Here’s the interpersonal mistake most of us make. 

We treat people the way we think they deserve to be treated. 

When somebody is cold or rude or uncaring towards us, we vindictively decide that we’re going to teach them a lesson. We’re going to give people what’s best for them. We’re going to show them the light and help them see what we want them to see so they’re never in the dark again. Because we’re the chosen ones. 

But that’s not heroic, it’s myopic. It’s a projection of our own standards and expectations and values onto people. Assuming that we’re the final arbiters of people’s need. Forcing our will on the unsuspecting air molecules of people’s brains. 

When the reality is, it’s not up to us to determine how people deserve to be treated. 

Godin makes this point beautifully in his book about emotional labor. He reminds us:

Fire is hot, that’s what it does. If you get burned by it, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at the fire doesn’t do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson so it won’t be hot next time is certainly not time well spent. 

Proving, that it’s not our job to change what can’t be changed. It’s our job to see people as they are, not as we wish they would be. 

Remember, at the heart of all interpersonal frustrations is the collision of our wishes and other people’s unyielding realities. And so, instead of treating people the way we think they deserve to be treated, we should holster our fingers and treat people the way they say they need to be treated. 

Because until we shut up and listen, the vast majority of reality will always remain hidden from our view. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you still bristling with impatience toward those who don’t see things your way? 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!

Camus, the original gangster of absurdist philosophy, once said that all great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. 

He believed that true groundbreaking ideas were often born out of unknown and unsuspected venues, like a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door. And they arrived outside the frames of man’s plans and intentions. 

So small and so simple and so innocuous, that they didn’t even register as opportunities at first glance. 

That’s the beauty of the creative process. Each of us is dared to see just how far we can take even the smallest spark of innovation. Just how big of a forest we can populate from a single seed. 

And the most satisfying part of it all is, we ultimately get the chance to look back at the modest origins of our idea and think, oh my god, I had something to do with all of this insanity. 

The frustrating part is, innovation requires a long term willingness to be misunderstood. It takes firm intention to follow something irrational.

And so, for most of us, it will probably be a long time before what we do catches on. 

Meaning, we’ll need the patience to outlive the critics so we can still be around when the world is ready for us. And we’ll need the courage to follow our inner guide, even if we look like an idiot and risk alienating those who don’t understand. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Do you have the endurance to watch your great ideas grow into themselves?

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!

The average person knows what they should be doing. They know that they want to do it. 

But the problem is, they’ve already convinced themselves that they can’t. They’ve gone under hypnosis. 

And so, the only remaining route to real change is through tension. Because it possesses its own generative drive, which gives rise to an impetus to move toward a resolution. 

Louie’s comedy special perfectly summarizes his version of this tension as an overweight, middle aged man. He says: 

The meal isn’t over when I’m full, the meal is over when I hate myself. 

Which is a horribly unhealthy way to go through life. But most people are guilty of it. We’ve all finished dinner and sat back in our chairs and lifted our shirts to undo the top button of our pants, only to discover that it was already open. 

What’s interesting is, that little moment actually has the power to change everything. Because it contains positive tension. It creates an emotional dynamic that moves people forward. 

In this case of eating habits, it’s disgust, which is one of the few feelings in life that actually makes people say, okay, I’m ready. I feel more open to changing. 

And not to neglect the sense of compassion and acceptance and love and worthiness for ourselves, but sometimes we need to feel disgusted with our health or our career or our relationships or our station in life in order to create a real breakthrough. 

It reminds me of college. When I first arrived on campus, I didn’t like the people, didn’t like the parties, and I didn’t like the fact that every event centered around drugs and alcohol. 

And so, I chronically isolated myself. I went to class, went to the gym, and then hibernated in my dorm room until the day was done. Fun times. 

But after two years of that antisocial existence, I finally reached the point of disgust. Something had to change. 

That’s when I decided to start wearing a nametag. All day, every day. Just to see what happened. 

And it turned my entire world upside down. In the best possible way. 

The rest was history. 

That’s the power of positive tension. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you trying to rid your life of disgust, or trying to do something more creative with it?

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!

Nobody has a monopoly on joy. 

It hides everywhere. Often in plain sight. Following us like a shadow. 

Life is bursting at the seams with it, and each one of us has the ability to extract this most precious gift from the world, even from sources that were not intended for us at all. 

But we have to orient ourselves toward it. We need agency over it. We must point our hearts and bodies and brains in the direction of it. And that means allowing ourselves to spend real stretches of time tending to those innermost joys. 

Res severa verum gaudium, as the philosophy goes. True joy is a serious thing. 

I’ve been thinking about this more and more as I grow older. Because the face of the emotional behemoths life hurls at us, like death and loss and sadness and disappointment and suffering, few pursuits seem more pressing than tirelessly defending our capacity for, appreciation of, and ability to distribute joy. 

That experience, the one which accompanies the fulfilling of our highest nature as human beings, should be our genuine moral ambition. 

Otherwise the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish for becomes far too strong to overcome. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

When will you finally release your grip of control on life and just let the joy carry you? 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!

The most valuable skill is learning how to concentrate. 

Mastering the ability to lock in at a moment’s notice, anytime, anywhere, and get to work. 

That’s what you notice about high performers in almost every industry. They have control over their psychic environment. They take extreme responsibility for the energy they bring to the world. And they take little time to bring their brain up to operating temperature. 

That way, once they’re locked into concentration mode, they don’t ignore interruptions, they simply don’t hear them. They don’t swat off unproductive thoughts like fruit flies, they simply don’t have them. 

It’s the difference between having to avoid distraction, and being a constitutionally undistractable person. 

If you’re on a tight deadline and the rest of the team is counting on you and the competition is foaming at the mouth to knock you in the dirt, being a master of concentration is priceless. 

Philippe’s brilliant memoir on what he calls the perfect crime of creativity echoes this very sentiment:

Focus allows you to reach beyond your normal abilities. It cloaks your frequent intrusions into the domain of the impossible. But you must have a lifelong complicity with concentration. Otherwise the world cannot pour in freely. 

Do you have that level of control over your psychic environment? If not, here’s a helpful exercise to deepen your ability to concentrate. 

Consider one thing over which you’ve had a lifelong obsession. It might be a hobby, interest, passion, intellectual pursuit, or an extracurricular activity. And it doesn’t matter if it’s dopey or bizarre, as long as it always has the potential to galvanize you and never thwarts your pursuit of joy, it counts. 

That thing is your ticket to concentration. It’s incontrovertible proof that you already know how to focus. It’s simply a matter of deconstructing something you’ve done intuitively and abstractly for years, genericizing it, and then replicating it into other areas of life. 

The point is, perhaps your ability to concentrate is stronger than you realize. Perhaps you’re reaching for something that’s already inside of yourself. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Why argue with the voice of distraction when you can train yourself not to hear it?

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!

The further down the road people get in their commitment, they just buy the whole package. 

They fill in the blanks with their own biases. 

Because as that point, it’s not about the data, it’s about being consistent tribal members. Keeping the spirits happy, keeping the nest warm and showing allegiance to the clan. 

It doesn’t matter if we’re wrong, we’re together. Disaster is coming and we, the chosen ones, will come out on top. And anything that comes from the other team will be, by default, stupid. 

After all, false information need not be coherent to be effective. Even if we are walking down a tunnel, following the light, while everybody we pass tells us it’s the wrong way, we soldier on, frozen into our preexisting paradigm. 

I’m reminded of the final scene of my favorite horror movie. Goodman’s character concludes his deposition with the federal agents with the following speech:

My grandma on my mother’s side had these two dogs. Pure bloodhounds. Both came up the same litter. She kept them and gave the rest away to the neighbors. Both known each other since they had shit in their eyes. Neither one ever treated any better than the other one. Gentlest dogs you’d ever care to meet. 

Thanksgiving of my ninth year, these two old dogs are trailing me around, because they know the score. I’m a animal lover who never finishes his supper. And so, right before I get up from the table, I toss these two old timers a turkey leg attached to a hunk of cartilage. 

And it was like they’d never met. They went at each other so ferociously, all tooth and claw and jugular. They forgot everything and scrapped like that discard decided between their standing and dying. 

You know, people just do the strangest things when they believe they’re entitled. But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Do you believe what you believe because you were taught to believe it, or because you actually believe it? 

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 happiest days of my life was when a renowned peer reviewed physics journal conducted a scientific study that found there were too many scientific studies. 

This was not a joke. According to the researchers, the exponential growth in the number of papers was making it increasingly difficult for researchers to keep track of all the publications relevant to their work. 

They even coined a term for the phenomenon, attention decay. 

Scientists were being overwhelmed by too much science. 

Words cannot begin to describe the avalanche of joy that this story brings me. When it first came to my attention, I immediately started crying and hugging strangers. 

Sweet merciful mother of god, do I love it when humanity refills the deep wells of the absurd to the very brim. Because it reaffirms the most useful and underrated philosophy of life. 

For entertainment purposes only. 

We’re all familiar with that phrase. It’s usually attached to horoscopes, tabloids, psychic hotlines, fan fiction, reality television and other forms of satirical and absurdist media. Reminding audiences that this is just for show. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 

For entertainment purposes only. 

It’s a disclaimer. A denial. A refusal of reality. A rejection of responsibility. A defensive measure, used generally with the purpose of protecting corporate interests from unwanted legal claims or liability. 

What’s interesting is, it can also become liberating mantra for walking through this world. Especially in modern times. Because nobody knows what to believe anymore. Or who to believe. Or when to believe it. Or why it’s even worth believing in the first place. 

Facts have become obsolete, statistics have become punchlines and truths have become antiquities. 

But isn’t that extraordinary? Isn’t that just a miracle of modern society? We are profoundly lucky to be alive right now. It’s like we’ve been given free front row tickets to the greatest freak show in human history, except there’s no intermission, unlimited popcorn and everyone on the stage is naked. 

And I couldn’t be happier. 

Rand was onto something when she asked:

Why should any living creature exist in pain? By what conceivable right can anyone demand that a human being exist for anything other than his own joy? 

For entertainment purposes only. What a way to live. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How would your attitude change if you treated everything that happened as part of the show put on for your entertainment?

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!

Carlin’s nineteenth and final album, recorded four months before he passed on to the great comedy club in the sky, centered around a simple, circling chorus.

It’s all bullshit folks, and it’s bad for ya. 

That’s the one thing he hoped the audience would walk away with. A little asterisk in the back of their brains. A helpful reminder that most of the world is full of shit. 

Not necessarily dishonest or malicious or dangerous or manipulative, although that certainly exists too. Just full of shit. Stars of their own stories. Prisoners of their own mythologies. Managers of their own agendas. 

Meaning, they are going to do what they’re going to do and say what they’re going to say, as long as it serves their selfish purposes. 

It’s all bullshit folks, and it’s bad for ya. 

Of course, there’s a balance. A fine line between a healthy mistrust of humanity and outright paranoia. Because nobody wants to fear their own species. We’d prefer to think the best of people, to see everyone as good until proven otherwise, as innocent until proven guilty, in the hopes that our faith in humanity will encourage them to reveal their better selves. 

After all, it’s better to be occasionally disappointed than to walk around with our guard up, right? 

But then again, maybe it’s another example of our bottomless capacity to delude ourselves. Maybe it’s part and parcel of cruel hoax dangled before the hungry hearts of the naïve, and those willing to have a myopic view of the world in spite of being kicked in the teeth should see it coming. 

Perhaps the goal, then, isn’t to become cynical, but to remain aggressively skeptical. To keep our sense of doubt well nourished. And to befriend that little asterisk in the back of our brains. 

Otherwise we fail to become free of the defenses that keep us hidden from ourselves. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What do you see when you see people?

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 don’t finish things. 

They’re too blocked by perfection and procrastination and permission and fear and doubt and disappointment and unworthiness and distraction and guilt and apathy and whatever other form of resistance shows up to knock their projects off the rails.

Interestingly enough, the word finish derives from the term finire, which means, to set boundaries.

And maybe that’s the problem. People don’t finish things because they’re afraid to put constraints and limits around their work. 

I meet aspiring writers at least once a week. And every time they start talking about the new book they’re working on, I always ask them what their deadline is. 

But few, if any, have that specific date chambered. It’s more of an open ended project that may or may not get done, possibly eventually someday maybe. 

And that’s fine. I’m not the deadline police. It’s not my job to be every author’s unpaid career coach. 

But it’s too bad to see people standing at the gates of their own dreams, unwilling to believe they’re special enough to push their ideas deeper into the world. 

Call it producerism, call it indoctrination into the cultural falsehood that every human has something unique and urgent to express. But why else are we here? 

At the heart of what it means to be a person is the act of dreaming, doing and finishing. Coming alive through the pursuit of our ideas. 

And the punchline is, it’s not the result of extraordinary effort and overwhelming talent, it’s simply habitual attention. 

Action is not heroics, but small practical things that come together to achieve effectiveness. Chipping away. A million tiny decisions we make everyday for years. 

Until magically, on day, we finish. And move onto the next one. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you equipped to handle the demands of executing?

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!

The auditioning process can be an exercise in humiliation. 

Sitting in a cold waiting room with seventeen people who look exactly like you, overhearing demoralizing conversations between casting directors and network executives, panicking over making your looks and lines perfect, running scenes with idiot readers who have the emotional range of a teaspoon, driving home with a migraine and then binge eating ice cream until you hate yourself…

It’s not the vision of show business most actors have. 

On the other hand, going to auditions doesn’t have to be another chance to get rejected. It could also be a moment to act. An opportunity to perform your art and practice your craft in front of a captive audience. A chance to start doing the job before you’re even hired. It depends on your intention. 

Patterson is the bestselling novelist in the history of modern fiction. But before he had two hundred and thirty million copies under his belt, he regularly submitted short stories to literary magazines. 

And every one of them was rejected. Hundreds of pieces that he poured his heart into, thrown back in his face. 

James, however, maintained a healthy mindset about the journey. He told the students in his masterclass, it didn’t get published, but still part of the process. 

That’s good advice for any profession. Because eighty percent of the time, whether you’re auditioning or interviewing or submitting or pitching, you’re probably not going to get the gig. You have zero control over that. 

But if it’s really your passion that you’re following, you’ll find enormous satisfaction and fulfillment from simply trying. You’ll attempt things because in the process of doing them, you’re guaranteeing that your life is a success as you define success. 

Being in the results business is highly overrated. 

Measure the work by your dedication to the path, not what you produce. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you measuring the value of everything by the final product, or by the richness of the process?
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!