All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the classroom scene in Searching for Bobby Fisher:

What can we learn?

Generosity is the tax you pay for talent.Happiness comes from freedom, and freedom comes from
finding a home for all of your talents. Josh had that kind of freedom. He was better at chess than anyone has ever been at anything in their
lives. That’s not a game, that’s a gift. That’s art. And so, imagine a world where you were firing on all
cylinders. Keeping all of your passions in play. Drawing out your full ingenuity. Making use of
everything you are. Leaving no faculty untapped, and leaving no asset
unharvested. That’s happiness. Because with every new talent you give yourself permission
to exploit, you open a new vein of freedom that didn’t exist previously. It’s
simply a matter of permission. Allowing yourself to give your hidden gifts a more prominent place in your
life. I spent twenty years writing and singing music before I had the guts to
share my songs with the public. The material was just too personal. Too bloody.
To precious to be subjected to the cruel ear of the world. But then I had an
epiphany.Generosity is the tax you pay for talent. If you’ve been given a gift, something special that
allows you deliver value that nobody has ever delivered before, you have an
obligation to share it. To regift it so it brings joy to others. Anything less
is an act of ingratitude. And so, I finally gave myself
permission to share my songs publicly. And when I did, everything shifted. My
relationship to the music, my context in the world, my identity as an artist,
my leverage in the marketplace and my connection with the audience.What strength, skill or gift do you wish to
use more fully?

Apply the training you already have. Josh first
learned how to play chess from watching street virtuosos in the park. And with
their guidance and encouragement, he quickly became one of the greatest
champions in the history of the game. Then, after fifteen years of mastering
chess, he moved away from the board and transitioned into the study of martial
arts. He became a beginner again, but by
taking the training he already had and applied it, he became a champion at yet
another game. Next, he started deconstructing what he’d been doing rather
intuitively and abstractly so it could be replicated more exactly and
practically. And the result was a best selling book about the art of learning.
But what’s most interesting about his career trajectory is where he landed.
Josh now runs an educational foundation dedicated to an individualized approach
to learning, where he consults internationally on the subjects of performance
psychology, the learning process and creativity. That’s perhaps his greatest
art of all. Josh created something new out of intermingling his interests. He used the hard core formative
time to lay groundwork for the years to follow. And that foundation now enables
him to make a massive, meaningful contribution to people’s lives––not because
of chess and martial arts, but because of the person hebecamewhile mastering chess and martial arts.In which discipline have you already built a lifetime of foundational
development?

The shortcut to motivation. The chief struggle for any creator is that of
motivation. Physically dragging their bones out of bed and making new things,
every day. And while there are countless tools and tactics and tricks for
disciplining yourself and overcoming procrastination, frankly, it’s just too
much work. And too much time. In fact, some of those strategies can actually
become counterproductive. Because we spend too much of our psychic energy
trying to overcome procrastination that we don’t have any juice left for the
actual creation. Then challenge, then, is finding the central lever that
galvanizes the whole creative machine. The catchall that can be trusted to
obfuscate procrastination. What is it?Passion.
Enthusiasm. Irrational exuberance. To quote my favoritesongof all time, it was a love so big that it filled his heart,
and when it swelled and finally burst apart, the love spilled out they call it
art. That’s passion. That’s motivation. And if you ask any artist who’s deeply
passionate about a particular creative project, motivation isn’t an issue. Ever.
Because it’s a million times easier to focus on the path when passion is
embedded into the pavement. When what you do is a
vehicle for living what is important to you.How can you unify your work with our sense of life?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the meditation scene in Eat, Pray, Love:

What can we learn?

Build a bias for action. Creativity is a chicken egg conundrum. Do you get ideas so you can create something, or do you create something so you can get ideas? Many writers and thinkers would attest to the latter. Personally, I don’t know how I feel until I write what I think. Only through the generative power of movement and motion does my creativity ignite. It’s similar to the argument over sitting meditation versus moving meditation. The first approach uses being, i.e., stillness and concentration and contemplation, as the path to relaxation and enlightenment. Practices might include guided imagery, hypnosis, creative visualization, progressive muscle relaxation and mindfulness breathing. The challenge is, for people who have racing brains and hyperactive imaginations, that approach becomes frustrating and impractical. They’d prefer to create something so they can get ideas, not the other way around. And so, moving meditation uses doing, i.e., activity and flow and momentum, as the path to relaxation and enlightenment. Practices might include yoga, walking or any other form of rhythmic, repetitive action. And it’s ideal for people who need physical movement helps to anchor themselves against the tumultuous waves of thought. Liz doesn’t know if she’s one of those people. She made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern success and instead find what she truly wanted from life. So when her meditation teacher tells her to go out into the garden and just sit there, part of me wonders if her journey would be better served by going out into the garden just getting to work. How are you developing your kinesthetic intelligence?

There’s more to life than simple euphoria. Psychlinks published a fascinating study on happiness. Turns out, there are two main theoretical perspectives which address the question of what makes people feel happy. Hedonic happiness comes from gratifying and fleeting woohoo experience of pleasure. We know it as euphoria. But there’s also eudaimonic happiness, which comes from the satisfying and nourishing things that build something inside of us that accumulate and have sustenance. We know it as meaning. In fact, the word happy has the same root as the word happenstance. Proving, that it’s incidental, not intentional. Proving, that there is no human happiness that is not earned. Proving, that happiness isn’t the target, it’s the reward we get for hitting the target. Gilbert puts it best when she says that happiness is the result of personal effort, and that we only find it by relentlessly participating. Agreed. The goal is engagement and connection. In fact, looking back at the ups and down of my adult life, the happiest I’ve ever felt is when I wasn’t trying to become happy, but when I was trying to create meaning. When was the last time you rewrote your personal equation for happiness?

Get control of your psychic environment. Liz’s meditation teacher makes a powerful point about mental discernment. He says that we should learn to select our thoughts like we learn to select our clothes every day. That’s a power we can cultivate. If we want to control things in our life so bad, we should work on the mind. Because if we can’t learn to master our thinking, we’re in deep trouble forever. And she’s right. His insight may very well be bumper sticker wisdom, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I’m reminded of technique my meditation teacher taught me years ago. Observe, then release. During our hypnosis sessions, I learned to simply notice my negative, stressful and unhealthy thoughts, and then to imagine them floating up and out of my head like a vapor into the air above. The first few times I tried it were deeply frustrating. But once got my mental footing, the technique would take less than a minute to do each time. And it became a useful and portable tool whenever a current of anxiety shot through my brain. How could you change the sensation of anxiety into a feeling that is not necessarily negative?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Tunnel of Love is a feature length concert documentary written, produced, directed and scored by Scott Ginsberg. The film explores the intersection of identity, belonging and creativity. Through live performances, playful and romantic exchanges, unexpected creative moments of conception and behind the scenes storytelling, Ginsberg’s film takes you on a heartfelt journey about what it means to be an artist, a romantic and an opportunist.

Watch the trailer. Meet the creators. Go behind the scenes. See the episode schedule. Download the discussion guide.

www.tunneloflovedoc.com

Tunnel of Love will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. The movie’s centerpiece is a live concert, so I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter. There are 14 songs in the concert, so the distribution timeline will occur over a period of 14 weeks, from September to December 2014.

Here’s chapter seven:

ANGELS ON THE RISE

They got the watches
But we got the time and that’s okay
Nailing them crosses
Hushing all of my hesitations

Smothered in my thoughts
Each of my muscles has a story to tell
You little dream box
Got me a callback from the wishing well

Angels on the rise wearing human guise
Playing dress up as they walk on out unrecognized

Bloody my knuckles
All them crazy doors that I dreamed up
Pushing them pixels
My message deserves more than a mumble

It’s love beyond logic
All them lazy bottles be swimming back
Fail in my project
It’s all time, all time.

I only use the word hope
When I feel lazy.

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the apartment scene in Dumb & Dumber:

What can we learn?

Let me give that no thought.Growing up, I was the kid who always raised his hand.
Didn’t matter what the teacher or the coach or the parent was asking us to do.
My hand just shot up. Usually before the question was done being asked. What
can I say? I wanted to participate. To be part of the experience. Everything
was just another chance to dance with the universe. And what’s interesting is,
as an adult, that inclination hasn’t waned. Especially when it comes to work.
Because I’m so profoundly grateful and enthusiastic and enriched by even the
tiniest opportunity to contribute and create value, that anytime someone is
willing to pay me money to do it, I raise my hand. I pull the trigger, ride the
bullet and call whatever I hit the target. Lloyd finally has the same
revelation. He knows that the only ticket out of his crappy apartment, dead end
job, lonely existence and unfulfilling life is to track down the owner of that
briefcase. That’s the experience he needs to say yes to. Because if he doesn’t
do it now, he may not get the chance again. So he raises his hand. He answers
the call to adventure. And what awaits him on the other side is life changing.
Reminding us, that we shouldn’t have to talk ourselves into opportunities.
Feeling fully alive is always on the other side of saying yes.What is the opportunity that’s going to pass
you buy if you don’t act on it?

Efficiency is eloquence.Harry and Lloyd set out on a cross country road trip
to return a briefcase to a woman they hardly know. That’s not exactly efficient
thinking. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Stepping over dollars to pick up dimes, using time to save money instead of using money to
save time, that’s a poverty mentality. And it’s no way to live your life.
Abundance, on the other hand, comes from practicing the economy of effort.
Creating systems to do the heavy lifting for you. Spending as little energy as
possible to get things done. It’s simply a matter of finding the catchall in
each situation. A comedian, for example, knows that if he just keeps getting
better on stage, everything else will take care of itself. A cartoonist knows
that if he just keeps publishing his drawings with his fans, everything else
will take care of itself. And a writer knows that if he just keeps blogging
every single day, everything else will take care of itself. And so, the
catchall is the central lever that galvanizes the whole machine. The crucial
stone that kills all of the birds. The single activity that can be trusted to
take care of everything else. All progress flows from that.What’s the one activity, if practiced
consistently, would make the biggest impact on your creative life?

Remove what robs you, embrace what excites you. Lloyd asks a crucial question. One that most us don’t
realize is actually a stepping stone to transformation.What the hell am I doing here? Next time you find yourself
wondering that same thing, don’t run away from it. Dig down through the many
levels of why. Figure out what life is asking of you. Because it’s not just a
question, it’s an invitation to live a better story. When I was a senior in
college, standing in the doorway of the career fair with a stack of resumes in
my hand, I remember thinking to myself,what
the hell am I doing here?When I was writing on my first book, working full
time selling couches at a discount furniture warehouse, I remember thinking to
myself,what the hell am I doing here?When I was writing my second book, working nights and weekends parking cars at
a luxury hotel, I remembering thinking to myself,what the hell am I doing here?When I was dating the wrong girl,
stuck in a relationship that made me hate who I was, I remember thinking to
myself,what the hell am I doing here?And when my creativity crashed straight into a brick wall, trapped in an
environment that was limiting my growth, I remembering thinking to myself,what the hell am I doing here?The point
is, each time I threw my hands up to the sky in frustration and asked that
crucial question, it disturbed me enough to take massive action. To remove what
robbed me and embrace what excited me.How can you take a bad situation and turn it into a
new direction?
What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the boat scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding:|

What can we learn?

Nothing comes from out of nowhere. One of the mantras I’ve lived by for many years is,
the door must be opened from the inside. Meaning, we have to go happen to
things. We have to put ourselves in the way of success. Otherwise we’ll never
hear the sound of opportunity knocking. This is a movie about the special
someone who gets away. When it first went to video, my high school sweetheart
forced me to watch it at least twenty times. I hated it. This scene, in particular, infuriated me. Michael gives
his best friend a clear opening. A blatant invitation to confess her true
feelings for him. But she just stands there like a dolt, letting the moment
pass her by. Julia, you magnificent putz. What
are you thinking? Regret is the price you pay for not having any balls. Whether
it’s with your relationships or with you work, the antidote to a lifetime of
misery is decisiveness. Commitment. Taking action to move the story forward.
Even if that means the painful death of other choices. Even if that means
rejection. At least you tried. At least you answered the call to opportunity.
All love, after all, is saying yes to something. How could you live your life in a way that eliminates the need to
regret things?

The universe will not deliver itself to us. When I relocated across the country in search of new
creative opportunities, my mentor said something I’ll never forget. His advice
was, you have to find the people who have what you want, grab them by the lapel
and tell them who you are and why they should give it to you. That terrified me. As a passive person
by nature, I wasn’t accustomed to that level of assertiveness and directness.
But I knew that in a big city, nobody was going to give me an outlet to prove
how talented I was. So I manufactured my own opportunities. I created my own
leverage. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the world to fall in love
with me, I set myself on fire and gave people front row seats to watch me burn.
And it worked. Julianne, on the other hand, didn’t take that step. She stood shoulder
to shoulder with the only man who ever felt like home to her, looked him in the
eye, and said nothing. Nothing. And the opportunity vanished like a vapor
trail. A powerful reminder to lovers and artists alike, we can’t wait around to
be saved. We have to believe the world is now ready for the love we are here to
deliver, and we have to go out there and ask the world for our proper place in
it. It’s a daunting experience, but it’s also one of those moments that make us
happy to be human. How will you overcome your fear of asking?

Buttress passion with pragmatism. This movie is a love story, but it’s also a parable
about business and creativity and ambition. I’m reminded of a famous research
study about how passion blinds
entrepreneurs, leading them to get overconfident and make bad choices at the
worst times, potentially dooming even the most promising startups. Turns out,
the very thing it takes to start a business often ends up destroying it. Who knew? And so, passion alone doesn’t
pay the mortgage. What matters is production, proactivity and performance. If
we want to turn our personal obsession into profitable enterprise, we have to
buttress passion with pragmatism. However, I still believe that passion helps. It
may not be a panacea, but it’s certainly useful when times are tough. I’m
reminded of another case study about a lawyer mom who managed to find the time to
author her first novel with two toddlers and a booming mediation practice. She
said she made it all work
because she was running on passion, writing in the cracks of time, viewing
every hour as a commodity that had to be budgeted like it was money. Perhaps
passion is more productive than we realize.
Are there at least ten other people out
there who are successfully making money from a passion similar to yours?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the writing scene in A River Runs Through It:

What can we learn?

Habits are more important than incidents. There’s no such thing as farmer’s block. If ranchers don’t tend to their crops and animals and land every day, there is no harvest. Unlike artists, they don’t have the luxury of even thinking about creative blocks. When the sun comes up, they go to work. And while their progress may range from dull to spectacular, they still accept both as part of the process. The goal, then, is to build a daily architecture for maximizing the creative process. Because in our daily practice, success is not measured by the distance covered, but by the marks and angles that are formed. On the work, on ourselves and on the world. Norman is deeply frustrated with his father’s teaching style. As a young boy, it’s hard for him to appreciate the value of such discipline. But he learns to love what’s good for him. And in the end, his father’s foundation of habit and consistency is exactly what enables him to become an award winning author and renowned professor of literature. Graeber was right when he said, anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing. What do you consider a successful creative outing?

Love the labor, let go of the fruit. Norman finally gets the writing correct, at which point his father he tells him, good, now throw it away. The look on the kid’s face is priceless. Five more seconds, and he would have wadded up that paper and hurled it at his dad’s face. But I understand his anger. Detachment is a painful lesson for any young artist to learn. To see each day’s work as the death of what came before. To free yourself of any sense of attachment. To accept that nothing you created in the past matters anymore, other than it brought you here. Who has the patience for that? I’m reminded of the first time I tried forced vomiting, which is the daily ritual of emotional release through three pages of free writing. What’s hard about the process is, you never save the pages. Everything you write is off the record.  It’s a never before, never again moment. And since the impulse to make things on the record is a primary characteristic of human beings, it’s liberating as hell to fight it every once in a while. But after sticking with ritual for over a decade, I’ve finally come to realize something. Art doesn’t have to hang in a museum every time. What matters is staying focused on the creative process, not what the creating produces. What are you unattached to?

Stick your fingers in your ears. When you’re starting out as a young artist, you hang your sense of success, the fullness of your heart and the stability of your soul on the constant reinforcement and external validation from others. But at a certain point, you learn to sing in your own voice. You become your own authority figure. You stop demanding excessive reassurance from others and answer only to yourself. Years ago when I launched my corporate identity training program, everyone had an opinion. Everyone had criticism as to what was wrong with the project. And I became so frustrated, so disenchanted by people’s feedback, that eventually I just stopped talking about it. Because I was tired of allowing everyone else’s opinions bounce me around like a pinball. Ultimately, I learned to develop deeper trust in my own instincts. I stopped spending time time living in other people’s worlds. And I eventually hit my stride with the project, leveraging it into one of my most profitable services yet. Sometimes you just have to stick your fingers in your ears, drown out the rest of the world and do what you want to do. How will you protect yourself from being swallowed by everybody else’s vision?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the Mexico scene in Shawshank Redemption:

What can we learn?

Stop waiting to be who you are. Writers love to pontificate about how many editors,
publishers and agents rejected their work. They tell harrowing tales about how
they were turned down a hundred and thirty times before finally being plucked
from obscurity. Excuse me while I grab a
tissue. I’ve written thirty books and not a single one was rejected. You
know why? Because I published every one of them myself. Instead of waiting for
the invisible jury to stamp my creative passport and tell me that my art was
okay, I hired myself. Instead of investing my blood and sweat and time and
tears into something only to have it shit on, I chose to become the sole shot
caller of my own work. And the irony is, after a few years of doing this,
publishers starting coming to me.
They started hearing good things about my platform and track record and body of
work, and wanted to be associated with my brand. But it was too late. I already proved to myself and to my
audience that the middleman wasn’t necessary. So I wrote rejection letters to
them. And it felt glorious. Andy was right. Get busy living or get busy dying.
Every creator should live by these words. No more waiting to be creative, no
more waiting for permission to be who you are. How could you remove the threat of rejection?

Optimism is an elected attitude. Andy tells his friend that he underestimates himself.
That he could make it on the outside,
if he really wanted to. I think we’re all a little guilty of that. We’re all a
little late to recognize our own value. I
was listening to a fascinating interview with a screenwriter who gave a great piece of advice
on this subject. He said that we have to entertain the notion that we’re good.
Maybe not as good as we need to be, not as good as we ever will be, and not so
good that we won’t still have to work hard. But it costs us nothing tell
ourselves that we can do this. That we can at least give it a shot. Optimism, then, is
an elected attitude. And even if it feels like we’re tricking ourselves into taking
action, the reality is, we all have to be a little deluded to stay motivated.
That’s the tax we pay for doing this kind of work. It demands that we become
masters of activating own internal generators. Red, as we see at the end of the
movie, actually does make it on the
outside. Andy’s ingenious escape through the tunnel inspires his momentum and
kickstarts his ambition. That’s the other thing about optimism. It’s highly
contagious. Sometimes all it takes is one person with unwavering belief in
themselves to positively infect our mindset. What are the giants you need to slay to make your
attitude what it needs to be?

Hope found its way back. The purpose of the primary
creative environment is to build a physical space that reflects who we are and what’s important to us, so
that the ideas flow as a natural consequence. But we also have to build a
psychological space. A mental architecture that allows our creativity to roam
free. As a writer, for example, I know that the preconditions for my finest
moments of expression are flexibility and focus and persistence and intention.
Those are the psychological requirements that provide me with an ongoing sense
of structure and safety. And what I find is, the more that I put my energy
toward making those preconditions happen, the better my work ultimately is.
Andy knows he’ll become an institutionalized man if he chooses the wrong
mindset. But he believes in hope. He believes that there are places in the
world that aren’t made of stone. That there’s something inside all of us that
they can’t get to, that they can’t touch, that’s ours. And that hope, that
psychological precondition, is what channels his creativity into the most
ingenious escape plan anybody had ever seen. What mental muscles have you neglected to exercise

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the pill scene in Limitless:

What can we learn?

Accumulating firepower into
your creative arsenal. Eddie’s new drug allows him to unlock one hundred percent of his
brainpower. He finds himself able to learn much faster and recall memories from
his distant past. It’s almost like his brain has its own sort of cloud, which
stores data, memories and even the most menial of details. At a moment’s
notice, a surge of brilliance comes up to meet him, and he’s able to achieve
amazing feats. The question is, does this drug exist in real life? Adderall and
psychostimulant users might say yes. Psychedelic users might say yes
too. Those substances have been clinically proven to enhance brainpower and
performance, controversies notwithstanding. On the other hand, there are tons
of people who have never popped a pill in their lives, and they’re profoundly
and perpetually lucid and focused and productive and energized. They access
flow like it’s going out of style. They achieve cognitive ecstasy on a daily
basis. And so, whether limitlessness is chemically induced or naturally
accessed isn’t the point. What matters is that integration, meaning, employing the whole of our personality, talents,
gifts, memories and experiences, is a possibility for everyone. Because each of us walks around with an
incredible tool kit. And every day, we build and build upon it, trusting that
it will eventually be recognized and put to use. The difference maker is,
instead of letting the tools rust, some of us keep employing them any way that
we can, until our time comes. How do you
embroider the accumulated threads of daily observation into a striking tapestry
of innovative thinking?

Hedging your creative bets. Patience can be a invaluable asset
for the artist. The capacity to delay gratification, the willingness stay in
game long enough to still be around when the world is ready for us, cannot be
stressed enough. Then again, there’s a fine line between fertile idleness and
waiting in vain. And so, we’re obliged to ask ourselves what waiting is getting
in the way of it. Because sometimes patience degrades into myopia. Sometimes we
become so patient, waiting so long for the big things, that we let the small
things slip right by us. And we inadvertently create a limited field a vision
that shields us from exciting new opportunities. Eddie’s drug allows him see
everything from every perspective. There isn’t anything he doesn’t interact
with. The pill offers him the ultimate awareness plan. Anew
lens for interacting with the world. That’s
something each of us can take away from this movie.That whatever comes to us, good or
bad, we still have a responsibility to engage with it somehow. Even if all we
do is notice it, we stand in the grace of nonaction. Because it’s still another
chance to dance with the universe. To fully participate in the world around us.Are you so busy waiting that you’re
unable to notice the opportunities that lead to success?

Ride the energetic wave.The visual effects in this movie
are stunning. According to an interview with thedirector,
he wanted the audience to always feel what the character was feeling, zooming
along with him. And since the character felt like he was in complete control,
the technical aspects of the movie corresponded. The visuals were much more
polished, the lighting was softer and they used wider lenses, so it’s all very
precise, like you’re actually inside his head. In fact, if you read the
comments under the video, people attest to the realism of these visuals. They
recall memorable moments of high performance and flow in their own lives,
saying that the movie perfectly illustrates how it feels to feel limitless.
Eddie’s right. He’s not high. He’s not wired. Just clear. And so, the true
moment of conception isn’t when he pops the pill, but when starts channeling
the newfound focus that his pill provided. That’s the whole point. Not spending
time in our brains as if it were the
destination, but using our brains in the service of the work we intend to
accomplish. It’s a tool, not a hangout.What
kind of relationship do you have with your own mind?

What did you learn?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!

Tunnel of Love is a feature length concert documentary written, produced, directed and scored by Scott Ginsberg. The film explores the intersection of identity, belonging and creativity. Through live performances, playful and romantic exchanges, unexpected creative moments of conception and behind the scenes storytelling, Ginsberg’s film takes you on a heartfelt journey about what it means to be an artist, a romantic and an opportunist.

Watch the trailer. Meet the creators. Go behind the scenes. See the episode schedule. Download the discussion guide.

www.tunneloflovedoc.com

Tunnel of Love will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. The movie’s centerpiece is a live concert, so I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter. There are 14 songs in the concert, so the distribution timeline will occur over a period of 14 weeks, from September to December 2014.

Here’s chapter six:

GENTLE NOISES

A window to a world of wonder
It’s crazy who counts the parts of me that are numbered
So send us your freaks and aliens
And every door has a key of your own making

When you’re gone
I will miss your gentle noises

You can see the life dripping off of me
And all this time measuring every pound by the penny
Inhale and hope my next breath’s better
Don’t let them ghosts wring their hands all around your neck girl

You don’t need no creative visionary
You don’t need no belated king to carry

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2014-2015.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of The Nametag Guy in action here!