Steal Scott’s Ideas — Episode 106: Pasta La Vista, Baby || Tom, Adam, Brian

What if hikers wore anti spider web hats? 

What if we used blockchain to make tables less wobbly? 

What if sex dolls kept guests company at parties? 

What if drones collected data from pet poop? 

What if stores used logo branded mice to eliminate insects?

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Tom, Adam & Brian gather in St. Louis for some execution in public.


**Sponsored by Aperture


Execution Lesson 106: Change everything with no intention of originating anything.

Einstein wasn’t always a world renewed theoretical physicist.

Like many great inventors, he labored in obscurity, gained traction slowly and eventually was universally applauded. In fact, he started his career working as a lowly clerk at the patent office. Six days a week, he would sit at a desk reviewing applications submitted by all kinds of inventors from around the country.

Naturally, the work wasn’t strenuous or intellectually demanding, but it was just repetitious enough, just foundational enough to give him ample time to daydream and contemplate the universe. And over time, those idle daydreams led to his famous series of papers that coined the most famous equation that launched a scientific revolution that changed world history.

The question is, what did he do right? What conditions and contexts were in place that allowed him to thrive?

First, he had the freedom of working on something before the entire world was watching and waiting to see what he would do next. This relieved him of the pressure, expectation and urgency that often kills great ideas before they’re even born.

Next, he didn’t quit his day job to follow his dream, he simply folded it into his everyday life. Albert kept his hand in his craft, tinkering away at his passion stolen moments and borrowed time, thus staying in communication with artistry at some level.

Finally, there was zero attachment to what this idea could mean for him. It was just this thing he was fascinating by and curious about. And so, the idea that changed everything originated in the mind of an person who had no intention of originating anything.


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How will you create a culture that encourages the generation and application of your best ideas?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

The urgency had burned out

The
space program once conducted a fascinating study on the effect of prolonged space flight on human
skeletal muscle. 

Researchers took calf muscle biopsies of crew members before
and after their trip aboard the international space station. 

Here’s what they
found. 

Even when crew members did aerobic exercise five hours a week and
resistance exercise three to six days per week, muscle volume and peak power
both still decreased significantly. 

Because there’s no gravity in outer space. 

No matter how vigorously the astronauts worked out, eventually, their muscles
were still going to atrophy. 

The question is, how many zero gravity
environments do you have in your life? Which of your muscles are starting to
wither? 

Remember, gravity is much more than the force of attraction by which
terrestrial bodies tend to fall toward the center of the earth. It’s also the
resistance required to move those bodies forward. It gives us a powerful force
to push against. 

Even if we can’t physically see it, we know it’s there. We can
feel it in our bones. Without it, without the necessary struggles,
complications and pressures that come with gravity, our muscles wither and die.
Physically and emotionally. 

My experience with this phenomenon came in the form
of entrepreneurial atrophy. After running my company for more than a decade,
there came a point where there were no more places to go. My schedule was
barren empty. There were no more accountabilities, no obligations, no community
counting on my contribution and no tasks requiring my attention. 

Sure, there
were tons of people who liked me and supported my brand and appreciated the
work I did. But the world was not on hold until my next project was finished.
The urgency had burned out. 

I was just sitting there with nowhere to be, and
all the time in the world to get there. 

It was a zero gravity environment.
Mostly of my own making, but also as a function of time and space and
economics. 

Which meant, I had a choice to make. I could double down and try to
recreate gravity from scratch. Or I could call ground control, set a course to
depart outer space and relocate to a more breathable, sustainable environment. 

In the years following, I tried both options. 

And looking back, all I can think
to myself now is, thank god I’m not an astronaut anymore. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How will your life change once the urgency burns out?
* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Interrupt at any stage of the chain reaction

Gratitude is the quickest, cheapest and most effective intervention for anxiety, fear and toxic thinking. 

Anytime we can stop the negativity stream and introduce a moment of appreciation, it creates a small wedge of space that interrupts our racing brain. And it helps us cope with life’s difficult and scary experiences. 

Not by fighting them. Not by running away from them. But by changing our relationship to them. 

Like when life sends me into a fear and anxiety tailspin. For the first few minutes, I start practicing disaster. Forecasting and foreshadowing every possible negative thing that might occur. 

But once I get exhausted from fighting back all those worse case scenarios in my head, I shift my thinking. I switch gears to gratitude. I start projecting one thankful moment after another onto the screen of my mind. 

And within a few minutes, the inner force of fear has been quelled. And it’s clear that the world isn’t going to hell after all. 

That’s why appreciative reflection is such a brilliant intervention. Gratitude makes us conscious that no matter how doomed we may seem, there are always things worth giving thanks for. 

We just have to train ourselves to replace those feelings of dread with healthier responses. 

And so, keep a jealous eye over yourself. When you notice your mind going to those dark places, remember that you can interrupt it any stage of the chain reaction. You can make yourself sick with sweet gratitude. 

And you can change your relationship with fear. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What is your most potent vaccine for inoculating yourself against negativity?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Avoiding the pitfall of being incremental

In the academic world, the peer review process is extremely strict. 

Submissions must meet the high quality standards that have been established by the journal in order to be approved for publication. 

According to a professor friend of mine, one of the most challenging guidelines for writers is to make sure their work isn’t incremental. That’s the classification academia uses to describe any work that fails to convincingly add new and important results to the field. The paper is incremental. It’s is merely a small extension of a different one. The findings are archival, boring, uninteresting, of marginal interest and not significant enough to publish. 

In short, they don’t challenge any new assumptions. They’re merely incremental. 

A harsh word, perhaps. That rejection letter probably stings like poison. Especially if you’re a broke, unemployed doctoral candidate who’s been slaving away over their research for months or even years. 

But the intense scrutiny of the process is precisely what makes the work better. It’s the tide that raises all boats. 

There’s an insightful interview with the editor of a popular chemistry publication, whose advice to contributors is as follows. 

Avoid the pitfall of being incremental. You’ll save reviewers, editors and staff time and frustration, and ensure that your work is judged by its scientific merit, not its mistakes. 

That’s not only good advice for writers, but for anybody who’s in the business of communicating their ideas. Which is all of us. 

In a world where people create as much information in two days as they did in the first two thousand years of civilization, nobody can afford to be incremental. Not anymore.

Take chances with your own opinions. Be ready to fully invest in your unique point of view. 

Make your ideas publish worthy. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What sloppy mistakes are in your work that makes rejecting you easy?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

A supreme effort of open mindedness

During a recent interview, one of my favorite writers made a genius insight about the arc of a career. 



It’s a short life, and if you keep repeating your success, you’re going to make it even shorter. Because you’ll be living your life in years, not sections. 



His words are a dark and powerful reminder that if we want to make the most of our limited time on this earth, we have to experiment. We have to try new projects that make us feel engaged and tested and stretched. 



The scary part is, that process requires a supreme effort of open mindedness. A willingness to bristle up against some of our beliefs, and possibly even abandon the ones that no longer serve us. 



Over a period of about five years, I made the transition from freelance entrepreneur, to full time employee, back to freelancer, and then back to full time again. The path was as terrifying as it was enlightening. Panic attacks came and went like bad weather systems. Emotional highs and lows felt like thrill rides. 



But looking back, that priceless period of experimentation cracked open my mind in new and interesting ways. The wrap and weft of that unexpected journey challenged my most cherished beliefs about ideas like identity and career and jobs and work and art, allowing me to find new answers about myself that I could not have found otherwise. 



Yet another piece of empirical proof, that humans are horrible predictors of just about everything. That big plans for the future have become archaic curiosities. And that in the modern landscape, even our grandest career plans can be undone in less than a minute. 



Flexibility is the only way out. To open our minds and hearts to the complete possibility of what might be. And to have gratitude for the unlikely trajectory our lives may have taken along the way. 



Lefsetz said it best in his popular blog about the music industry. 



Keep your eye on the ultimate prize, but also know that you’ll probably never get there and might end up somewhere else much more satisfying. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you ready to begin stretching other muscles?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

I have no agenda other than to be there for myself

Tippett once wrote that the reason problems seem overwhelming is because we’re using the wrong tools to understand them. 

That’s the real problem. We were trained in society that tension exists to be resolved. 

I will fix this somehow by taking radical action, we announce to ourselves. 

And yet, it might be one of those situations in life that asks us to enter our way into the problem and just feel its pain. It’s a call to activate our power. Because there is no solution to be uncovered. There is no proof to be worked out. Only an opportunity to unlearn our puritanical, capitalistic, midwestern attitude that we can bare down and fix everything. 

Instead, we simply sit with ourselves and say, look, we don’t know how to solve this. Nobody knows. And anyone who gives us a clean answer shouldn’t be trusted. Let’s just keep swimming through the cavern of mysteries together and trust whatever unfolds. Even though nothing in us wants to find any sort of compassion. Let’s try having zero agenda other than being there for ourselves. 

I suppose it’s my extended version of the old serenity prayer: 

I accept the reality that life is full of problems that I wasn’t prepared for, that they’ll never stop, and that I am as large as I need to be to face them. 



I trust that this is offered to me as a gift and I rejoice in its appearance. I remember that my problems aren’t something I need to fight again, run from, or surrender to, but treat as allies as I move through life. 

Remember, most problems are merely distractions from taking the next step. But once we develop a healthy and mature relationship with the mind, the path will be clear. 

We overcome something by first surrendering to it, and then outliving it.


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you learning the extent of your capacity to live with an unresolved problem?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Reconnecting to yourself in small ways

Allowing myself to admit what I desire, getting in touch with the small things that matter to me, these aren’t insignificant moments. 

They’re triumphs of the self. Exercises in meaning. 

Like singing karaoke on the commute to work every morning, for example. That’s an act of joy that helps me feel a sense of delight and blissful expansiveness in my body. It’s my emotional on ramp to the workday. 

Who cares if the people next to me think I’m crazy? You do what you have to do to lock into the right mindset. 

It reminds me of a helpful question from cognitive behavioral therapy. Patients use it to confront their guilty tendencies and gain greater agency over joy. 

By not having this thing, who is it I’m getting revenge on? Who is it that I’m getting back at? 

This is a helpful exercise for each of us. Because we all have somebody in our lives that we’re still rebelling against. We all silently acquiesce to some archetype whose opinion we’re still giving too much weight. 

Like a parent or a bully or an ex lover who judged and shamed and scolded us for acting in a certain way. We’ll show them, we think. 

But the problem is, to let our current happiness rely on the past behavior of others, only causes more suffering. To depend on others to give us a definition of ourselves, only causes more suffering. 

And so, we let go of that power struggle. We forgive people, freeing both them and ourselves. 

And we sing our hearts out, remembering that our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

By not having what you truly desire, who are you getting revenge on?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

A companion that accompanies you in all your adventures

The problem with fear is, it tricks me into making a giant leap to global negativity. 



It sells me on the story that when I make a mistake or miss the mark or get a bad result, it’s proof that I’m not good enough. 



And so, when a coworker tells me that my idea doesn’t work, or when my client sends back a draft covered in red pen, I immediately fear for my job. I start running scenarios in my head about how people have found me out and it’s all over and I’m going to wind up penniless, pathetic and alone. 



Of course, none of this is true. 



It’s all just a fantasy relationship I’ve built inside my head, using fear as the foundation. 



That’s why one of the practices I’m working on is treating myself with compassion when I fail. Accepting that I was challenged beyond my ability and I did the best I could. And reminding myself of a few key truths. 



I have the right to make mistakes. 



I am valuable even when I make them. 



I will quickly convert those mistakes into lessons and lessons into habits. 



I have a system for failing gracefully without bringing down everything else around me.



I will continue to treat myself well after each loss, rewarding a good attempt and the right behaviors. 



Take that, fear. Thanks for stopping by, but for today, your services will no longer be needed. 



Want to act towards yourself with greater and gentler compassion and understanding? Try this. 



Instead being haunted by recollections of your mistakes, shocking yourself into immobility by irrational fears, zoom out of your failure for a moment. Stop rehearsing your fears and taking them for reality. 



And remind yourself that it’s just another story. It makes life so much lighter. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you trying to escape fear, or transform it into a companion that accompanies you in all your adventures?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

The best way to enjoy the game is to remember that it is one

I recently met the coach of the women’s national soccer team. 

He made an interesting point about player behavior. 

He said that the women loved to beat the other teams, no doubt about it. But the fiercest competition was internal. 

“They’re not just playing for the win, they’re playing to keep their spot on the lineup,” he said

It’s a helpful kick in the ass for anyone working towards a goal. Because whatever game we’re playing, the competition is always multifaceted. There are always peripheral opponents. Everything competes with everything for a chance to earn attention and deliver value. 

It’s us against ourselves, us against others, us against the resistance, and of course, us against the clock. 

Rocky said it best while training his young boxing apprentice. 

Time takes everybody out. It’s undefeated. 

Which can be scary as hell. Like you’re playing some bizarre game with an opponent who never sleeps, keeps switching sides and changes the rules without warning. 

But the good news is, when you’re scared, that’s a good sign. It means you have skin in the game. It means you’re locked into an activity that makes you feel engaged and tested and stretched. 

And so, play your heart out. Be as in the game as anyone can be. Enjoy the game by remembering that it is one. Know that every time you learn something about the game, you learn something new about yourself. And trust that if you stay in the game long enough, your rewards will far outweigh your frustrations. 

But don’t get complacent. 

Because the moment you get too eased into the game you’re playing is the moment you’ll miss the chance to score big. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Who is your biggest competition right now?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Gentle opportunities to observe possible flaws in our own thinking

Lundholm is a former criminal, mental patient and homeless alcoholic uses stand up comedy to help addicts thrive in recovery. 

One of his most well known mantras is, first thought wrong. 

It pertains to individuals suffering with the disease of addiction and their impulsive mindset. The people who rarely take the time to filter through their thoughts that lead to inappropriate responses and behaviors. 

The theory is that recovery is not the absence of bad thinking, rather, the ability to navigate through it with grace. 

If addict follows their first thought, it will get them into trouble. 

But if they learn to take notice, take pause and take alternative action, they can move towards healthier living. 

Even if takes them an hour or a day or week to get to the thought that’s right, the addict’s first thought, properly filtered, can eventually become the next right thing. 

What I love about this practice is, it’s all about forgiveness. It’s about not beating yourself up for having impulsive thoughts, but simply noticing that you’re having them, and then trusting that in the sacred space between, you can locate the healthier ones. 

What’s more, it isn’t exclusive to addicts. All of us could use gentle opportunities to observe possible flaws in our own thinking. 

As my therapist once said, anytime a person uses a concrete life situation to let go of their impulsive and unhealthy thoughts, that’s a meditation. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What’s your mantra for navigating through your thoughts with grace?



* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

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