Walk away in kindhearted acceptance and get on with your life

If you’re still bloodying your knuckles on doors that you know are not going to open, it’s time to hang up your wrists and stop knocking. 

There is a such thing as misguided persistence. And it can work against you. It’s overwhelming to the person being pursued, and it’s frustrating and counterproductive for the person doing the pursuing. 

Eventually, you have to just stand in graceful surrender, walk away in kindhearted acceptance and get on with your life. 

Because life’s too short to spend your time pushing a van uphill with the breaks on while people throw rocks at the windshield. 

It’s a control thing. Making multiple phone calls and sending reminder emails and showing on people’s front lawns holding up boom boxes that are blasting eighties love songs, these are the ways we delude ourselves into believing that our actions might actually influence human behavior. 

But they won’t. They only serve to make us feel better about ourselves. After all, we’re the ones doing the work. We’re the dedicated party taking action to make things happen. And so, if our efforts fail, it’s their fault, not ours. Idiots

The point is, being more persistent doesn’t earn our way onto the prospect’s calendar, just like staring harder doesn’t allow us see through the girl’s dress. 

Trust me, I’ve tried both. 

The only thing that works is surrender. Acceptance. Letting go of a dream that simply isn’t going to happen, and not beating yourself up along the way. 

Campbell was right. The hero is the one who knows when to surrender and what to surrender to. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How will you decide when it’s time to let go, and when it’s time to dig deeper to keep your dream alive?

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!


Make art that prides itself on its unreality

Fargo opens with a disclaimer:

The movie a true story, that the events depicted in this film actually did take place, and at the request of the survivors, the names have been changed, and out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred. 

What’s interesting, though, is that once the movie is over, the end credits bear the opposing disclaimer. It states: 



All characters appearing in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 

What should the audience believe? 

Turns out, the film’s plot is completely fictional. Coens claimed that while they were inspired by true events, they weren’t interested in that kind of fidelity. The basic events might have been the same as in the real life case, but the characterizations were fully imagined. 

If an audience believes that something is based on a real event, they said, it gives the filmmaker permission to do things that people might otherwise not accept. 

It’s a fascinating case study on the power of expectation. Choreographing attention to meet your own objectives. Create a focus on what people might normally overlook. 

Because it’s not only the work, but the frame in which we present our work, which ultimately affects the receptivity and perception and experience of the people who experience it. 

Without building that kind of expectation from the beginning, people end up looking at too narrow of a spectrum and miss totality of the work. 

I’m reminded of a brilliant photographer who launched one of the most innovative projects I’ve ever seen. Myoung photographed solitary trees framed against ginormous white canvas backdrops in the middle of natural landscapes. Centered in the graphic compositions, the canvases define the form of the tree and separate it from the environment. 

By creating a partial, temporary outdoor studio for each tree, these portraits play with ideas of scale and perception. 

And through the power of frame and expectation, the artist transforms otherwise unremarkable parts of nature into art.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How are you framing people into the picture you want to paint?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!


Set aside your innocence for a moment

What I regret most in my life are the failures of discernment. 



Situations in which I was too flattered to be suspicious, too passionate to be critical, too poised in a great ballet of expectation and entitlement to be selective, and too focused on my own ego to realize that this exciting new business opportunity was really just another opportunity not to get paid for something. 



Yet another cruel hoax dangled before the hungry hearts of the naïve. 



It’s like a modern day western. People mosey on into town on their pretty little promise wagons, declaring that they’ll get us everything we want and it will cost us nothing. But then the moment we turn around to inquire further, they’ve vanished like a fart in the wind. 



The sad part is, it’s completely our fault. Because we never saw it coming. Marks never do. We allowed these pickpockets to take advantage of our enthusiastic spirit, steal all our hungry youth juice and send us out into the world to get our hearts broken all over again. 



Kenobi once asked his young jedi apprentice: 



Who is the bigger fool, the fool, or the one who follows him? 



That would be us. We’re the fools. 



And so, if we have any intention of eradicating regret from our lives, we have to set aside our innocence for a moment. We have to stop factoring in anybody ever helping us. 



Because nobody is here to facilitate our dreams. People are too enmeshed in their own survival agendas. We may as well create our own steam. 



Rand once wrote



The primary act, the process of reason, must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men, but we cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. 



Sounds easy enough.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you prepared to set aside your innocence and trust only 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!


Scoring a joy point

Mellin’s
groundbreaking research on rewiring the human brain found that long term
survival is predicated on our capacity to marshal an effective joy response



That the chemical ripples
of electricity and pleasure that we feel in our bodies when we relentlessly
pursue the gentle and nourishing practice of joy are the most effective defense
against stress that we have. 



And so, our challenge is to organize our lives
around experiencing joy in the moment, rather than revolving around identifying
and fixing problems. 



To weaken our ties to external solutions, dip our toes in
the bucket of internal pleasure circuits known as the human body and start
scoring a few joy points for ourselves. 



It’s the world’s most efficacious
preventative medicine. It’s infinitely abundant and available, and costs us
nothing. 



At least, nothing monetarily. There is, of course, the existential
expense of joy. The naked terror of confessing happiness. 



Because in a world
that’s cynical, corrupt, cold and more concerned with expressing coolness than
embracing earnestness, irony has become the ethos of our age. It’s the modern
defense mechanism against hope, vulnerability and whatever other emotional risk
people are too terrified to take. 



But it’s worth it. The mere idea that we can
improve our health by surrounding ourselves with things that delight us, by
owning our desires without apology or justification, and by flooding our lives
with experiences in which we’re conscious of nothing but the pleasure it gives
us, that’s nothing short of a miracle. 



It is not selfish to spend so
much effort on your own happiness. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How much additional stress are you creating because of your reluctance 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!


The undeniable glow and effervescence and surprise

At some point, everybody in this world gets knocked off the road of happiness, stripped of their myriad opportunities for wonder and discarded into the gutter of suffering. 



It’s tragic, but it’s as inevitable as the tides of the sea and the setting of the sun. 



And so, the existential responsibility we have as citizens of this planet is to leave other people with joy ringing in their ears, as often as possible. 



I know it sounds sappy. But for those of us who still have that little lamp of idealism still burning, the act of bringing joy to others is a profoundly underrated way to create a significant and renewable source of engagement and meaning for ourselves. One that can’t be harvested anywhere else. 

Years ago, I started busking in the park by my house. And among the myriad benefits of performing music in public, by far the most rewarding and memorable part of the experience is watching the undeniable glow and effervescence and surprise suddenly appear on people’s faces when they first encounter it. 

Marley was right when he said that the good thing about music is, when it hits you, you feel no pain. 

What’s more, it’s a powerful feedback loop. My joy in playing the music infects the audience, and their joy in hearing the music bounces back and encourages me to continue. 

And so, it’s a relational affair. Joy is mainlined into to the soul through human connection. 

Which isn’t to say joy can’t be experienced alone. Because it can and should. Early and often. 

But like so many of life’s great elixirs, it’s best when shared. 

Our joy is more fully realized when we help others experience their own version of it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How are you leaving people with joy ringing in their ears?



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!


Whatever it takes to keep the shit at shoe level

We all do what we have to do to keep
the peace inside ourselves. 

Whether it’s a private ceremony, a magic object, a
daily practice, a dopey mantra, a motivational exercise, a weird habit, a
bizarre compulsion or an obsessive tendency, there’s no need to judge
ourselves. 

If that thing supports us in making our lives feel less difficult,
if it allows us to carve out our own little corner of dignity, if it provides
us with a safe haven from the whirling chaos and madness of the rest of the
world, and if it helps us reduce our inner turbulence and maintain the
continuity of our existence, then it’s worth doing. 

No justification,
explanation or rationalization necessary. 

Keeping the shit at shoe level is a
lifelong task. It takes a metric ton of thought power. 

And so, we have a
responsibility to direct compassion and kindness inward. To save some
acceptance for ourselves. 

But also to extend that same understanding to others.
Because what may appear on the surface as a dysfunctional way of dealing with
emotions, might simply be that person’s healthiest and most helpful way of
keeping the peace inside themselves. 

I have a nurse friend who works hospital
hours, which often requires back to back overnight shifts, followed by back to
back daytime shifts. It’s massively fatiguing. She rarely has a consistent
schedule, struggles to organize her time and often feels disconnected from
friends and family members. 

And so, she takes sleeping pills. Not compulsively, and proudly, but
not begrudgingly either. 

Because it’s one of the few effective ways combat the
insomnia associated with odd work hours. And although it personally makes me
nauseous to even think about taking
sleeping pills, I’m still empathetic to her struggle. 

Because people do what
they need to do to feel the way they need to feel. Whatever it takes to keep
the shit at shoe level. 

And we owe it to each other to have compassion for
myriad causes and conditions that lead people to act as they do. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you demeaning or pathologizing people’s choices, interests or expressions because they’re unlike yours? 
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!


Allow yourself the weakness of being happy

Once upon a time, our country’s most popular fiction writer suggested that people were hungry for a sight of joy, for a moment’s relief from that gray load of suffering which seems so inexplicable and unnecessary. 

More than a half a century later, the insight still holds up. 

People still crave the elixir of watching someone genuinely enjoying themselves. People still admire those who wear their joy as the brand on their forehead for all to see. And people still flock to and get inspired by those individuals who brave enough to allow themselves the weakness of being happy. 

Which is excellent news. Because it means we don’t have to be afraid of joy. 

It brings to mind the term guilty pleasure, which I recently learned has an official definition. Multiple dictionaries tell me that a guilty pleasure is something, such as a movie, a television program or a piece of music, that a person enjoys, despite morally believing or being informed that the substance or activity is abnormal, improper or incorrect. 

French speakers actually have a similar idiom within the culinary world called péché mignon, a phrase that translates to mean, tiny sin. 

But the reality is, joy is not a sin. Or an indulgence. Or something about which to feel shame. 

Quite the opposite. Joy is a moral imperative. It’s the only elixir guaranteed to keep our species from extinction. 

And the good news, there’s no pleasure police that’s going to arrest for belting out cheesy pop songs at the top of our lungs, waiting for traffic light to change. No matter how off key we sing. 

It’s all a matter of mindset. Having some agency over joy. 

Replacing guilty pleasure with shameless enthusiasm.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you allowing yourself the weakness of being happy?

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!


Demonstrate to yourself that you are determined to move forward

The problem with revenge is, it keeps pain and violence in
circulation.

And from a purely economical scale, it’s not an intelligent use of
resources. There are better ways to spend your time and money and energy. 

I’m
reminded of a great line from an old western novel. The cowboy says: 

All that time you’re spending trying to get
back what was taken from you, more is going out the door. And after a while,
you just try and get a tourniquet on it. 

The question is, how do you stop the
bleeding? How do you reconcile the thieves and cheaters and freeloaders who
believe they’re entitled to wet their beaks on your every achievement? 



Simple. Take action. Make progress. Cut
yourself loose from the dead hand of the past. Keep your eyes off the rear view
mirror, keep adding energy to the system and keep moving the story forward. 

That’s the most economical, least stressful way to live. Whereas sitting around
feeling sorry for yourself, proclaiming that everywhere you leak, the world
hangs a bucket, is a recipe for disappointment and bitterness. 

It’s just
another distraction to diminish your sense of progress. 

I’ve been publishing my
writing for over fifteen years. And I’ve lost count of the number of people who
have blatantly pirated and plagiarized my material. 

But taking legal action and
sending strongly worded letters and calling people onto the carpet wasn’t doing
a damn thing. 

And so, I let it go. I accepted the leaks in my bucket as the
cost of doing business. I stopped looking into the rear view mirror. I started
demonstrating to myself that I was determined to move forward. 

And over time, I
freed myself from bitterness and came out on the other side with clean heart. 

Take your momentum wherever you can find it. Buoy yourself by
the prospect of any kind of progress. 

Because there’s nothing more infuriating
than being left hanging silently over the path on which no steps were taken. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How will you demonstrate to yourself that you are determined to move forward? 
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!


Forgiveness is a fashion worth fighting for

Pope, the legendary eighteenth century satirical poet, was the originator of the saying:

To err is human; to forgive, divine

It’s an oldie, but a goodie. And it will always be a powerful mantra for our daily dealings with others. 

But lest we forget, the river flows both ways. We can’t overlook the grudges we hold inside our own heads. 

The first beneficiary of forgiveness is always ourselves

Because the mantra isn’t solely about extending kindness to those who trespass against us, it’s also about practicing compassion with ourselves. Especially in those small, quiet moments when nobody else is around, when it’s tempting to morph into the internet bullies of our own minds. 

Every time I perform music in public, I make mistakes. It’s guaranteed. Perfection is an illusion. People who say otherwise are either liars or robots. 

But the good news is, there’s an invaluable skill that we can develop along the path of failure. 

Recovery. Quickly, quietly and compassionately letting go of those mistakes, powering through and continuing the performance. 

Because the show must go on. If we don’t forgive ourselves now, we’ll keep paying for the mistake over and over again. And what a shameful waste of mental resources that would be. 

Next time you blunder in front of the crowd, use kindness to set yourself free. 

Treat it as another adventure in compassion. 

Because heaping on more guilt won’t help you learn from the mistake. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you still incapable of dispensing forgiveness to 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!


Not because we make them so, but because we love them

There’s an obscure but dazzling collection of essays on community building that contains the essential reference guide for creating productive work environments. 



Published in the early eighties, experts on the leading edge of organizational change, from academics to civil servants to social workers to third world philanthropists, got together and shared a variety of frameworks for building community holistically. 



One of the key takeaways was the distinction between intentional and incidental. How community building, like so many things in life, isn’t necessarily an explicit goal. Rather, the spirit of community often emerges as leaders create a context for people to remember, discover and share their personal values and priorities. 



It’s incidental, not intentional. 



Startups understand this distinction intuitively. Unlike the corporations of the past, where the best you could hope for was a place to work with some nice people who would share in your misery, these agile and innovative companies create a workplace that embraces the weirdness people have to offer. 



They give their employees the freedom to use their talents they might never exercise anywhere else. That’s the intentional goal. 



And as an incidental result, community follows. 



The point is, it’s one thing to encourage people to be more of what they are, but to empower them to become what they never thought they could be, that’s how you create an atmosphere worth coming to. 



That’s how organizations become communities. 



Not because we make them so, but because we love them. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How are you making your community more joinable? 
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!


Sign up for daily updates
Connect

Subscribe

Daily updates straight to your inbox.

Copyright ©2020 HELLO, my name is Blog!