Integrity is overrated. 

None of us can fully live according to all of our beliefs, every moment of every day. Human beings are fundamentally flawed and inconsistent. 

And so, berating ourselves for lesser behaviors like judging and obsessing and quitting and settling isn’t helpful. Nor is hating ourselves for being caught in an identity that’s less than who we are. 

Just because we spend an afternoon applying for low paying, mediocre jobs that won’t light our soul on fire, doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly compromised our standards and violated our morals. 

And just because we spend a year of our lives temporarily buying into somebody else’s system of rules and rewards, doesn’t mean we’re treasonous, sell out hacks. 

It’s not a crime to have a crack in the foundation. There is no integrity police standing outside our door, battering ram in hand. 

The goal is to simply accept ourselves. To catch the goodness in ourselves. And to attempt to feel alive in all of our contradictions, without trying to put everything in a tidy little compartment. 

It’s actually quite liberating, letting go of the specter of integrity. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What’s your favorite way to beat yourself up?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Most people have no idea about their talents. 

They overestimate what they do well, and they underestimate their unexpected or unrealized gifts. And unless somebody holds up a mirror, their potential might go to waste. 

And so, as leaders, we’re obligated to witness human genius. To be stand for greatness. And to announce to people who we think they are. 

Because doing so might be the only way they’ll ever notice and nurture it. 

I have a friend who runs a fast growing tech startup. He hires new interns and employees every six months. And part of his approach to turning on the lights to people’s talents is simple. He doesn’t give them some pre approved human resources personality test, he just tells them the following: 

If everybody is surprised at how easy something comes to you, there’s something there. You should do something with that. 

Tom’s process is a deeply intuitive and experiential approach to getting the most out of his people. But it works. Because everyone has unconscious competencies. Everyone has a second nature skill set. 

But few people are seen for those gifts. 

Just imagine how much better the world could become if we took the time to open people’s eyes that. 

Remember, noticing, naming and nurturing people’s talent is a talent unto itself. 

Don’t let the gifted people around you wink in the dark any longer. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you treating people’s talent like a piece of meat or a pan of gold?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

It’s not the world’s job to supply us with gurus. 

We cannot wait quietly for the perfect mentor to arrive and guide us in the development of our craft. 

Life rarely reflects the tidy narrative arc of the hero’s journey, whereby we meet the seasoned traveler who gives us the supplies and knowledge and confidence required to overcome our fears and face the adventure. 

Truth is, if we want people to take a real interest in our aspirations and encourage our goals and dreams, the best thing we can do is start. Behave our way into being noticed. 

That’s how mentoring works. It’s not a sanctioned relationship, it’s somebody who sees something in you that somebody once saw in them. 

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a book that went viral before viral was viral. In a six month period, I did nearly two hundred of television, radio and newspaper interviews. 

But although I failed to convert any of that media attention into sales, I did receive emails from several people who would become lifelong mentors. And those relationships became more meaningful than a few thousand bucks I might have made on my website. 

Mentoring is like rock climbing. Footholds appear when we move our feet, not when we scream out for help. 

And so, if we want attract people to help us get to the next level, it’s our responsibility to take the first step. To have faith in our own abilities. And to seek mentoring opportunities through the attraction of working, not the arrogance of waiting. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What have you done in the last sixty days to make yourself more mentorable?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

I once had a heart to heart conversation with a colleague of mine, whose business volume wasn’t nearly at the level as he wanted it to be. 

And I could hear the fear in his voice. He even admitted, without the business, he didn’t know what he would do with himself. 

What artist can’t relate to that struggle? It’s a scary and vulnerable place to be. In fact, I’ve been there myself a few times myself. 

What’s interesting, though, is that the longer I stay in the game, and the more laps around the merry go round I make, the less pressure I feel to put all my creative eggs in one basket. 

And not because I lack commitment or don’t believe in my own abilities as an artist. But because I’m realistic about the future. I’m mature enough to accept that it could all be gone tomorrow. 

And if that’s the case, so be it. I’m a smart and talented guy. I’ll find something else. Everything will be fine. 

Benedict, the founder of western monasticism, the patron saint of balance, moderation and reasonableness, famously used a mantra that I’ve always appreciated. 

Keep death daily before your eyes, he admonished his monks. 

Meaning, never cling to anything too tightly. Don’t over identity. Learn to experience life with a reverence and awareness that it could all be whisked away on a moment’s notice. 

It’s the kind of philosophy more businesspeople should embrace. Because as much as we love the work, as passionate as we are about what we’re building, and as committed we are to doing whatever it takes to keep the dream alive, the healthiest attitude we could have is the willingness to walk away. 

And not in that alpha male, power negotiation, art of seduction, convey to your target that you’re the prize to be pursued kind of way. That’s all just macho bullshit. 

This philosophy isn’t about creating attraction, it’s about surrendering attachment. Giving yourself permission to walk away from something you thought you couldn’t live without. 

It’s all part of the mystery of how personal identity evolves. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Who are you, stripped of those things that tell you who you are?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

One of the great perils of
hiring yourself is, the job is interesting and exciting and all these
opportunities are rare and wonderful and hard to resist. 

And so, there’s a
tendency to work ourselves to destruction. Because the job lacks finite
boundaries. There are no managers or bosses telling us when to stop. 

It’s like
the dog who breaks into the pantry to gorge himself on the thirty pound bag of
kibble. He doesn’t know any better. There’s no governor on his appetite. And
so, he stuffs himself sick until he keels over on the kitchen floor, bloated
and panting. 

Humans work in surprisingly similar ways. The ego wants us to work
ourselves to the bone, since that process triggers feelings of strength,
commitment and duty. But as a result, we can become alienated by our own
success. 

When I was five years into my career as a writer, I had reached a
level of success I never could have dreamed of. The only problem was, I didn’t
have many people to share it with. I lacked a secure base. No centers of
belonging. I was working too many hours to make real, intimate friendships. 

This phenomenon happens to dreamers all the time. Ambition drives us forward,
relationships hold us back. 

And if we’re not careful, we might have to face the
prospect that we’re alone in the future we so ardently want to pursue.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you taking regular breaks from your dream to have intimate, sustained contact with important relationships?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Everyone wants to motivate themselves, but nobody wants to pace themselves. 

And that’s the problem. Our culture is so obsessed with peak performance and optimal behavior and taking massive action, that we overlook the importance of restraint and willpower and proportion. 

Instead of thinking long term, we’re just trying to milk more and more gratification from our environment. 

Consider the rookie entrepreneur, who enthusiastically plunges into yet another new project, not realizing that his ambition and intensity aren’t sustainable over the long haul. And three weeks into the journey, he’s completely spent. He’s blown his wad on the first lap. 

Not a sustainable business model. 

It’s similar to crash dieting. You do achieve the goal of losing weight quickly, but in the process, your metabolism plummets, muscle burns off, the sympathetic nervous system weakens and you act like a monster to the people you love. 

Again, not sustainable. 

If we feel exhausted, it’s probably because we’re fighting against ourselves. 

And so, we strike a balance between pushing ourselves and pacing ourselves. We create conditions for our own sustainable happiness, which include patience and proportion. 

Most of all, we trust that life is long, that our dreams are resilient, and that they will wait for us as long as they need to.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Is your overambitious and unrealistic timetable for your project’s completion going to burn you out?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Everyone
wants to build an environment around themselves that allows their greatness to
emerge with the least amount of opposition. 

But a dream without resistance is
just another experience. 

The pain is part and parcel of the journey. Conflict
and tension and struggle may very well be disruptive influences, but they’re
the only true sources of growth in this world. 

That’s why we must view
resistance as a natural process. As a sign that we’re on target with our dream.
As a force we learn to deal with directly and impersonally to keep moving the
story forward. 

One technique I find helpful is to putting words on the form of
resistance I’m currently encountering. Because I know that if I can name it, I
can claim it. 

Writing is the perfect example. When I sit down at my desk in the
morning and my radar picks up a bogey of discouragement or demotivation or
apathy, I call it out to myself. I witness that feeling as another clever
incarnation of resistance, not as a part of my identity. 

Sometimes I even smile
or laugh or nod my head in love and appreciation that it’s arrived. 

But more
often than not, those responses scare resistance into a corner. Because there’s
no fear for it to feed on. 

That’s how resistance works. It’s like the school
bully, who only has power to the extent that people are afraid of him. 

The
point is, there are as many journeys as there are people to take them. But the
one obstacle that they all have in common is resistance. Be ready for it.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What mysterious force do you need to name in order to give yourself more power?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Some people get a massive amount of the wrong things done. 

They’re majoring in minor activities, snared in the death grip of the non essential, fully convinced that productivity is the same thing as activity. 

It’s not. They’re just deluding themselves. 

I have an entrepreneur friend who spends one day a week working out of a coworking space. She says the peaceful and creative atmosphere allows her to be more productive. 

Which makes sense. Coworking spaces were invented for that very reason. 

The only problem is, all she does when she’s there is check email. She diligently sorts through hundreds and hundreds of messages, carefully responding to people’s requests at the speed of light, repeatedly activating the reward system in her brain, triggering genuine feelings of satisfaction through pseudo achievement. 

And at the end of the day, she closes her laptop, sits back in her chair, exhales loudly and says to herself, wow, I really got some work done today. 

No, she didn’t. She just confused productivity with activity. 

It’s the same reason video games are deeply addictive. Your brain responds to achievements and victories and progress within simulations as if they were real, tricking the reward system into believing that you’ve accomplished something. 

Congratulations. You just spend eleven straight hours accumulating riches and defeating goblins and unlocking levels and building an empire and collecting secret bonuses and ascending to the highest possible level of an imaginary world. 

That’s email. Or social media. Or whatever else gives you a false sense of accomplishment. 

It’s all bullshit. None of it counts. If you truly want to be productive, go make something that shows people how you see the world. 

Godin said it best:

Art is a human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you getting things done or getting in the mood for getting things done?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Art is a public record of my own becoming. 

Writing a book or recording and album or producing a movie are all ways of completing a certain cycle of my own learning and development, and then passing my findings onto others. 

Each creative project is a vehicle for cracking myself open and feeling emotions I have never let myself feel, and then sharing those feelings with the world. 

Therefore, the work is not skewed by the demands of the marketplace. It’s completely selfish. I measure the value of everything I create by the richness of the process, not by the final product. 

That’s the whole point of making things. It’s the person you become along the journey. 

As my mentor used to say, first you write the book, then the book writes you. 

The challenge is walking the fine line between what’s selfish and what’s sellable. Because we still have to pay the bills. We still have to earn enough money to underwrite our addictions and bankroll future creations. 

And unfortunately, there are no guarantees in art. We can’t assume that anyone else will give a shit about what we’ve made. 

And so, we have faith that this thing we work tirelessly to bring into existence will evoke an active resonance, not a dull thud. We trust that when people get into their hands, it will be worth it. 

Worth noticing, worth crossing the street for, worth standing in line for, worth taking a picture of, worth paying extra for, worth showing off, worth socializing around, worth sharing with others, worth coming back for and worth saving forever. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Is your work both selfish and sellable?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Being an individual who isn’t restricted by the machinery of society is a romantic and admirable and empowering notion. 

But only to the extent that the individual accepts the consequences of being true to himself. 

Independence, after all, is expensive. There’s are clear emotional and existential costs associated with choosing your own path. People who feel burdened by the pulsing energy and fierce need to be themselves exhaust easily. 

They rage against the injustice of the world, but often overlook how that rage might be ripping apart their system. 

Kony was a provocative political documentary that went viral within the first two weeks of its release. Russell’s film became the subject of intensive media scrutiny and criticism. 

But at the height of its popularity, the police detained the film’s director for psychiatric evaluation during a public breakdown that was filmed and released online. And that video went viral too. 

Russell was seen naked, hitting the ground, yelling and vandalizing cars. He was subsequently hospitalized for several weeks, with a preliminary diagnosis of something called brief reactive psychosis, which is acute state brought on by extreme exhaustion, stress and dehydration, as a result of the popularity of his movie. 

The point is, if you have an attitude set that is oppositional in nature, and if you’re a person whose spirit of opposition is ignited on a daily basis, make sure your emotional and existential foundation is robust enough handle the weight of success. 

Because being an individual doesn’t do you much good when you’re stuck in the hospital. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you prepared to pay the price for choosing your own path?

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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!