Time shrinks and expands according to our mood

Einstein’s theory of relativity transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the twentieth century. 

And although the science behind can seem complex and overwhelming, he famously explained it with a simple metaphor:

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour; sit with your beloved for an hour, and it seems like a minute. 

That’s relativity. It’s actually an encouraging approach to living. Einstein’s theory suggests that we are where time comes from, and we can make as much of it as we want. It all depends on how we choose to occupy the space we find ourselves in. 

Yoga is the perfect example. I’ve been practicing for eight years, and the lesson I keep learning over and over is, time shrinks and expands according to my mood. 

Because if I hustle into a hundred degree room overflowing with a sense of dread and irritation and negative expectation, wishing I was somewhere else the whole time, that class is going to feel like an eternity. Postures will take forever. The hands on the clock will move in reverse. My instructor’s words will come in slow motion. And ninety minutes will feel like ninety days. 

On the other hand, if I walk into the room calm and hydrated and happy and emptied of expectation, prepared to relax into the space around me, time will whisk by like the summer wind. Because I won’t be preoccupied with trying to not be in the space I’m in. Even if I do glance at the clock, I’ll notice that time has leaped forward in great spurts. And the class will be over before I even know it. 

That’s relativity. 

Time shrinks and expands according to our mood. 

Hendrix summarized it perfectly in his book about time management:

When you withdraw your consciousness toward your core, running away from the moment, the act of contracting your awareness away from space makes time congeal.

It seems to slow down and harden into a solid mass. And the more you cringe from the pain, the slower time gets. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How does your relationship with time affect your daily life?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

That’s what a person who wants something does

Handy made a brilliant
observation in his
memoir
on
arranging the portfolio of the entrepreneur’s work life. He said, small bits of
prostitution may be necessary



Which sounds provocative and uncomfortable to
some. But don’t be so suburban. 



Prostitution, after all, is the world’s oldest
profession. Have some respect. In fact, the leading etymology dictionary states
that the notion of sex for hire is not actually inherent in the
etymology of the word. 



To prostitute literally means to expose publicly. To put
up front for sale. 



And so, doing so from time to time doesn’t make you a whore
or a betrayer or a hypocrite with zero integrity who compromises their core
values. 



Look, we’re all complicit. Nobody’s perfect whole all the time.
Everybody has their price. Everybody can be bought. And there’s no shame in
succumbing to the increasing commercial takeover of daily life. 



People do what
they have to do to make their dreams real. They jump on opportunities as
they’re presented to them, good, bad or indifferent. Because that’s what it
takes underwrite their more virtuous and artistic endeavors. 



That’s what a
person who wants something does. 



It’s not selling out, it’s outgrowing their
origins and changing direction proudly. It’s remaking themselves as they grow
and as the world changes. It’s shifting their path to get somewhere based on
what you’ve learned along the way.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How are you making the rest of your life happy?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Unburden yourself of all those worries

It’s tempting to start heaping blame on yourself for past transgressions. 

Looking back at failed relationships and wondering how in the world you could have been so naïve and blind and foolish. Shaking your head in disbelief at your own behavior. 

But all of that is just a form of cutting. Beating yourself up with the shame stick. Borrowing suffering from your past and letting it destroy today. Making yourself pay for what you did wrong years ago. 

Don’t you recognize just how much damage this does to your spirit? 

The danger is, the moment you start acting resentful and regretful towards yourself, you block the path of love. You rob yourself of the joy of imperfection. Because expecting to always do the right thing, every time, puts far too much pressure on yourself. 



I’m reminded of an interview with one of my favorite novelists. Elizabeth shared an inspiring mantra for this very issue of acceptance and surrender:

Everyday has two miraculous moments, she said. There’s the moment you wake up and realize you’ve been given another chance, and there’s the moment you go to sleep and put it all behind you no matter what mistakes you made. 

And so, rather than judging past experiences, just be with what is. 

Make peace with yourself. Practice radical acceptance. Bless the past for what it taught it you. Focus on your excitement for what the future has in store for you. And trust that you’ve learned your lesson and won’t make the same mistakes again. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you wasting time throwing your line over the wall of the past to see what kind of guilt you can catch?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Showing compassion for my inevitable fallibilities

Accepting and loving and forgiving and being kind to ourselves isn’t a personal development exercise, it’s a sacred responsibility. And we must take it seriously. 



Because we can’t guarantee that anyone else will do it for us. We have to write our own ticket. Otherwise disappointment and bitterness awaits us. 



Dodinksy was right when he said, no amount of love from others is sufficient to fill the yearning that our soul requires from us. 



One area I’ve been working on is showing compassion for my inevitable fallibilities. Especially when it comes to habits and rituals and routines and practices. As disciplined as I typically am, I still have to remind myself, okay, I will attempt to live my life in this manner, but I will also attempt not to judge myself when I don’t. 



Because the reality is, I can only control the intention of the execution. Everything else I have to let go of. 



I’m reminded of an interview with a famous filmmaker who made a similar comment about the public release of his work. Spike said when he finished his last movie, he thought, okay, I’ve done everything I can do to give this as much love as I could give, and now it’s going to go off and be what it’s going to be. If it gets loved, I’ll be proud, and if it gets hated, I’ll hurt. But either way, I’ll still know that what I have done with my friends will never change. 



It’s a phlegmatic reminder our only weapon is our lack of expectation.



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How well do you extend compassion towards yourself? 

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

I want to make trying look cool

There’s no shame in being meticulous. 

Being organized doesn’t kill our creative urge and destroy our street cred and ruin our chances of making it as artists. 

Being apathetic, cynical, disaffected and too cool to care, does

If we want success to have a real chance at us, we have to puncture some our own pretensions. We have to shatter the myths that we’ve developed from watching television. And we have to embrace the fact that engaged, passionate, diligent and conscientious people do get ahead. 

Carlin was a hero of mine for many reasons, not the least of which was, his work ethic. I didn’t admire him because he was funny and edgy and provocative and high on cocaine, I admired him because he wrote twenty pages a day, every day, for fifty years. 

Nobody did that. Nobody. Because most people were too busy trying to look cool. 

George was busy making trying look cool. 

That’s why he was the greatest of all time. He cared. He tried. He was organized and meticulous and structured. That was his secret weapon. 

I’ll never forget watching one of his last interview before his death. Carlin told the audience, I’ve been blessed with some pretty deep files. And they couldn’t stop laughing. Not because he was doing material, but because he was meticulous about organizing it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Which of your artistic pretentions do you need to puncture?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Is this situation really as important as my anxiety says it is?

We all have to capacity to be scandalized by our own inner thoughts. 

Humans, after all, are suckers for their feelings. Our emotions are so completely convincing to us. And until we gain a greater understanding of our own mental operating system, we will be easily swayed by our own opinions. 

The challenge, then, is learning how to stand up to the internal thugs who try to derail our progress. Take anxiety. It’s an experience that contracts us into scarcity and tension. It makes us ruminate and overthink and catastrophize and focus on the immediate threat without considering the broader context. Which, in turn, leads to more anxiety. 

What a delightful mental loop to be trapped in. 

One tool I learned from hypnotherapy was called cognitive distancing. My shrink taught me to observe thoughts as moving data passing through my mind, rather than the objective truth about the situation. We’d visualize those thoughts as beautiful elements of nature, like passing clouds in the sky or a leaf gently falling from a tree and drifting downstream. 

And it worked. Objectifying my thoughts and feelings helped me realize that the situation wasn’t as important as my anxiety said it was. 

That’s the way out of anxiety. Not running from it, but walking around it. Seeing the whole picture for what it really is, rather than focusing too narrowly on the threatening aspects of the situation. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you allowing yourself to be scandalized by your own inner thoughts?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Shoot the one who manages the messenger

Most customer service, isn’t. 

It’s just a convincing facade of tenderness and compassion. A plausible facsimile of care. An insincere illusion of warmth expressed through repetitive, predictable and joyless pre approved scripts, performed over and over again. 

And it breaks my heart, but at the same time, can you blame them? Can you honestly fault the employees for having an apathetic attitude towards their company, their products and their customers? 



Of course not. They’re treated like crap. It’s the corporate version of bullying. The kids who beat up other kids are victims first. They’re passing on the pain inflicted upon them from their chaotic home life. It’s organizational transference at its cruelest. 

Proving, that customer service, like most things, starts at home. 

Years ago, I wrote a case study about a famous electronics company. After fifty profitable years in business, their brand finally began to experience significant market decline. Partly because of inventory issues, partly because of cultural shifts, but primarily because management didn’t treat their employees well. Team members were just cogs in the machine, pardon the pun.

No wonder annual workplace studies consistently reported them as the second worst company to work for in the country. 

That’s what we, as consumers, must recognize. Any time we have a horrific customer service experience, before shooting the messenger, we ought to have some compassion for the frontline and shoot the one who manages the messenger. 

Because that’s where the problem begins. 

Zappos famously created a workplace worth coming to, where employees were allowed to do what they love in an environment that wanted them to do it. They crafted a culture where people were cherished for what they contributed to the world. And as a result, that experience was transferred to their customers. Whose loyalty to the brand is beyond fanatical. 

Same process, different result. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What attitude are your employees passing on to your customers?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Always assume people are fighting a battle you know nothing about

When other people’s behavior does not support our identity, our instinct is to believe that they’re either wrong, crazy, or both. Our judgmental axe is always ready to fall. 

But we have to remember, it’s not about us. It’s rarely about us. In fact, if we knew just how infrequently other people’s behaviors ever had anything to do with us, we would be astonished. 

Because when somebody cuts us off in traffic or knocks our shoulder on the subway or lashes out in the middle of a crowded restaurant, odds are, it’s not a personal attack. To immediately assume so is a form of narcissism. 

And so, before we jump to judgment and start telling people how to live their lives, we should always assume people are fighting a battle that we know nothing about. We should always appreciate the fact that most of them are doing the best they can with the information they know to be true for them. And we should see people as they are, not as our filters would judge them. 

One question I’m learning to ask myself more and more as I get older is:

How is it possible that this person could think or behave in this way, and under what circumstances would it make perfect sense to do so?

This question helps deepen my empathy and compassion and understanding about the other person’s experience. Because it’s rooted in curiosity. It disrupts my own point of view. And it presumes that there might be something outside of my own experience that I don’t have eyes to see yet. 

Drop the storyline. It’s not about us. It’s rarely about us. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…How does your narcissism block your empathy?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

Mind your business, not theirs

Even when I’m watching people make foolhardy and potentially dangerous decisions, I resist the temptation to intervene and vomit my wisdom and experience all over them. 



Because that rarely improves the situation. Turns out, when you take responsibility away from people, you steal their choices. When you steal people’s choices, you rob them of the dignity of their own experience. And when you rob them of the dignity of their own experience, you take away their chance to claim success as their own. 



That’s where resentment grows. 



This attempt to teach can be perceived as a form of judgment and rejection. And meanwhile, you’re wondering why people aren’t receiving the gifts in the way that you want them to. 



One of my clients is the human resources director at a chain of hotels. She uses a powerful mantra with her employees, one that I practice when the value adding instinct starts to well up inside of me:



People don’t need solutions, they need space. 



And so, instead of leaping in to people’s lives to drop wisdom bombs like some kind of obsessive mental health superhero, I remember not to make a fuss. I remember to just let people transform themselves. Even if that results in an uncomfortable pause in the conversation, I try to accept what comes from silence, make the best I can of it and act in the service of what’s emerging. 



I mind my business, not theirs. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you committing the moral injustice of stealing people’s decisions?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

A life of compare is a life of despair

Comparing ourselves with others is a futile game with no winners. 

Because everybody’s working with a different path. And there are so many differences and nuances in people’s journeys, that to even begin to make an objective comparison is an exercise in futility. 

That’s like comparing apples to plywood. 

Besides, what’s going on in other people’s world in none of our business. It’s just an ego vortex that sucks us away from doing the real work on ourselves. Every moment we’re lost in somebody else’s orbit is a moment were not improving life on our own planet. 

I’m reminded of a colleague of mine, who spends an absurd amount of time doing competitive analysis. Studying rival websites and comparing prices and seeing how his work measures up against theirs. And every time he strategically briefs me about the marketplace competition, I want to smack him upside the head with a frying pan. Who. Cares. 

Instead of comparing, try creating. Go make something that brings value to the world instead of worrying what your competitors are doing. 

I’ve been in business for fifteen years, and I have no clue what the competition is up to. I don’t even know who my competition is. That’s not relevant data for my work. 

My job is to do my job, not monitor how well other people do their jobs. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you willing to set aside your envy, believe that you can be what you want and go make something happen?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. 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 2016-2017.

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

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