Liberate yourself from the pain of rumination

Multiple choice problems on standardized tests often
present more information than the student actually needs to solve it. 

This is
not an accident. Testing companies structure exams this way to teach kids how
to read problems carefully for all the instructions, key words and hidden
clues. 

It challenges them to discern relevant information and not disregard
anything essential to solving the equation. 

However, about four percent of the
time, according to standardized study guides, there will not be enough information
to find an answer. And in fact, the final multiple choice option will be, not enough information to solve this problem

That’s a really important sentence. Especially in the test of life. Because
unlike standardized exams, many of the problems we’re presented with are
unsolvable due to a lack of information. 

And yet, we worry ourselves sick
trying to answer them, expending all of our mental energy fighting an
unwinnable war, and it doesn’t help. It doesn’t move our story forward. And it
definitely doesn’t solve the problem. 

Take job interviews. Your conversation on
the phone might have gone brilliantly, but that doesn’t mean you have enough
information to know whether or not you got the gig. 

You have no idea how many
candidates they saw, what their hiring budget is, how soon the need to fill the
position, or whether or not your criminal record of unsuccessful bank robberies
is conflict of interest. 

There’s not enough information to solve this problem. 

And so, don’t fall in the trap of worrying about it. Worrying about something
in advance is creating conflict before any actually exists. 

Liberate yourself
from the pain of rumination and just move onto the next thing. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you spending your precious energy worrying about how others view you, or spending that energy taking good care 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!


Head Up, Heart Higher — Chapter 05 (2017) Scott Ginsberg Animated Folk Rock Opera

Take a moment to find

A whole new world is waiting for you this time

How bright your wings are

With the demands of the head

The needs of the wrist

And the longing of the heart

Whisper worry into my ears

Joy follows like a shadow

Throw away the empty cobwebs of this goal

How bright your wings are

With the demands of the head

The needs of the wrist

And the longing of the heart

Whisper worry into my ears

Let yourself love someone

Let yourself love someone

Let yourself love someone



Watch the whole movie here.

* * * *

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 gnawing restlessness of consumerism

There’s a brilliant documentary that chronicles the hundred year history of propaganda. 

How those in power used psychoanalysis to control the dangerous crowd in a age of mass democracy. 

In the first act of the movie, there’s a fascinating story about the first president who embraced propaganda. Hoover, standing at the precipice of our nation’s lowest point, articulated the idea that consumerism would become the central motor of our nation’s livelihood. 

As the story goes, after his election, he told a group of advertisers and public relations executives that they had taken over the job of creating desire and transforming people into constantly moving happiness machines. 

Machines that would become the key to economic progress. 

That story sends chills down my spine. Because it marks a cultural moment of conception. Ground zero for the birth of our society’s overwhelming sense of urgency that we’re perpetually one purchase away from a better life. 

And what bothers me the most about it is, I bought into it from day one. I’ve been a constantly moving happiness machine for four decades. I’m just as brainwashed and conditioned and coached up as anyone else. 

That gnawing restlessness of consumerism that’s like having an itch but not knowing where to scratch, it’s marrow deep. 

They have my number, and they’ve dialed it repeatedly. 

Of course, there’s no blame. It’s nobody’s fault. And I don’t harbor a grudge towards the cultural forces that shaped me. 

All I can do is own the identity creation process. All I can do is examine the beliefs and ways of being that I am feeding. 

And maybe I’ll eventually unlearn enough to get back home.



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What stories are part of the ongoing narrative of your personal myth?
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!


Surrender your sense of drama

Campbell’s investigation of the one great story of mankind theorizes that part of the mythological motif of the hero’s journey is acquiescence. 

Because we’re all moving towards death. We have to yield our position to the dynamic. 

And so, the hero is simply the one who knows when to surrender and what to surrender to. 

In my life, one of the hardest things to surrender to is my own sense of drama. To let go of the obsessive need to playwright these elaborate performances inside my head of how I think life should unfold. 

To let go of always thinking in terms of beginnings and endings. And to let go of my stubborn desire to have the heavens magically open up and divinely compensate my incredible misfortunes with a happy ending. 

Because despite my most grandiose appetites, this isn’t a movie. Or a musical. Or a comic book. Or the season finale of a teen drama television series. Or a throbbing member romance novel where the sun bronzed ripple chested warrior hunk rescues the beautiful damsel from considerable distress. 

Turns out, real life is rarely that satisfying, neat and comprehensive. 

I know we’re all waiting for that one huge moment with fireworks and banners and trombones, but the reality is, there are a limited number of seminal aha moments and cinematic big events when everything becomes clear in our minds. 

It’s more of a gradual allowing of our own feelings to become more valid to ourselves. 

That’s surrender. Accepting that when the gift of real life hits us in the head, there won’t be a studio audience standing by to erupt in riotous applause. 

It will just be us. Standing there. Unburdened by drama. Searching within for that ever elusive wellspring of quiet joy. Commissioned to turn ordinary situations into our purification practice. 

Which sounds difficult, but considering how much heartache, turmoil and difficulty we create in our lives as a result of refusing to embrace what the universe has allowed, it’s better than the alternative. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you willing to surrender to the dance and let it break your heart a thousand times a day?

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!


Scandalized by our own thoughts

The voices in our heads profoundly shape who we believe
ourselves to be. 

But not always positively. Our internal conversations can be
nagging, condemning and even assaultive. And if we don’t understand how to take
charge of our brains, we will continue to be scandalized by our own thoughts. 

Gregson’s empowering manual on using
eastern philosophy to enhance recovery from addiction reminds us that we are
easily swayed by our own opinions. That we pay way too much attention to our
internal dialogue, even though the points of view expressed are often based on
flimsy evidence and frequently defy the ordinary rules of logic and
consistency. 

And as a result, we’re all naively susceptible to the beliefs that
our own inner voices express. 

The good news is, our capacity to prick certain
bubbles of delusion is the best defense we have against this psychological
shitstorm. Because once we learn how to interrupt our racing brands and say to
ourselves…



wait a minute, I’ve seen
this movie before, and although it might be gratifying in the moment, I know
that it’s not going to work out well for me in the long term

…then we’re one
step closer to liberation. 

Anytime I find myself racing to keep pace with my
own thoughts, I find it helpful to think of myself as a conductor who must
engage the railroad switch to guide the train from one track to another. 

It’s that
simple piece of metal that ticks back and forth assures that the locomotive
peacefully cruises into the beautiful open landscape, as opposed to hurling
across a crusty unfinished bridge and into a bottomless ravine. 

It’s a tad
dramatic, but the imaginative visual of the train helps me soothingly direct my
attention in a more conscious manner, preventing my thoughts from smothering
me. 

It helps me get my brain back on the right track, in every sense of the
word.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Which visualization might help you ease up on the pedal that’s driving your racing brain?
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 get what you don’t pay for

Here’s the question entrepreneurs are afraid of asking. 

Does a lower fee make you more affordable, or less attractive? 

Well, it all depends. Because price, like everything else in business, is a story. It’s a narrative that customers tell themselves about value. 

That’s the thing about buying. It requires emotional commitment. When people part with money, that transaction affects their expectations and biases and efforts and levels of satisfaction with the thing they buy. 

It behooves us to be expensive. Customers who spend more for a product or a service value it more, and therefore, get more use out of it. 

Like the patient whose pharmacist strategically tells him that the pain pill he just popped wasn’t some cheap, generic brand, but the number one, doctor recommended, most expensive medication on the market. 

Think his headache will go away faster? 

As my mentor use to say, we are what we charge. We have to be ready for the money that is waiting for us. 

And so, if we fail to put a pricing stake into the ground and take a stand for our worth, then we will continue to get flattered into delivering free work, cheapening our instrument further, giving far too many cookies to far too many mice, conditioning the market to treat our work as a gift and not as a useful product with significant value. 

It’s time to set boundaries on your generosity. 

You’re running a business, not a charity. 

Next time a prospect asks for a fifty percent discount because they’re a nonprofit organization, explain to them that your organization is for profit. 

Trust me, they have plenty of money.  

Nonprofit is a tax code, not a financial strategy. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Does a lower fee make you more affordable, or less attractive?
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 little fragment of hope you stumble across is real

Hope may not be a strategy, but it is a helpful springboard to get us from
where we are to where we want to be. 

Snyder’s groundbreaking research found that hope was more than
a feel good emotion, but a dynamic cognitive motivational system. Hope is a
psychological vehicle compromising agency,
which is the belief in our capacity to initiate and sustain actions, and pathways, which is the belief in our
capacity to generate routes to reach destinations. 

In short, hope is the sum of
the mental willpower and way power that we have for your goals. 

That helps me.
That comforts me. Especially on those days when I feel like I’m just barely
outrunning hopelessness. 

And so, here is my mantra. 

I can choose to fan the
flame of resentment and confusion about my place in the world, or I can allow
myself the luxury of hope. 

I can choose to focus on nothing but my own
existential starvation and become chilled by the cold wind of mortality, or I
can allow myself the luxury of hope. 

I can choose to badmouth my situation with
toxic thoughts and excavate a new layer of hell for myself, or I can allow
myself the luxury of hope. 

I can listen to voice in my head hammering you about
what I don’t have or never got, or I can allow myself the luxury of hope. 

I can
remain haunted by recollections of my past mistakes, or I can allow myself the
luxury of hope. 

Fairey, whose iconic campaign poster help elect our first black
president, said it best. 

Without hope there is no action, and without action
there is no progress. 

That’s how we can keep alive the possibility that we can
reorder our lives in such a way that the future will be brighter. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

How will you know if this is a hopeless endeavor, or the moment right before success?
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!


Knowing what creative season you’re in

Falling into a period of prolificacy is one of creativity’s
most thrilling experiences. 

You feel like you’re being attacked by inspiration.
You have more good ideas than clam chowder has calories. And the projects you
create become the overflowing contents of your fertile mind spilled out across
the canvas. 

Every artist longs to be there, many get there, some return there
and even few remain there. 

Dylan’s most prolific and arguably greatest period
of songwriting, musicianship and recording, all generated in the course of
fourteen months and produced three extremely memorable albums. 

Billboard’s theory is, those particular songs
spawned a sea change within the recording industry of the mid sixties, shedding
light on his legendary transition from folk to rock music and his sharp
integration of rock, blues and countrified sounds with lyrical fever dreams,
spitfire beat poetics, obtuse personal observations, amphetamine confessionals
and biting social commentary. 

Prolificacy would be an understatement. 

But even
the tambourine man knew it wouldn’t last forever. And it didn’t, although it
did return several times in his career. 

Proving, that the great creative
discipline is knowing what season it is. Developing an exquisite understanding
of your own artistic timing. Listening for what wants to be written. 

Because
you can’t stay on a roll forever. Eventually, you have to refill the reservoir.
It’s part and parcel of the creative process. 

You inhale, you exhale. You
breathe in inspiration, you breathe out art. You scour the earth for raw
materials, you alchemize them into something beautiful. 

And so, whenever you
come to the end of a creative season, it’s important to greet it with the
following posture. 

Forgive reality for being what it is. Accept the new season
that approaches on the horizon. Be compassionate when it arrives and gently
ushers out the old. 

And be grateful that you were intuitive enough to honor and
enjoy the process along the way. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What creatively season are you currently experiencing? 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!


Head Up, Heart Higher — Chapter 04 (2017) Scott Ginsberg Animated Folk Rock Opera

Kick out the audience

And don’t you let them dim the lights

I wonder, and put a chain on my appetite

Words are all I have to take your heart away

Oh, I used to be the lucky one

Oh, looking for the lucky one

Three pounds of glorious meat

Up inside my head

I confuse quiet with peace

She sat silently with murder in my eyes

Oh, I used to be the lucky one

Oh, looking for the lucky one

I took a snow globe and got myself a soda can

It’s an unpaved road with beauty at the end

Watch the whole movie here.

* * * *

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!

Everybody loves rookies, but sophomores always get the short straw

In academics, the term sophomore slump refers to the apathy of students whose second effort fails to live up to the standards of their first. 

In sports, the term refers to athletes who have a mediocre second season following a stellar debut.

In music, it’s the jinx and jitters bands get when they release their second album and it’s not popular as the first. 

In construction, it refers to the architect who dangerously incorporates all of the additions he originally did not add to the first system due to inherent time constraints. 

In psychology, it refers to any earlier success that has a reducing effect on the subsequent attempt.

In statistics, the term refers to an number’s regression towards the mean. 

Proving, that everybody loves a rookies, but sophomores always get the short straw. 

The good new is, there’s a different way to view the power of two. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a slump. Not if you’re playing the long arc game. Not if you keep getting better. And not if you show the world that you’re not going away. 

The reality is, anybody can score once. But only after you’ve shipped your second project do things really start to gain momentum. 

Because now there are two dots. Which means there’s a line. Which means there’s a trajectory that people can follow. And that proves you’re not just another flash in the pan. 

A creative moment is part of a longer creative process, which in turn is part of a creative life. And so, take your little moments of empowerment wherever you can find them. Focus on getting the first two projects out the door. Keep adding energy to the system, keep moving the story forward, and hold on for dear life. 

Because in due time, you won’t be a sophomore anymore. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What did you write today? 
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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