Only then can we drop through to a more authentic self

A boundary is any limit that promotes
integrity. 



It’s an indicator of what we decide is acceptable and what is not,
and what allows us to make meaning in accordance with our cherished life
values. 



The secret is knowing that there are two types. Internal and external. 



The former are physical boundaries that we set. They allow us to monitor and
regulate the quantity and quality of other people’s interactions with us. 



Here
are few examples from my personal experience. 



Cutting off contact with exes, confidently saying no to toxic people, choosing not to participate in
gossip, turning off my phone at nighttime, or leaving the party early when
people decide to start snorting cocaine off the living room table. 



Pretty
straightforward. Difficult to set, but simple to understand. 



Internal
boundaries, on the other hand, are much more complicated. 



Melody’s
groundbreaking work on codependence called them invisible and symbolic fences
to protect our thinking, feelings, and behavior. These boundaries help us to
separate our emotions and responsibility for them from someone else’s. 



If you’re someone who is hypersensitive to other people’s feelings,
problems, criticisms, to the point that you take them on as your own truth, you
have weak internal boundaries. 



If you give up your integrity in an effort to
please others and keep conflict and confrontation at bay, you have weak
internal boundaries. 



If you are the kind of person who is easily manipulated
and carelessly give away your heart and soul to the wrong people who end up
hurting or taking advantage of you, you have weak internal boundaries. 



It’s
nothing to be ashamed of. Join the club. My internal boundaries were
nonexistent for the first three decades of my life. It’s still something that
requires deep, daily work. 



A practice that’s been helpful for building my
internal boundaries is creating a filter for incoming information. It’s a micro
practice for checking the incoming information against what I know about my own
truth. Figuring out where I stop and others begin. 



Typically, in form of a
question. 



Is this message mine, or the desire of someone else? 

Does this piece
of feedback register anywhere in my body? 

How well does this incoming
information match what I know of my true self? 



This way, if the incoming message
has merit, it can be explored. If not, it can slip off my back. 



All boundaries, whether external or internal, are the keys to dropping through
to a more authentic self. 



Learn to understand them, set them, accept then,
enforce them and evolve them. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Who is currently violating your boundaries?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Drastically decreasing the pressure we put on ourselves

Maisel’s provocative book about living the musician’s life dedicates an entire chapter to performance anxiety. 

But not the kind where we get paralyzed by stage fright five minutes before curtain. Rather, it’s about the tendency to turn virtually any offstage situation or interaction into a performance, just by inadvertently labeling it as such. 

From a psychological perspective, here’s how this process works, according to the doctor’s research. 

Artists possess the unique ability to take alluring bits of creative magic and provide the audience with enough of their intelligence, talent, technique and wit, without pause and without hesitation, so that those people will be absorbed, mesmerized, and transported. Amazing. This ability serves them well in their work. But there’s a shadow side. Because as soon as we label something as a performance situation, that situation hypnotizes us by its bigness. We transform an innocent moment into a performance moment simply by thinking a thought. And as a result, we introduce undo pain and anxiety into our lives

What about you? To what extent, and with what negative consequences, does your mind turn ordinary situations into performance situations, instantly increasing the pressure on yourself? 

That’s the central question his book explores. And if you’ve ever found yourself unable to turn it off, unable to not put on a show, perhaps it’s worth a deep dive. 

Personally, my performance anxiety stems from a need to control other people’s perceptions of me. To constantly be viewed as special and great. And to sidestep any chance of vulnerability or criticism. 

The story my mind tells me is, but if we’re not amazing, we will disappear. 

The challenge is, how does one not perform? How does one make something that they are doing no different than the thing before and the thing after? And how can one relax and simply be, without morphing into a goddamn carnival barker all the time? 

Maisel gives his patients advice like remain relaxed, don’t worry about potential negative outcomes, remain indifferent to criticism, rejection, and negative judgment; and feel confident that nothing that can transpire will reduce your sense of worthiness or ruin your future chances. 

It’s a lot all at once, but the commonality is simple. Trust yourself. Trust the process. Trust the work. Trust the universe. And know that you don’t have to be spectacular to be safe in this world. 

Otherwise, when we call a situation a performance, either consciously or unconsciously, we instantly turn that moment into a pressure cooker. 

However, when we allow ourselves to hold the moment more normally, without elevating it into something different from life, we drastically decrease the pressure we put on ourselves. 

And then we can finally breathe into the joy of the moment. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What kind of performance anxiety do you experience?

* * * *

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.

Days with a flurry of rushing and noise

It can be difficult to see past the downpour of negative thoughts in the world. 

Especially when our egos tell us to hold onto the protection of cynicism, claiming we are entitled to feel so negative. 

But if we truly want to give ourselves the opportunity to experience serenity, we must replace negative thoughts with affirmative actions. We must sidestep negative energy rather than empowering it. 

Here are a few examples to help avoid disrupting your sense of serenity. 

Instead of starting your days with a flurry of rushing and noise, choose to pick your battles and maintain a serene distance from most of life’s commotion. You might impose a rule that you won’t interact with your device until you’ve been awake for at least an hour. 

Instead of allowing yourself to be drawn into the petty meanness of office gossip, choose to use gratitude as a potent vaccine to inoculate us against negativity. You could start removing yourself from the office bitch chorus, taking a refreshing walk around the block and reflecting on your many blessings. 

Instead of getting sucked into the vortex of controversy and misery of the news cycle, go on a media diet. Designate times during the say when you turn of all notifications so you can actually discern the music from its squeaky noises. 

Instead of becoming seduced into other people’s drama, find a way to filter the world’s noise and make the purest signal you can. You might start a practice of mentally wishing difficult people well, as a tactic to help free you from the pull of negative energy. 

These negative situations are difficult to resist, especially when we’re feeling needy. But if we want a real chance at developing of long term serenity, we have to take responsibility for the energy we bring to the world. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How are you closing the gap between external noise and internal music?* * * *

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!


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We can perform, or we can participate

My dad once told me that reason you don’t sweat the small stuff in is not because it’s all small stuff, but because the longer you’re around, the more big stuff there is, and you need to conserve your energy. 

It’s a sobering reminder that the way we talk about big stuff is as important as the stuff itself. Because issues like sexuality, money, politics, faith, addiction, death, fear, health, these things might be heavy, but they’re still worth bringing into the light. They deserve to be talked about in a natural way. 

Which reminds me of another helpful piece of advice from my therapist. 

Aim for common, calm and casual. 

Meaning, whatever you need to discuss with someone, bring it up as a neutral, normal issue. Talk about serious subjects no differently than you would about sports, laundry or grocery shopping. 

That way, you can integrate all issues into the rest of your life, not have them split off. That way, the more you allow yourself to regularly and casually engage around these topics, the less you become weighted down by shame. 

Compare that to the opposite approach, which is to be grand and formal and dramatic and calculated around serious topics. That was my modus operandi for years. Waiting around for the perfect moment to ambush someone with my heroic intervention. 

It feels compassionate and useful and intimate, but most of the time, it’s more of performance for our own ego gratification as opposed to a genuine expression of care. 

Back to those three words. Common, calm, casual. 

Listening to, and connecting with people, instead of performing for them. 

It’s a beautiful way to sweat the big stuff. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What happened to the last person you tried to fix?

* * * *

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.

You don’t have to do all these magic tricks anymore

For those of us
who are extroverts, artists, expressers, showmen and entertainers, breaking
free of the constant pressure to perform can be difficult. 



Because in many
cases, our love and need for the stage is attached to a number of profound
fears. Reflecting on my own personality and experience as a performer, here are
a few that come to mind. 
See if any apply to you. 

We fear that if we’re not
spectacular, we’re not safe in this world. That’s why we hide behind the protective
screen of entertainment. Using humor to mask our real feelings. 

We fear that if
we don’t do all these magic tricks, people won’t notice how special we are.
That’s why we perform things instead of simply doing them. Because mediocrity
is an option. 

We fear that if we don’t constantly put on a show, we’ll never
gain the recognition we believe we deserve. That’s why we put so much pressure
on ourselves to put our best foot forward. Because god forbid we connect
with others through our downbeat feelings. 

We fear that if we don’t get
applause, we won’t feel fully alive. That’s we rely on an audience in the outer
world to bolster our confidence. Without their admiration, we’re just the tree
in the forest nobody hears. 

We fear that if nobody finds us interesting or
entertaining, we will disappear into the crowd. That’s why we do whatever it
takes to stand out and make our mark on the world. Because independence and
originality are our primary vehicles for mattering. 

This is not to
say the show has to stop. Performers serve a meaningful function in society.
Those of us born with the talent to inspire and motivate and mesmerize others
through our creative expressions have a responsibility to use those gifts in
the service of the others. 

The balance is consciously developing our ability to
reign it in. To contend with the fears attached to our love for and need for
the spotlight. 

Shakespeare may have been right that all the world’s a stage,
but doesn’t mean we have to stand on it all the time. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you secure enough in your own inner structure to stop performing? 

* * * *

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.

We cannot fathom having no excuses

One of my guilty pleasures is watching excuse theater. 

It’s when people get super creative with and highly energized by their justifications for not doing things. 

Like when they deliver a bullet point list of the unforeseen circumstances outside of their control that caused them to miss the deadline. Or when they dig deep into their robust repertoire of qualified rejections in response to your simple, direct invitation. Or when they regale you with the overdramatic sob story about why they haven’t returned your email in thirteen months. 

Or my personal favorite, when someone not only gives you multiple excuses for bailing out on the fourth consecutive weekend, but also starts enlisting other people as cocouncil in their bullshit argument. 

It’s sweet, glorious music. 

And in fact, excuse theater is not only entertaining, it’s also admirable. Especially when people’s excuses grow more sophisticated, detailed, plausible and creative. There’s part of me that wants to salute. Their flawless social evasions are oscar worthy performances. 

But of course, there’s still a lot of empathy. Because being a person of action difficult. For a lot of people. 

After all, everyone is fighting a battle that we know nothing about. And yes, we certainly wish they would spend half as much time doing things as they apparently do inventing and performing reasons why they can’t. 

But since it’s not our job to be their accountabilibuddy, sometimes the best thing we can do is sit back and enjoy the show. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Who do you know that has a perfect narrative of excuses and failure?

* * * *

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.

Ego is the enemy of execution

Somewhere around my eight book, I had a humbling but profound realization. 

Most people will never, ever hear about this product. The few who do, won’t read it. The few who read it, won’t notice its flaws. The few who do, won’t care. The few who do care, won’t say anything. And the few who do say something, are probably assholes. 

So why am I killing myself? 

The final twenty percent of these anal retentive and obsessive compulsive editing efforts will have a minimal impact on the finished product. It’s good enough. Get it out the door. 

This ego trap delays, derails and destroys people’s ability to execute on a daily basis. It reminds me of the story about the corporate marketing team who spends a two hour meeting thinking up a hashtag absolutely nobody on planet earth will ever use. 

Engaging in numerous protracted debates, the team creates a social media hashtag that will be neither noticed nor remarked upon by any of the planet’s eight billion inhabitants, all of whom will give precisely zero seconds of their attention to the phrase that was pored over and workshopped by thirteen strategists over the course of a one hundred and twenty minute brainstorming session. 

The equation for execution is simple. 

Less ego, more humility. 

Accept that you’re the only one who cares, and then let it go. Whether it’s coming up with a new company name, making another round of comments on your product wireframes, or revising the sixth draft of a presentation during which most of the audience will be checking their email, remember the lyrics:

Let it go. Let it go. Turn away and slam the door. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway. 

It will half your stress, double your productivity and triple your velocity. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you willing to look beyond the illusion the ego has created?

* * * *

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.

Only do the things that only I can do

The phrase, to come into your own, means to reach a stage of development or maturity where you achieve strength and confidence and social acceptance. 

It’s when people finally recognize you as independent and capable, usually after much effort and time. 

Notice the last part. After much effort and time. 

Meaning, for those who wish to speed up the maturing process, you’re out of luck. Because you cannot rush that journey. Especially when working with a team. The inevitable process of dues paying and stripes earning takes more time than you’d like it to. 

And the hard part is, there is no milestone marker. Nobody will come and sit you down after ninety days and inform you that you are now magically accepted to the group. 

It’s your responsibility to feel it out. 

One indicator that you might be coming into your own is the intersection of internal joy and external need. It’s when people start reaching out to you as the point person for certain tasks. As the go to guy who that solves a real, urgent, expensive and pervasive problem, but also lights up with satisfaction while solving it. 

Treat as it an inbound lead, but from your own team. 

As opposed to the overeager person who exaggerates their real capabilities in order to please people. That’s just spam. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What are people tapping you on the shoulder for? * * * *

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.

Rewire the brain to create the opportunity for healthy decision making

The good news about most decisions is, they don’t have to be made perfectly. 

Nor do they have to be made exhaustively. 

Here’s why. 

First of all, every truly important decision has a risk element. There’s no avoiding that. Think about it. How many of the decisions you make each day have absolutely correct answers? May as well just pull the trigger. Trust that the right decision is the one you make. And as long as you’re not threatened by the consequences of that decision, you’ll have plenty of time to change course if needed. 

The other thing is, few of your decisions benefit from such complete analysis. It’s helpful to weigh the options and do your research and check in with your intuition along the way. But don’t trap yourself in indecision limbo for too long. Shorten the execution cycle. You already know what your decision is anyway. Hell, you probably knew five minutes into the process. But that was a week ago. It’s time to get going. 

Goldberg’s outstanding book about cracking the writing craft suggests a similar approach to aspiring novelists. In order to alleviate your thin layer of anxiety, she says, leave no space for indecision. Set everything in advance when it comes to writing time. That way, all you have to do is show up, open your notebook and push the pen. 

Obama had a similar approach to his presidency. He famously only wore gray or blue suits, in an attempt to pare down decisions. He didn’t want to waste time making decisions about what he was wearing. He was too busy being the leader of the free world. 

Your challenge, then, is to create a routine that allows you to preserve your decision making budget for the things that matter. 

Or, in the best case scenario, train yourself to eliminate decisions from needing to be made in the first place.


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you more concerned with making the right decisions or making decisions right?

* * * *

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.

Our whole life doesn’t depend on every decision we make

Audiences love hinge movies. Those romantic and serendipitous stories where the protagonist’s entire fate is determined by whether or not she catches a certain train or meets a handsome stranger in the hallway. 

You can almost hear the movie trailer voice over. 

In a world where one small choice affects the trajectory of her entire career, one woman learns the true meaning of Christmas from an unexpected train of thought. This holiday season, go off the rails with the most locomotive romantic comedy of the year. 



Julia Roberts in…



“Subway.” 



Arriving on time at a theater near you. 

Hollywood eats that shit up. It’s a surefire formula for selling tickets. And millions of people will queue up around the block with thumping hearts and stars in their eyes just to satisfy their profound human longing for romantic and narrative satisfaction. The ego can’t resist. 

And that’s okay. Wish fulfillment art is a beautiful thing. 

The problem is when we forget that it’s just a movie. That it’s idealized. And not that there aren’t hinge moments in all of our lives that alter our trajectories. 

We’ve all stumbled across a scrap of serendipity and followed it to something amazing. But let’s not put so much pressure on ourselves. Just because we miss the train by ten seconds doesn’t mean we’ve somehow initiated a chaos theory chain reaction butterfly effect that will send ripples across the globe and alter the course of humanity forever. 

Most of the time, a missed train is just a missed train. Most of the time, our whole life doesn’t depend on every decision we make. Most of the time, we don’t get somewhere by making one good or one bad decision. 

Another train will literally be here in three minutes. And everything will be fine. 

This reality should bring you peace. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you developing an inability to handle the pressures you impose on yourself? 

* * * *

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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