“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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Own your breath, and nobody can steal your peace
Yoga is a neverending practice of letting go.
It’s a ritual of pressing the release valve on ourselves, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. That’s why we begin our series with pranayama breathing. This posture teaches us to thread our breath through every action. It reminds us that breath is life. And it shows us that when we own our breath, nobody can steal our peace.
Unfortunately, all of that woo woo yoga language goes out the window the minute we don’t get our way. Like when our favorite teacher calls in sick. Or when we get stuck practicing behind a clueless first timer. Or when the room isn’t hot enough. Or when the water isn’t cold enough. Or when we forget to bring our two hundred dollar custom embroidered, non slip surface, eco friendly, super absorbent, extra long yoga mat and have to use one of those gritty studio rentals.
But we have to remember, those moments are part of the yoga too. They may not be postures, but that doesn’t mean they’re not part of the practice. Just as we let go of our physical imperfections while staring at our half naked bodies in the mirror, so must we let go of the environmental imperfections that threaten our seamless little yoga nirvanas.
And so, we return to the breath. The fundamental unit of human release. Because we’re all adults. We all know that life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. But unlike spoiled children who puff up their cheeks and cross their arms when they don’t get their way, yogis don’t hold their breath as a physical tool of denial. Unlike babies who can’t stand to live in a world where they see things that upset them, yogis don’t treat every minor malfunction as a major crisis.
We breathe. We use our lungs to let things go. Both inside and outside of the studio.
As my instructor recently said, breath in the beauty, and breathe out the bullshit.
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Where in your life are you holding your breath?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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Practice the art of benign neglect
One of life’s most liberating realizations is, you cannot care about everything. That the heart has limits, and each of us only has so much emotional bandwidth to offer.
And so, every chance you get, try practicing the art of benign neglect. Watch what happens when you try not caring about something small. Next time you feel that controlling instinct welling up inside of you, take a deep breath and ask yourself:
If I don’t do this, will life cease to exist?
I promise you, it won’t. It never does. Years ago, the power went out in my entire neighborhood. But instead of calling the electric company in panic, I simply went back to work writing. A few hours later, I packed up and walked to my local coffee shop. And when I checked my email for the first time that day, something occurred to me.
The world didn’t end. My business didn’t go under. And my readers didn’t line up around the corner with pitchforks.
Why? Because as much as my ego would like to believe it, most of the world is not sitting on the edge of their seats, eagerly anticipating my every move. Nobody cared that I didn’t care, and that was a liberating moment.
That’s the beauty of benign neglect. It’s not about being too cool to care, it’s about being discerning enough not to dwell. It’s about surrendering. Letting go of the things outside of your heart’s capacity.
Here’s a helpful way to put things in perspective.
Atlantic put out a fascinating study about history’s apocalypse theories that didn’t stand the test of time. Turns out, humans have failed thousands of times to predict how the world was going to end. From comets to tidal waves to zombie rapture to the sun engulfing the earth. And yet, not matter how cult leaders and prophesiers and luminaries and doomsayers tried to foresee humanity’s undoing, alas, we’re all still here. Mankind soldiers on.
The point is, the world never ends. Even when you practice benign neglect. And so, you might as well dare to lose control and let the joy carry you. Release your grip on the world and try not caring. It’s good for the soul.
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Are you trying to control life or trusting your capacity to respond to it intelligently?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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A candle of confidence against the darkness
Pickup artists will often instruct lonely, shy men to boost their social confidence by taking advantage of dry runs. Engaging in shadowboxing opportunities before they enter into the ring.
For example, before hitting the clubs, a guy might stop by the mall for an hour. Specifically, the department stores. Why? Because there’s zero threat of rejection. Think about it. Every makeup counter and perfume spritzer and jewelry store in the city is guaranteed to be staffed with attractive women whose sole job function is to be nice to you. And compliment you. And flirt with you. And keep you engaged. Even if you don’t spend a dime. Because that’s their job. They’re professional conversationalists.
This creates a low threat arena where a shy guy can boost his confidence and build his momentum and prove to himself that approaching women is feasible and even enjoyable. That way, by the time he arrives at the club an hour later, he already has a few social victories under his belt. And that baseline of accomplishment positively influences everything he does.
Of course, this principle isn’t really about picking up girls. It’s about strategy. It’s about quietly getting better. It’s about slowly building your momentum in places where you’re less visible.
When I first started my career as a writer, I blogged under a pseudonym for an entire year. And I didn’t tell a soul. It was profoundly liberating. That level of anonymity allowed me to dissociate from the material, write about anything I wanted and take zero responsibility for anything that I said. And that daily practice built my confidence, unearthed my creative voice and ultimately encouraged me to go public with my thoughts in the future.
And so, whether you’re trying to get a date or advance a career, try a little shadowboxing. Get your muscles ready. Find your rhythm. Envision yourself facing your immediate future opponent.
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Where will you find a candle of confidence against the darkness?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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Moments of Conception 184: The Advertising Scene from Minority Report
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.
Based on my books in The Prolific 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 advertising scene from Minority Report:
There’s no plasticity of the self. I have zero sense of direction. Even with the
assistance of the satellite navigation system in my phone, it’s still hard for
me to find my way around sometimes. And I’m okay with that. I’ve long since
made peace with my directional incompetence. Besides, what’s so bad about
getting lost? Is there any shame in having no sense of direction? I love
getting lost. It’s essential part of the human experience. It’s how we learn to
trust ourselves. It’s how we make room for chance encounters. And it’s how we
expose ourselves to things outside of our interest. What’s sad is, technology
is slowly obfuscating that experience. Now that every aspect of our world is
hyperpersonlized, ubertargeted and supernichefied, getting lost is quietly
becoming a thing of the past. Pariser named this phenomenon thefilter
bubble, whereby web algorithms
selectively guess what information a user would like to see based on
information about them. Like my friend who does a lot of online dating on her
cell phone. It’s amazing. She can adjust her algorithms to only seek out
divorced dark skinned men over forty who love riding motorcycles and eating
organic grass fed beef who live within a fifteen mile radius of her home. Which
sounds ideal, and it is. But the problem with idealism is, we don’t experience
the virtue of being exposed to things outside of our interest. There’s no
plasticity of the self. Pariser’s research actually showed that without practicing
that kind of categorical openness, it’s harder for luck and ingenuity to find
us. Wow. I can’t imagine living in a world where we only got what we wanted. Are you isolating yourself into your own
cultural and ideological bubbles?
True life takes place in opening.Pariser’sbookexplained that personalization filters serve up a
kind of invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas,
amplifying our desire for things that are familiar and leaving us oblivious to
the dangers lurking in the dark territory of the unknown. Yikes. That reads like a dystopian fiction novel. Like the internet
has some hidden agenda to keep humanity small, scared, stupid and dreamless,
incapable of critical thinking. Then again, are we really that far away from
such a reality? Not anymore. And that’s what makes this scene so prophetic.
Spielberg’s movie predicted the
implementation of biometric recognition in customized advertising. That’s
completely terrifying. I know it sounds paranoid, but what’s worse,
thinking you’re being paranoid, or knowing that you should be? The point is, we have an obligation,
as citizens, to maintain and develop our capacity for openness. To keep
ourselves from becoming like the characters in this movie. In fact, the
prevailingtheorieson personality found that openness to experience was
by far the most salient characteristic of high creativity and intelligence.
People with high openness were more likely to have high active imaginations,
aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety and
intellectual curiosity. Sounds better than having a hologram ask me how those
new boot cut jeans are fitting.
Remember, true life takes place in opening, not closing. Are you still protecting yourself from
information that disagrees from your viewpoints?
Your memories aren’t invited. Rehashing
the same old stories with the same old people is an enjoyable and comforting
and nostalgic activity. And why shouldn’t it be? Roles are clearly defined and the
status quo is easily preserved. Everyone is happy, and nobody has to change. However,
recyclingold memories and pretending
that they’re fresh gets very old,very quickly. It
feels like you’re trapped in an infinite regression. A dull blanket of
sameness. A snake eating its own tail. And before you know it, every
interaction becomes a cannibalistic photocopy of the one before. Every person
remains frozen in the position they met each other in. And nobody grows. Blech. But it doesn’t have to be this
way. It is possible to evolve the conversation. All it takes is one courageous
person who dares to raise the needle on the record and say, guys,all we ever do is talk about old stories. Let’s go create
new stories. The point is, building momentum doesn’t require anything complex,
simply a moment that adds energy to the system. When was the last time you did something for the first time?
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What did you learn from this movie clip?
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Now booking for 2015-2016.
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Everything else is a side effect
The ability to
discern between the intentional and the incidental is crucial to success.
Because in any endeavor, there are always two components at work. There’s the
target, which is the intentional part; and then there’s the reward for hitting
the target, which is the incidental part.
Let’s use the example of an
entrepreneur.
Her intentional target is to create a product that solves a real,
urgent, expensive and pervasive problem. Got it. Which means, her reward for
hitting that target, say, earning millions of dollars from a legion of loyal
customers, that’s the incidental part. That’s what she gets for doing the first
part right.
Intentional target, incidental reward. Make sense?
This dichotomy
changed my life. Once I began to filter all of my endeavors and projects and
dreams through this dichotomy of intentional versus incidental, my stress level
went down, my happiness average went up, and my depth of perspective
transformed. Because I finally accepted that there’s only one component under
my control.
The target. The intentional. The starting line.
And so, that’s
where I started investing all my energy and time and money and focus.
Everything else that happened was a side effect. A byproduct. An aftershock.
Always unpredictable and never guaranteed.
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How quickly are you able to discern between the intentional and the incidental?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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A perfect narrative of excuses and failure
A pivotal moment in my mental health history was admitting that I didn’t have a disease, I had an illness directly related to my stress level.
That distinction changed everything.
Because initially, I thought that my chronic pain was the result of irritable bowel syndrome and dairy allergies and peptic ulcers and probiotic deficiencies. But that was just a dodge. A sickness scapegoat. A convenient story that I told myself to avoid taking personal responsibility for my declining health.
Turns out, I was making excuses and rationalizations and justifications for a problem I didn’t want to face. I was trying to outsource ownership. Because the way I saw it was, if I could just chalk up my stress to some disease, some third party entity that was out there and beyond my control, then I was absolved of all accountability.
But the truth is, I wasn’t sick because I had a disease, I was sick because I was a workaholic. I was sick because I was in a toxic relationship. I was sick because didn’t know how to press the off button on my life.
That’s why I was hospitalized three times in two years. Not because I was plagued with some horrible condition, but because I was making poor life choices.
And I don’t mean to be insensitive to people’s legitimate mental health struggles. When I hear somebody’s psychological horror story, I believe they’re experiencing what they’re experiencing. I believe biological things happen inside the human brain.
But I also believe that you are the result of yourself, and that your body never lies to you. Spend a week in a hospital breathing through a chest tube, and that lesson will crystallize quickly.
And so, the next time stress begins to have too loud a voice in your life, ask yourself what you might be pretending not to know about your role in the problem. Ask yourself what part you might be playing in being where you are. And don’t think that when the stress is over your body will forget.
It won’t.
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What story are you telling yourself about your current stress level?
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Eyes Full Of Dreams — Chapter 01: Not Another (2015) — Scott Ginsberg Concert Documentary
Eyes Full Of Dreams is a musical and motivational masterclass about making use of everything you are.
This film will be presented as a serialized, episodic documentary. I’m premiering each song as a stand alone chapter.
“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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When the love spilled out they called it art
My third grade teacher had a love/hate
relationship with me.
Because on most days, instead of paying attention to her lessons
in math and science and history, I was busy writing stories and composing songs
and drawing mazes and creating comic strips and designing logos for nonexistent
rock bands that I was going to start one day.
I’ll never forget the parent
teacher conference we had mid semester. Instead of tattling to my parents about
my poor performance in math and science, my teacher just handed them a box. Inside
was an anthology of everything I’d created in the past few months. Piles and
piles of work that wasn’t assigned to me, that nobody asked me to do, that
didn’t have any grades on it, and that didn’t even count toward my overall mark
in class.
It was just a bunch of stuff I created and dumped on my teacher’s
desk so I could go back to work on something else.
All my parents could do was
laugh. Because they knew, even at the age of eight, there was no stopping that
train. The impulse to originate was strong with this one, and
it was best to just stand back and enjoy the ride.
It was a love so big that it filled his heart, until it
swelled and finally burst apart, and where the love spilled out they called it
art, but he never really had no choice.
A reminder to all the parents and
teachers out there, the inner commitment to expressing yourself can’t be
learned. It’s not something people are conscious of. It’s just there. And your
job is to say yes to it. Then get the hell out of the way.
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How did your childhood inform your career?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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Credibility is the ancestor of volume
I have a financial planner friend who has thirty letters after his last name.
His business card is a thing of beauty. When I asked him about the story behind that, he said the letters weren’t there because he was good at taking tests or smarter than the competitors, but because he started his advisory practice in his early twenties, and he needed credibility. Fast. Otherwise clients wouldn’t take him seriously.
And so, he spent the first decade of his career earning degrees and certifications in life insurance underwriting and retirement planning and employee benefits and a host of other areas of expertise. Credibility was the ancestor of volume.
I can relate to this struggle. When I started my company right out of college, I had difficulty legitimizing my work. Until I noticed a pattern. Turns out, the minute somebody touched one of my books, their posture changed. My posture changed. The dynamic between us changed. And most of their objections to my credibility faded away like a fart in the wind. Because apparently, if you’re written a book, that’s worth something.
And so, my thinking was, wait a minute, if writing one book was that effective in making people’s question marks go away, maybe I should write a lot of books.
So I did. And somewhere around book number thirteen, people stopped asking for my credentials.
Credibility is the ancestor of volume.
And it’s one hell of a good way to uncross people’s arms.
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How could your status be automatically elevated by virtue of volume?
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“Scott Ginsberg’s employee training on approachability was the absolute perfect fit, and completely exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine. The feedback we received from our team was that this was hands down the best training they have ever been to. Scott found out what was important to us and gave us several options for training solutions. I would highly recommend him for a variety of industries, and I would happily work with him again!” –Anne Conway, PHR | Corporate Director of Training and Development, | Lodging Hospitality Management
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