter how many times we fatalistically wonder to ourselves, what the hell is the point of all this, there is always an asterisk at the bottom of the page, pointing to the moments when the magic is trying to enter, reminding us that we’re only one step away from a window to a world of wonder. 



And so, next time you get caught in feelings of aimlessness and emptiness, prescribe yourself a dose of awe. Which, according to the landmark study on the topic, is the intersection of two moments. 



Wow and how. 



Wow, meaning you’re in the presence of something sizable and powerful and prestigious, and the sense of vastness overwhelms you. 



Holy crap. This is amazing. Where’s my camera? 



How, meaning you can’t comprehend the mechanics behind that thing, and the desire to accommodate that experience into your worldview overwhelms you. 

No effing way. How the hell did she do that? 



That’s how you create awe. Wow plus how. It’s a scientifically proven formula. 



And in those deflating moments when you feel like you don’t understand the world anymore, a small dose of it goes a long way.



Remember, if you don’t believe in magic on some level, your life is going to suck. Brockman was right when he wrote that reality is so complex and the mind is so limited, that it will always be beyond human grasp, and so, we are lucky to be left with a sense of wonder and awe.



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How will you find your way out of the existential vacuum? 
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!


Allowing that which is already present to reveal itself

Michelangelo said that every block of stone has a statue inside of it, and that it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. 



The operative word, of course, is discover



Not create or build or invent or make from scratch, but discover. 



To chip away and allow that which is already present to reveal itself. 



It’s a counterintuitive approach that takes some getting used to, but once you train yourself to think this way, solving problems becomes dramatically easier and a lot more interesting. 



When my wife and relocated across the country to new city where we didn’t know a soul, finding centers of belonging and incorporating ourselves into the community was number one on the list. 

But it took time. And the road was paved with ruptures and repairs along the way. Especially in that first year. 

We reminisce about friends and relationships and communities that we were convinced would cement our sense of belonging, but ended up being social misfires. It was highly disappointing. 

Of course, that was back when our social antennas were only calibrated to pick up the signals we expected to find. But once we started inverting our approach to the problem, once we realized that you never create community, you only discover the one you had the whole time, everything changed. 

We began to chip away at the stone and revealed the sculpture that was waiting for us. And soon enough, we noticed friends and colleagues and acquaintances and kindred spirits that were right in front of our noses. 

If you can’t find the community you need, love the one you’re near. 

Remember, you never start with nothing. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you reaching for something that’s already inside of yourself?

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 have nothing further to learn here

Some things cycle into your life for a season for a reason. 

And that’s okay. In fact, each of us must build our capacity to recognize the point when relationships, cities, jobs and other life phases no longer have anything original or important to teach us. 



It’s like a sixth sense. A spiritual law of diminishing returns. And it requires a rare combination of gratitude and detachment that allows us to step back from our lives, without guilt or afterthought, and announce to ourselves, okay, I have nothing further to learn here. Time to move on. What’s next? 

Cloud wrote a brilliant psychology book on these very transitions. He calls them necessary endings, which aren’t tragedies to be first feared and later regretted, but critical stages on the way to growth. 



Cloud writes that getting to the next level of anything always requires ending something, leaving it behind, and moving on. Growth itself demands that we move on. Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them. 

That’s the skill nobody teaches us in college. Knowing how and when to switch to a game that has better odds for us. Learning how to leave the party at midnight when the festivities were at their peak, lest we get trapped on the couch at four in the morning when people started making bad decisions. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Whose advice have you finally outgrown ?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 attraction of working versus the arrogance of waiting

I once stumbled across an application for a sales position that made the following disclaimer. 



We are an evangelical ministry, and our strategic plan is to use prayer to attract new customers



Well then. That’s certainly one way to run a business.  Hope it works out for that company. 



Although in my experience, the best way to get new customers is through the attraction of working, not the arrogance of waiting. 



That phone isn’t going to ring itself. No matter how much you want it to. No matter how many magic words you recite. 



And not that prayer doesn’t have its benefits. Yoga gurus at the turn of the century were telling people how the repeated performance of an action created a mental blueprint of subtle electrical pathways in the brain, like the grooves in a record, which their lives would positively follow. 

And more recently, scientists have pioneered a new field of research called neurotheology, which is the study of the correlation between the brain and religious or spiritual beliefs and practices. 

Apparently prayer can lead to higher levels of activity in the frontal lobes, which handle focused attention. 

But ask anyone who’s run a business for more than a few years, you don’t want to spend too much time crossing your fingers. It’s a complacent, passive and unsustainable way to run an enterprise. 

Only through action and motion and movement do you truly ring the register. 

Pray as much as you want, but don’t forget to unsteeple your fingers and put them to work creating real value for real people in the real world.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you working or waiting?
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 unusual receptivity of their creator’s eyes

The unusual
receptivity of their creator’s eyes. If we are to convey the distinct
timbre of our thoughts and make pronouncements truly worthy of the world’s
attention, it all beings with the quiet moments that we notice out of the
corner of our eye. 



The openness to allow those unremarkable events to fill our
soul with remarkable delight. And the audacity to put them wax and carry our
truth to market. 



Schulz, as an example, was a fine draftsman. No doubt about
it. He couldn’t have created the most popular comic strip in history by having
a subpar illustrating ability. 



But his highest talent, colleagues say, was his
capacity to find inspiration in life’s daily occurrences that most people took
for granted. To stay forever attuned to the everyday absurdity of ordinary
experiences. 



That’s why the characters still endure to this day. It was the
unusual receptivity of their creator’s eyes. 



How do we train
ourselves to do the same? How do get that muscle all quivering and veiny and oiled up? 



A good place to start is
our own backyard. Quite literally, in fact. 



I’m reminded of a police
mystery novel whose protagonists said, a good cop depends on his sense of
inappropriateness. What doesn’t fit? What’s out of the ordinary? What’s the
wrong type of face or car for this neighborhood? That’s how he knows his beat.
A longstanding habituation to place. 



And so, each one of us can strengthen that
muscle by simply stepping out the front door, walking down our street and start
searching for things that don’t fit. Looking around in the course of a typical
day for examples of inconvenience. 



That’s where art begins. Hiding behind the
unremarkable. 



And from that place of exquisite ordinariness, beauty and joy and
transcendence ensue. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you known for the strength of your pen or the receptivity of your eyes? 
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!


Stay with the reader beyond the last page

Patterson, the number one selling fiction novelist of all time, gives this advice to budding fiction writers:



Don’t think about the sentences, think about the story. 



That’s been his approach to writing dozens of bestselling novels for over thirty years. Rather than showing off with snazzy sentences, he focuses on the core of the scene. And it’s that story which grabs the reader’s attention quickly, makes them hold on for dear life, and makes his characters stay with the reader beyond the last page. 



I especially love that last part:



Beyond the last page. 



It suggests stickiness. Ideas that people can’t shake from their brains, no matter how hard they try. Like the tear jerking bridge in a love song that you want to rewind and listen to over and over again. 



That’s the challenge of all mass communication. Creating big stories that are important enough to believe, remember, spread and repeat. 



Not laboring over the scholastic perfection of every word and sentence and syntax, but making sure that the spine of the story is in good shape, and trusting that the rest will take care of itself. 



Because the audience’s eyes betray them. Snazzy sentences and flashy techniques can make any message sound good. 



But as any good musician will tell you, the last thing you want is your audience to stop listening and start watching. 



Don’t think about the sentences, think about the story. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What are the myths you want to tell people when you talk about what you do?
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!


Develop new ways of responding to things that scare you

A comedian friend of mine performs at a variety of open mics around town, almost every night of the week. 

His personal challenge for improving his comedy game is, he tries to throw himself off a cliff once a night. 

Meaning, there has to be one joke, one moment, one movement or one expression that terrifies him. Because it’s risky. It’s dancing on the edge of danger. The bit might not work. It might alienate half of the room. It might bring light to an awkward truth. And the club owner might ask him never to come back. 

But the reward is, the comic gets to feel like he’s creating in a risky way. The reward is, he’s learning how to risk in small doses. The reward is, he’s developing new ways of responding to things that scare him. And that’s where human aliveness comes from. 

Funny enough, comedy clubs aren’t that different from company boardrooms. Because in the corporate world, there is no incentive to throw yourself off the cliff. It’s quite the opposite. 

Most big organizations are so invested in minimizing risk, that truly disruptive ideas can never take hold. That’s why outside vendors and supplies and agencies and consultants know never to bring an innovation to someone whose main goal is to not get fired. Because those people are not in the bravery business. They’re not paid to take chances. 

They’re the guardians of the status quo whose job is to keep word from getting to the top of the wall. Good luck getting that guy to risk making someone upset with their initiative. 

The good news is, risk is relative. It’s whatever scares us. Failure doesn’t have to be expensive, it merely has to be embarrassing. 

And so, continually ask yourself the question:

How can I put myself in a state of risk again? 

Force yourself to try things that might now work. As my mentor used to say, you’re only as a good as you dare to be bad.

You can risk being cursed and denounced, or you can stay at home, take no risks and make no enemies.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Will you leave excuses you have made not to throw yourself off the cliff?
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 are what you charge

When I first went into business, I would prepare for sales calls by spending twenty minutes in bathroom, quoting my fee in the mirror. 

It was humiliating. But that’s how scared I was. And in those early years, you have to take your confidence where you can get it. 

Of course, there’s nothing more maddening than the first time you actually do get the guts to ask for the money, and the prospective client doesn’t balk or even blink at the price. All you can think to yourself for the rest of the day is, damn it, I should have asked for more. 

My mentor once told me, if they say yes too quickly, you didn’t ask for enough. 

It’s a helpful principle of negotiation that I’ve always appreciated. Because it makes the process riskier. It invites you to add a little bravery to conversation an advocate for yourself. To look in the bathroom mirror, believe that you’re a welcome presence who’s creating value, and demand that you get paid what you’re worth. 

Even if that price makes the other person shift in their seats. 

It’s like my yoga instructor says. Better to feel slightly crappy during class than to suffer all day. 

The same principle applies to asking for the sale. Better to grab your balls and quote a uncomfortably high fee than to leave money on the table and hate yourself all day. 

Remember, you don’t get any bravery points for undercharging. Follow the fear. Use it as a foothold on the path to true aliveness. 

And remember that if you’re not scared, your dream is too small. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What am I not charging for that people are telling me that they would pay money for?
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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