Human cloning without the lawsuits

It’s always cheaper to hire yourself. 



The only problem is, once you get busy doing all the creative work, there’s nobody left to execute organizational tasks like selling and strategizing and networking and marketing and growing. Because unlike a traditional company, your enterprise isn’t boosted by a powerful machine working every angle. It’s just little old you. Doing everything. 



And so, the goal is to construct a catchall. A stone that kills all the organizational birds. A single activity that can be trusted to facilitate all other tasks. A lead domino that, when you execute it, will help knock down all the others. The one problem that, if you could pull its thread, would topple all the others. Focus on getting that catchall right, and everything else will fall into place. 



Writing, for example, is my primary creative act, but it’s also my portable sales force, my mobile marketing team, my global networking mechanism, my personal branding vehicle, my strategic planning device, my audience building system and my business growth multiplier. It’s the one activity checks all of those boxes simultaneously. 



That’s why it’s called a catchall. Writing is the central lever that galvanizes the whole machine. By virtue of writing every day, I’m also hiring myself to do everything else, every day. It’s human cloning, but without the lawsuits. And I never have to worry that the complexity of running a business is consuming too much of my creative energy. 

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What is the one stone that will kill all of your organizational birds?

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Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

Moments of Conception 152 — The Breakdown Scene from Punch Drunk Love

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 breakdown scene from Punch Drunk Love:

What can we learn?



There are many secrets left to be unlocked. Sandler’s box office films have grossed over two billion dollars worldwide. And most of them were low budget, goofball comedies. Anderson, however, wrote this role for him specifically. One that liberated him from the constraints of a mainstream formula. And that permission revealed the actor’s unexpected depth, darkness and power, enabling him to turn in one of the best performance of his career. Critics and audiences even admitted, wow, this goofball is actually a great actor. Who knew? And so, it’s a testament to what’s possible when we stop chasing the same seductive nightmare and start living larger than our labels. Waits famously said that about his evolution as a songwriter. He found new instruments to play, using the bagpipes, the marimba, and strange percussion devices, saying that your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they’ve been. That you have to be careful when art is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. Sandler broke his fingers of his their habits. He played an instrument he’d never played before, exploring something completely perpendicular to his ordinary way of working. And the result was spellbinding. Are you continuing to expand your sense of aesthetic possibility?



The invitation to a much wider horizon. Whyte wrote that work must be a marriage. That we must have a relationship with our work that is larger than any individual job description we are given. And that a real work, like a real person, grows and changes and surprises us, asking us constantly for recommitment. And so, it’s no surprise that the seven year itch, a psychological term that suggests that happiness in a relationship declines after around year seven of a marriage, applies to the world of work. It’s the natural cycle of dissatisfaction. The inevitable decrease in happiness over long periods of time. About seven years into my own career, that itch came on full force. Because I had reached a point of diminishing returns. I was living a full life that didn’t feed me anymore. And I was operating in an ecosystem that had limited resources offer to someone of my creative caliber. My mentor even told me over coffee one morning, this life has served its purpose, but now it’s time to create voids in it. And so, I accepted the invitation to a much wider horizon, and decided to move to a city that was big enough for me. Big enough in size, big enough in opportunity, big enough in potential, big enough in belonging, and big enough in access. And that changed everything. And I know it was the right decision because I feel like a completely different person, and yet, more like myself than ever. What unbalancing must take place in order to push you into a new and larger set of circumstances?



Living in a strangled state. Maisel’s research was transformative in helping me understand the difference between authentic calm and forced calm. Because for many years, despite the relaxed image I projected to the world, I didn’t really feel calm. Not unlike the character in the movie, I was just really good at doing everything in my power to act and be calm. From meditation to massage to medication to mindfulness, that’s a lot of work just to relax. In fact, it was actually exhausting work defending myself against letting my mind roar away. And although it was an honorable effort to keep my racing brain under control, I could only hold onto the reins of that wild stallion for so long. Forced calm may have stopped the bleeding, but it was starting to strangle me. Because it’s really just an artificial way of dealing with incipient mania. And so, I wrote a letter of resignation to myself. Literally. I opened up a blank document and began writing out every single way of being from which I needed to retire. All the stressing and achieving and proving and fearing, it purged from my system. The anxious part of me was finally resting. And I realized that I had done enough to be okay with myself. Ten pages and four hours later, I experienced a euphoric lightness of being that I’ll never forget. Like my personal status with myself had gone up a hundred percent. Ever since then, I’ve never felt calmer. Are you truly relaxed, or just living in a strangled calm state?

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What did you learn from this movie clip?

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Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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


Believe that you are the source of time

Hendricks once wrote that time is not something that’s out there. It’s not something we have or don’t have. Rather, we are the source of time, and we can make as much of it as we want. He says we have exactly the right amount of time to enjoy everything we’re doing. 

Now, I had to read his book a few times before that concept fully sunk in. But once it did, I began to practice complete abstinence from complaining about time, taking myself out of the victim position in regard to it. Because as I learned, each complaint about time is a mini whimper of misery, a claim that time is the whip and you’re its hapless galley slaves, rowing desperately to stay ahead of the lash. 

And so, not complaining about time helped me take ownership of it. I began to acknowledge that I was the source where time came from. Eventually, this allowed my time orientation to shift. And my life was never the same again. I can’t even remember the last time I complained about how little time I had. 

The question, then, is how would you behave differently if you believed you were in charge of your schedule? If you believed that you were the source of time? 

The concept is pretty far out there. But if you’re not satisfied with the way you currently spend time, it’s worth the experiment. 

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How could you rearrange yourself around the understanding that you are the source of time?



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* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

Opportunity without leverage, isn’t

My first book went viral within weeks of its release. 

The website received so much traffic, the server crashed. But I didn’t care. I felt like a rockstar. All my dreams were coming true at once. My work was being recognized, my voice was being heard and my brand was being talked about. What more could a writer want? 

The only problem was, the traffic wasn’t converting. I didn’t sell any books. I didn’t capture any email address. I didn’t connect with any users. And I didn’t leverage any of opportunities that were presented to me. 

Because I wasn’t ready. I didn’t possess the personal bandwidth or the professional machinery to process all that attention. What a waste. 

What I did learn, though, was a valuable business lesson. You can’t sell from an empty wagon. You can’t leverage what you don’t have. That’s the big misconception about launching something. Everybody wants to come out of the gate strong, but few are prepared to cope with the demands of actually being out in front. Like the eager dog chasing the proverbial car, even if they did catch it, they wouldn’t know what to do with it if they did. 

So be careful what you wish for. Be ready when it’s your turn. Because if you follow your dreams for long so that you actually catch up to them, you’d better have a game plan when you get there. 

Because opportunity without leverage, isn’t. 

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Where can you create the most leverage?

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* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

Complexity is the enemy of execution

People love to introduce complexity for no reason. 

Especially when they’re insecure about their ideas and abilities. After all, complexly feels like progress and gives people a sense of power and importance. 

What’s not to like? 

And so, I completely understand where they’re coming from. Simplicity is hard. It requires more energy, more brainpower and more courage that complexity. Think about it. The last time you generated an incredibly simple idea and decided to share it with others, didn’t you feel naked? Didn’t you feel vulnerable to people’s questions and skepticisms and rejections? 

No wonder complexity is so attractive. 

However, if we have any intention of ratcheting up our species to a new level of understanding and effectiveness, we have a responsibility to fight this urge. To constantly ask ourselves, will this course of action simplify or complicate our lives? 

A useful habit to get into is attempting to draw out each of our ideas on paper. This process automatically shows up the idea’s weaknesses and complexities. And often times, doing so will show us what’s overly complicated and superfluous about our thinking and lead us to a simple and obvious solution. 

Nike’s current president made a great point on the topic. He said a blank page serves as an extended playing field for the brain, allowing people to revise and improve on creative thoughts and ideas. 

In fact, when clients rent my brain for coaching, mentoring and consulting projects, I always sketch out their ideas with a tool called a thinkmap. It’s strategic framework that helps my clients boil down complex systems to a bare and highly memorable minimum. And every time I start drawing one, I can literally feel the complexity melting away. 


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What tool might help you let go of some complexity?

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For a copy of the list called, “11 Things to Stop Wasting Your Time On,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

The Nametag Guy Live @ Sycamore High School: On Belonging

Last year I delivered a keynote presentation to 350 seniors at Sycamore High in Cincinnati, OH.

This particular clip tells the story about belonging, finding your people and consistency.

Enjoy!

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What are your centers of belonging?

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* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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


Moments of Conception 151 — The Final Scene from Shawshank Redemption

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 final scene in Shawshank Redemption:


Some birds
aren’t meant to be caged.
I’ve spent most of my adult life hiring myself. As a
freelancer, I’ve created a variety of projects including musical albums,
concerts, books, articles, manifestos, speeches, corporate training materials, corporate culture artifacts, consulting programs, public seminars, web applications, video projects, murals,
course curriculums and now a documentary. But a handful of times over the
years, I’ve also sought out traditional employment opportunities. As in,
working for somebody else. Either to supplement my income, experiment with different
career combinations or open myself to the possibility that I was missing out on
something. And so, I would submit job applications and go on interviews and
wear a suit and tell my fascinating story about making a career out of wearing
a nametag, and people would look at me like I was crazy. Like there must have
been some kind of mistake. I remember one human resources manager in
particular. After presenting a few of my books and past client projects, she
looked up from her desk and said, um, I want
to work for your company
. That should have been my first indicator. Another
time I received an email response from the hiring director at a large
advertising agency. She asked why on earth I was looking to apply internally for a
permanent position. Looks like you already have a great thing going for you,
she said. And that was the last I ever heard from her. Red was right. Some
birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. As romantic as it is to believe that
everybody would love you if they only knew the true richness of your offering,
some people just aren’t ready to see that yet. What is preventing you from living out your full self in the world?



What you’re good at, you’re bad at. Being unemployable isn’t always a function of your weakness.
Sometimes it’s your strengths that kill you. I always thought it would be my
obsessive compulsive, anal retentive, conflict avoidant, control freak
tendencies that would keep me from getting landing a gig. Not always the case.
In fact, what worked to my disadvantage was the very asset I worked so hard to
build. My brand. Apparently what
intimidated people was my inspiring history. My optimistic vision. Because I
would show
up explaining that I’d come to positively infect everyone around me. That I was
here fashion new arrows, raise the target, change entire field upon which the
target rests and redefine what it means to hit it. And deep down, that scared
people. Because most companies don’t need a creative visionary. They need
somebody to fill a hole. To check a box. To follow a map. I remember one rejection letter that said
bringing in someone with a personality and a platform as big as mine didn’t
make sense for a company like theirs. According to the talent manager, it was
good for their clients to see that their firm had
interesting people doing interesting things, but not that interesting. Turns out, the more interesting you are, the more
complicated you are; and the more complicated you are, the more expensive you
are. That’s just more hassle for the boss. And so, your strengths are
frequently your weaknesses. What you’re good at, you’re bad at. What superpower
is affecting your ability to be taken seriously?



A
confused mind never buys.
It’s never been easier or more popular­­ to be yourself.
The challenge is, uniqueness is a binary construct. The idiosyncratic part of
us wants to be different and stand out and let the colors of our craziness
bubble to the surface so our freak flag can fly high. And if people don’t get
the joke, they’re dead to us. But the pragmatic part of us needs to be mindful.
Because if our goal is to get through to people, we don’t want them to see us
as terminally unique. Different is good, but we don’t want to be so impossible
to classify that people drop the mental ball. I’ve been guilty of that many
times. I’ll be at a meeting or on a conference call or an interview, and I’ll
work so hard to make a meaningful impression on others, that I wind up crafting
a personality that’s intellectually overwhelming for people. Woops. The point is, it’s never easy to
let our edges show. We all want to belong. We’re all searching for people and
places that embrace the weirdness we have to offer. But when it comes down to
our individual interactions, high stakes moments when we’re sitting across the
table from a person we’re trying to influence, we can’t neglect their cognitive
wiring. Because a confused mind never buys.
There’s a fine line between purpose driven human uniqueness and a patchwork
of weirdness. We need to be weird, but not so weird that nobody knows what to
do with us. Are you unconventional in the
right direction, or are you so far out of the box that there’s nothing left for
people to lean against?

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What did you learn from this movie clip?

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* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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


Take yourself out of the victim position

Hendricks suggests that we choose to become the source of
attitudes, rather than waiting for the events of life to inspire us to adopt
them. Otherwise we remain locked in consumer mode rather than producer mode,
keeping ourselves trapped in scarcity, forever making the situation responsible
for how we feel. 

It’s the difference between people with an external locus of
control and people with an internal locus of control. The former have little
effect on the events that occur around them, while the latter have influence on
much of what happens in their life. 

Money is the perfect example. 

On one hand,
I can dwell on the fact that my job has unpredictable income, sporadic
employment and episodic earnings. But that’s an attitude of scarcity. It
doesn’t serve my earning potential. And it stops my forward trajectory,
blocking the flow of positive energy. 

On the other hand, I can affirm the
belief that I always have plenty of resources to fuel all the things I want to
do. That’s an attitude of abundance. It supports my moneymaking efforts. It
takes me out of the victim position in regard to money. And it contributes to a
positive, profitable narrative in my head. 

Proving, that I am the source of my
attitudes, I am the result of myself and I am the architect of my own future.



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Is your finger firmly pressed on the misery button, manufacturing thoughts that make you feel bad? 

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For a copy of the list called, “31 Questions to Turn Your Expertise into Money,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

Swallowed up by meaninglessness

My biggest competitor is apathy. 

That’s what cripples my earning capacity most frequently. That suffocating feeling of insignificance. That paralyzing dread that nobody is going to notice my work anyway. Ugh

And typically, it shows up just moments before I publish something new. I silently ask myself, hang on, does the world really need me to do this? Do I honestly need to add another layer to the slagheap of bullshit? 

That’s apathy. And I’m not proud of these feelings. They’re cynical and disheartening and I know they don’t look good on me. But I also know that all feelings have a beginning, a middle and an end. That they’re worth sitting with, if only to arrive at something better. 

That’s the benefit of apathy. Some people use it as an easy way to talk themselves out of creating something new, but some people use it as a filter for making their art better. Apathy, when channeled meaningfully, actually allows you to become your own devil’s advocate, call bullshit on yourself, stay accountable to yourself, develop a radically honest relationship with yourself and ultimately get the best work out of yourself. 

When I began distributing my concert documentary, the feeling of apathy showed up right on schedule. But instead of allowing myself to become paralyzed by the threat of insignificance, I followed my apathetic vibe to see where it might take me. And to my surprise, that feeling became a positive form of checks and balances that regulated my creative system. Because it created positive tension. It forced me to defend the value of my work to myself. Apathy kept me on my toes. And for that, I’m grateful. 

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What are you converting your feelings into?



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For a copy of the list called, “31 Questions to Test Your Listening Skills,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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

Moments of Conception 150 — The Karaoke Scene from Duets

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 karaoke scene in Duets:





The crucible of the stage. Duets is perhaps one of the most underrated movies of all
time. Critics skewered it in the papers and audiences rolled their eyes when it
came out. And yet, we can’t deny the inspiring themes about music as a healer,
performance as a catharsis and singing as a binding agent between friends.
After watching this movie, I got on stage and sang karaoke for the first time
in my life. That night, I came out of my shell. A creative tap opened up in me
that I didn’t know was closed. And I haven’t been the same since. This movie is
more than a slice of the competitive karaoke world and the wayward characters
who inhabit it, it’s also a testament to the transformative power of
performance. Any kind of performance. Because whether you play music in the
park, stand as a painted statue on the corner or get up on stage at the comedy
club, performance changes you. Having an audience changes you. Physicists call
this the observer effect, whereby the
act of observation has an effect on the phenomenon being observed. That’s why
people modify aspects of their behavior in response to being watched. And
that’s why public speaking is our number one fear. But the value is beyond
anything we can get by simply standing in front of a mirror. Because the best
work can only come to its power in the world when it moves beyond the self, as
a gift from artist to audience. When was
the last time you got up on stage in front of people?



Keep your gift in motion. Reggie may be charming and sings like an angel, but
he’s also a dangerous fugitive convict. The guy wouldn’t twice about entering
some silly karaoke contest. But with the encouragement of a new friend, he
grabs the mic and blows the audience away. And by virtue of winning the
competition in this small town, he wins the right to compete in the finals.
This movie reminds me that one of the chief reasons we make art in the first
place is to earn the opportunity to do the work again. To keep the gift in
motion. Yes, the prize money is helpful and important and validating, and any
artist is grateful to get paid what they’re worth. But the real currency, the
motivation for returning to the studio, is the next performance. The chance to
do what you do again. It’s the distinction between the market economy and the
gift economy. Hyde’s groundbreaking research on this subject found that giving
the first creation away is what makes the second one possible. Bestowal creates
that energy place into which new energy may flow. And as long as the gift is
not withheld, the creative spirit will remain a stranger to the economics of
scarcity. Every creator experiences that transaction. That moment on stage when
they realize, okay, if I don’t keep doing what I do really well, someday I may
not get to do it anymore. Talk about motivation.  What birthright gifts have you
been dragged away from?



Err on the side of openness. Creativity is partly about making art, partly about creating
the opportunity to make art, and partly about uncovering the resources needed
to help you make art. But creativity is also about opening yourself to what you
are closed to. It’s a crucial element to thecreativity
aptitude test
. A person with high
openness, says the research, has an active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity,
attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety and intellectual
curiosity. Reggie, not unlike a lot of people, doesn’t want to get up on that
stage. Not even to lip sync. But as much as he’d prefer to retreat to his own
dark corner, hiding out from the world, his friend promises him that there’s
something existentially useful waiting on the other side of the stage. So he
takes the plunge. Reggie sings with his whole heart, purging all the fear and
pain and rage insight of him. That physical experience pulls him back into his
body and out of the visceral experience of threat. And something lets go in
him. He disappears from the world, loses all sense of self and spellbinds
everyone in the room, especially himself. He tried a little tenderness, and it
worked. Reggie’s moment of conception reminds you that you have to believe the
truth about yourself, no matter how beautiful it is. Because you never know.
That truth might flip on a switch that you don’t eve want to turn off. What awaits you in the refining fire of
discomfort?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What did you learn from this movie clip?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For a copy of the list called, “11 Things to Stop Wasting Your Time On,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. 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 2015-2016.

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


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