There is nothing that can’t be solved with greater commitment. The way my brain works is, if commitment isn’t the answer, I rephrase the question. 

Hendricks, however, makes a powerful point in his daily devotional about how commitment gets you started and propels you through the early stages of the game, but it’s recommitment that ignites your reserves when you feel like you’re going to give up. 

When I first read that passage, something clicked inside my head. Because I’ve been creating art professionally for the past fifteen years, but only recently did I take the time to step back and officially recommit to my work. I had no choice. I had reached a point in my work when I was getting bored, burned out and lonely. 

And so, in the last year, I revisited my goals, reinvented my career trajectory, reactivated my success mechanism, released my old expectations, rewrote my definition of work, rejiggered my daily routines, reevaluated my abilities, reworked my business model, repositioned my service offerings, restructured my brand messaging, redesigned my websites, revised my fee schedule, revamped my marketing materials, reconnected with my network, reoriented my career in a more compelling direction and, perhaps most importantly, reconnected to the joy that made me an artist in the first place. 

Each of these activities has been an exercise in recommitment. And as a result, I’ve felt more focused and energized and effective. And as a result of that, I’ve executed higher quality work, booked significant new business and achieved deeper levels of satisfaction in my work. 

Ask anyone who’s been in the game for more than ten years, and they will tell you how critical it is to recommit. 

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Which of your commitments are ready for their next incarnation?

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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!

One of my colleagues created a tool called an opportunity filter. It’s a simple rating system that evaluates the asset value of a potential new client, assignment or project. 

Before agreeing to accept new work, he literally takes out a governing document that serves as a guidance system for new opportunities. This filter takes into consideration the new project’s earning potential, movement value, labor intensity, leverage amount, learning capacity, meaning return, credibility spike, case study value, networking potential, exposure level and new market entry. 

It’s a brilliant system for simply, swiftly and strategically evaluating new opportunities as the arise. In fact, simply creating the filter itself is worth its weight in gold, as it forces you to get clear on what your currencies are. 

The only caveat is, it’s a highly systemized approach. And like most systems, there’s always the possibility that your guardrails are prematurely blinding you to peripheral opportunities, closing the door on the future too quickly. 

That’s the thing about opportunity. You can predict its direction until you’re blue in the face, but in the end, all you can do is take it as it comes and hope for the best. 

The good news is, opportunities are as big or as small as you want to make them. Anything can be a meaningful opportunity because anything can provoke the psychological experience of meaning. It’s simply a matter of interpretation. 

Sometimes you just have to trust your gut, raise your hand and say, sure, let me give that no thought. Because with every opportunity, you contribute to a fabric. And even if that fabric isn’t exactly what you thought you were going to get, nobody can take away the person you became in the process of creating it. 

Ultimately, nothing is ever wasted. As the song lyric goes, there is nothing that doesn’t matter, every word is a seed that scatters, everything matters. 

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What opportunities are out there for you personally or in your business that you are not yet taking advantage of?

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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!

I used to be notoriously hard on myself for not always living up to the standards and ideals that I so prolifically promoted. The cognitive dissonance would be crushing. 

If I were to sleep through my alarm on a weekday, for example, instead of loving myself and enjoying the extra hours of sleep and forgiving myself for falling short, I would spend the rest of the day trying to overcompensate for my perceived laziness, working though lunch, thereby eradicating any shred of cognitive dissonance and convincing myself that the cobbler’s kid really does have shoes, that I really am smoking what I’m selling, and that I’m still the beacon of productivity and commitment and achievement that I expect myself to be. 

Insert manly grunt sound here. 

Turns out, that process was exhausting. I spent so much of my energy twisting myself into a psychological pretzel, that I barely had any calories left for the rest of my life. 

Over time, though, I started to accept a few realizations. 

First, life doesn’t always allow me to be as disciplined as I want. And there’s nothing I can do about that. Second, I don’t need another reason to be hard on myself. There are already enough negative scripts in my head. 

Ultimately, I realized that I am worthy of the same love and forgiveness that I give to others. And I am choosing to include myself in the circle of my compassion when I suffer.

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Are you treating yourself as you wish to be treated?
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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!

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 poison frog dart scene in Apocalypto:

What can we learn?

The forest will
provide. Einstein
was a naturalist. He believed that every occurrence, including the affairs of
human beings, was due to the laws of nature. That the imagination of nature was
far, far greater than the imagination of man, and that if we kept looking deep
into nature, we would understand everything better. And so, as we learn to take
our cues from nature, aligning ourselves with the creative seasons, adhering
our work with the geometric order and rhythm of life, we have to
deepen our belief that the forest will provide. That the land we live off of
will never dry up. This belief originates in the creative order, insofar as
inspiration and energy and imagination are concerned. We trust in the
availability of our own answers and ideas. And we have faith in our ability to
sit down and respond to something. Still, believing the forest will provide
also delves into the economic order, insofar as opportunity and doing business
and receiving remuneration for our efforts. We trustthat we alone control the amount of work we do and determine
how busy we are. And we have faith thatthe art we
create is necessary, relevant and valuable to the marketplace. The trick, then,
in allowing the forest to provide, is our mentality. Because the forest’s
abundance is a consequence of our treating its wealth as a gift. And the way we
treat something can sometimes alter its makeup. Jaguar has the advantage for
this very reason. He may be badly injured, but in his native jungle, his
mastery of the creatures and their landscapes allows him to use the forest to
gradually whittle down his pursuers.What’s
your poison frog dart?

Figure out life
through the filter of nature. I made the decision to reinvent my
career almost exactly ten years after I started my company. Literally, down to
the exact week. And I wondered if there was any significance to such fortuitous
timing. So I went for a long walk in the park and ran the following thought
experiment. How would this problem be solved in nature? After a few hours, something
occurred to me. The number ten is by far the most significant labeling system
in nature. Ten is the major organizing principle of the universe. It’s the
mathematical base for everything. That’s why decades are such important life
markers. There truly is something special about what transpires during a ten
year period. That information activated a professional transformation for me. I
began to reinvent myself. To enlarge my concept of work. To expand the
constellation of my identity as a creator. To keep more of my passions in play.
And to mold my definition of a career to fit anything that excited and fed my
soul. What’s more, I memorialized my journey to finding the next stone on the
path through a collection of songs, which ultimately became the
centerpiece of a new concert documentary. That’s what’s possible when we tune
into nature’s agenda.How are you
remaking yourself as you grow and as the world changes?

Inviting nature
as your creative collaborator. Hydeexplains that we should look at ourselves as part of nature
and not its lord. That we should respond to nature as part of our identities,
not as a stranger or alien available for exploitation. This mindset serves us
well creatively. It reminds to enable a more visceral and spontaneous contact
with our work. Jaguar, a true warrior of the jungle, keeps a sharp eye on the
clues for ways to defeat his enemies. Because time is not his ally. If he
doesn’t fashion a weapon soon, he’ll never make it out alive. But thanks to his
keen powers of observation, he notices the brightly colored poison dart frog.
And in that moment, he envisions a solution. He grabs the amphibian, finds a
portable creative environment to set up shop, and the two beings cocreate. It’s
beautiful. The look on the man’s face is that of focus and creativity and
strategy, and the look on the frog’s face is that of service and flexibility
and peace. Both understand their role in the jungle. Both contribute to each
other. And nobody gets hurt. Proving, that creativity isn’t just knowing a good
idea when you see it, it’s executing that idea before anyone else sees it. Because
just like in nature, timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. How are you inviting nature as your
creative collaborator?

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What did you learn from this movie clip?

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For a copy of the list called, “50 Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask,” 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!

Nothing beats the excitement at having discovered something worth doing. The existential joy of sinking your teeth into a meaningful pursuit is among life’s greatest feelings. 

And so, there’s nothing wrong with being so jazzed about a new project that it hurts when you pee. However, if you allow yourself to get too carried away by your own excitement, it can actually do more harm than good. 

I remember reading a fascinating book about the changing face of the web. The author commented that the early internet landscape was littered with millions upon millions of amateurish and unattractive websites, because few people possessed the tools or discipline to keep their pages current. Each website, he said, ultimately became a monument to a rare burst of enthusiasm. 

Those seven words changed the way I manage projects forever. 

A monument to a rare burst of enthusiasm. 

I’ll never forget that passage. Because I’ve been there before. Numerous times. I’ve messed up things because I wanted them too much. I’ve blown the lid off big ideas by telling too many of the wrong people about them. I’ve forced projects to hatch before they were ready, resulting in lifeless, stillborn executions. 

Ugh. It’s a sinking, regretful feeling. 

And so, what I’ve been working on are the disciplines of turning my excitement into action. The restraint of not killing myself trying to resolve every open issue. The confidence of not needing to achieve the absurd goal of clearing my plate. And the wholeness of being okay with myself without my manic drive for glory. 

Perhaps peeing won’t be so painful anymore.

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How are you growing in your ability to be in control of yourself?

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For a copy of the list called, “8 Ways to Out Give Your Competition,” 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!

When I first started practicing hot yoga, my instructor gave me a valuable strategy for hydration. She said that if you wait until you’re thirsty to reach for water, it’s already too late. Hydration starts the night before. Don’t come to class thirsty, or you’ll be in a world of pain. 

Noted. 

Her advice reminds me of the classic zen mantra, dig your well before you’re thirsty. And what’s fascinating is, that concept has applications in almost every discipline. 

Executive coaches tell leaders that if they’re waiting for a company wide survey to tell them what employees really think, it’s already too late. 

Investors tell entrepreneurs that if they’re waiting for the market to tell them that a need exists, it’s already too late. 

In fact, the most powerful application of this mantra relates to the creative process. Every morning, for example, I start writing not knowing what I’m going to write about. All I know is, in that creative moment, I completely trust my ability to sit down and respond to something. I believe with unshakeable faith that there will always be words waiting for me. That the forest will provide. The ideas will come when I need them. 

But that’s the easy part of the job. The hard part, the unspectacular labor that actually fuels my creative fire, commences days, weeks, months, even years before that moment. Because long before sitting down at the blank page and beginning the frightening work of flying blind, I’ve already invested thousands of hours building my mental library one idea at a time. I’ve already done the work as a consummate gatherer of good ideas and nifty notions and savvy strategies, each of which I’ve captured and cataloged and conceptualized and connected. 

That’s what increases my odds of being creative before I even sit down to create. 

Otherwise, if I wait around until inspiration strikes, it’s already too late. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How do you dig your well before you’re thirsty?

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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!

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

Here’s the entire movie!

SONG LIST:

01. Alibi

02. Backbone

03. Cold Recover

04. Opening & Closing

05. Loss, Theft, Damage

06. Gentle Noises

07. Angels on the Rise

08. Stolen Away

09. Love is the Only

10. Sweetheart I’m Lonely For Your Arms

11. All Hearts

12. Crumble

13. Sweet Somethings

14. Home is the Place

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

www.nametagscott.com

[email protected]

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!

Commitment is the greatest productivity secret on the planet. It’s one of the few strategies guaranteed to create a gravitational field that draws good things into it. 

The challenge is, most people are terrified of commitment. It makes them feel vulnerable. And that’s understandable. But as my favorite literary realist once said, to be vulnerable to risk is to risk being shattered, but without the shattering, there is no glory. 

What people need, then, is a commitment device. A physical object or prototype that makes the effects of your work real and visible for all to see, even in the early stages of production. It’s a way to lock yourself into a situation that you might otherwise dodge. 

Like the writer who prints mock covers of the novel he hasn’t published yet. Or the entrepreneur who designs and distributes business cards for a company that hasn’t gone public yet. Or the chef whose unfinished blog redirects visitors to a landing page where she collect emails for future contact. 

Each of these people created a commitment device. A way to handcuff themselves and put restraints on their behavior through the power of psychological pressure. Because that’s the social norm. By virtue of the public commitment, people feel obligated to follow through with their promises to avoid cognitive dissonance. 

Without the commitment device, the writer might never finish his novel, the entrepreneur might delay the launch of his startup, and the chef might never go public with her recipes. 

Lesson learned, always burn the boats before storming the beach. 

It adds energy to the system and moves the story forward. And it reminds you that it’s not about getting everything right, it’s about getting something moving in the right direction.

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What’s your commitment device?

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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!

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 kitchen scene in Varsity Blues:

What can we learn?

Dream big and dream early. People love being around dreamers. They’re invigorating as hell. Like oxygen to the soul. Dreamers lovingly hold up a mirror that demands we look at ourselves and honor our own desires. They inspire us to expand to our full capacity as human beings. That why I married one. A soul on fire with sparkles in her eyes. And the reason is simple. Do you know how good it feels to wake up next to someone who has dreams to chase? And do you know how easy it is to get out of bed when the person you love has a horizon to point to? You’ll never need another alarm clock again. And, you’ll never treat others the same way again. That’s the transformative power of imagination. Once you become a dreamer, it changes what you see when you see people. You start to believe that everyone’s dreams are worth chasing. You start to support them every step of the way. And what happens is, people almost don’t even know how to react when they are treated as human beings with ideas, feelings and dreams. All they can do is thank you for believing in them. And so, dreaming doesn’t just change you, it changes everyone who comes into contact with you. It changes how they experience themselves in relation to you. Does your dream benefit others?

I had enough dreams to keep god busy. The reality is, most people’s dreams stay in that form forever. No matter how many times they encounter that thing that sticks inside of them and says now, they still don’t give themselves permission to let it out. And so, whatever expression is crawling around inside of their brains, stays there. Because some parent or coach or teacher or authority figure superimposed their own dreams onto them. Mox’s father claims to be looking out for his son, but he’s really just building his own dream and using his son to do it. He’s neatly convinced the boy to dream the same dream as him. But instead of stuffing his dream in the closet like a prom dress, this quarterback stands up against the tide of nonbelievers. I don’t want your life, he yells, hoping to communicate his desire to pursue academics over athletics. And yet, as overdramatic and cheesy as that line is, just imagine how many teenagers with they could say that to their parents. Imagine how many young people aren’t creating their own dream, and instead are pressured to fulfill the one they’ve been sold. The one that was programmed into them. And they’re clinging to that inherited dream as a fixture of absolute truth. It’s sad. Because the only thing more painful than being patient with your dream is realizing that it’s someone else’s dream for you. Who’s trying to weld you into their dream machine?

What starts as a dream finishes as a nightmare. Covey famously said that if our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. Dreams can be like that sometimes. They fall into our lap on a moment’s notice, and we’re so flattered and stunned and excited, that we instinctively raise our hand without considering the cost. Over the years, I’ve taken jobs, made investments, launched projects, even started new relationships because I thought they were in line with my dream. But then the world changed. Or my world changed. And something I once pursued so passionately started to feel like a monkey on my back. So I cursed and kicked and berated myself for being so naïve. What the hell was I thinking? How could I have been so incredibly blind? But looking back, what I should have done was pause. I should have stopped being so hard on myself. And I should have recognized that there’s no such thing as a wrong decision. In fact, there’s no such thing as a right decision either. Stupid, yes. Wrong or right, no. It’s just a decision. We make millions of them in our lifetime. And all of them matter. They’re not wrong. They’re not right. They just are. And so, every endeavor––dream, nightmare or otherwise––is a crucial part of the life experience. Just because something ends poorly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have started in the first place. Nothing is ever wasted. Even if it makes us bleed, it still makes us who we are. When was the last time one of your dreams changed shape mid stream?

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What did you learn from this movie clip?

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For a copy of the list called, “19 Telltale Signs of the Perfect Job,” 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!

We award comparison with a disproportionate amount of mental real estate. It’s this cruel joke we play on ourselves, measuring our successes against other people who are doing things that have little or nothing to do with what we’re uniquely suited for. As if one person’s documentary was equal to another person’s highlight reel. 

I remember when I used to read positive press about someone in my field doing amazing work. My heart always ended up in conflict with itself. Because part of me wanted to be happy for them, but deep down, I just wanted to make a list all the reasons why it should have been me. After all, I was much more talented and hardworking and deserved success way more than they did. Screw those people. 

Thankfully, a friend of mine reminded me that success doesn’t have a line. There’s no universal justice system. We can bang our heads against the wall, resenting other people’s success, wondering why them and not us, all day long. 

But in the end, success is mostly luck. It’s about being the right person, in the right place, at the right time, with the right product, in front of the right audience, with the right leverage. 

Comparison, then, is a futile game with no winners. As the theory of egonomics states, the more uncertain about who we are or what we have, the more automatic and persistent our comparisons become. 

And so, a healthier response would be to replace all of the comparing with creating. Instead of resentfully downgrading people’s accomplishments to justify their level of success, we can use their lives as a glowing source of inspiration for our own work. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Will you back away in bitterness or leap forward into creativity?

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For a copy of the list called, “9 Things Every Writer Needs to Do Every Day,” 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!