I’ve always had a strong opportunity agenda. 

My second order imagination, which is the inherent enterprise to notice creative openings, apply force and propel them into interesting directions, is one of my greatest strengths. 

But as the ancient warriors remind us, every strength has its corresponding weakness. What we’re good at, we’re bad at. 

That’s why I allow myself to get animated by new opportunities, but I’m careful not to get attached to what they mean for my future. 

Because I know me. I fall hard. I get stars in my eyes. I am a love addict. I have a classic case of commitment mania. Ever since I was young, the minute somebody shows interest, the moment I sniff out the mythical promise of opportunity, my hyperactive imagination adamantly refuses to see anything but the potential, rather than what is. 

In that first kiss, I see a vision of my future. And in the fantasy world I create inside my head, there’s nothing to puncture the illusion that this new opportunity will save me. There’s nothing to confront my illusions about what will set me free. 

It’s such a delicate balance. Walking the fine line between optimism and delusion. Adjusting the scale of expectation. Giving myself permission to provoke joy, but not to the point that I set myself up for disappointment. 

I’m reminded of a recent conversation I had with a television actress friend of mine. She has written dozens of screenplays, pilots and spec scripts for various media networks. And although producers showed interest and took meetings and held auditions, alas, not a single one of them was green lighted. 

It’s just how the industry works. There are no guarantees. No matter how promising and flattering your project opportunity looks, odds are, it will never see the light of day. 

It’s not cynicism, it’s just reality. So many things in life just go away. 

And we need to prepare ourselves for that. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you dropping your own expectations of what you want this opportunity to be for 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!

Spielberg is number one on a database called the numbers bankability index. 

If you’re not familiar with this system, it’s a service that helps assess the value that different individuals bring to the film industry, from actors to directors to screenwriters to producers to shooters to anyone else involved in the creative process of making a movie. 

Of course, the list isn’t perfect. The algorithm has limitations. And there are certain subjective and contextual details of people that can’t always be accounted for. 

But as a whole, it’s a fascinating concept. Because it’s a quantified answer to the critical questions:

How bankable is this person? What’s the return on investment of hiring this person? And what will be the impact of organization’s ownership of their value? 

And so, next time you’re vying for a new project, promotion or position, forget about your resume. Stop grasping at what worked in the past. 

Focus on how your work will affect the bottom line. Calculate the value of your achievements. Make an infographic if you have to. 

Whatever it takes to connect what you do to the wallet of the organization. 

Because it’s not who you know, it’s what you can get them. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How are you evaluating and presenting your work as having increased profits, saved time or decreased expenses?

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!

Just because we believe religion is an inherently implausible theological insurance scam the masses have been brainwashed into believing, and that organized faiths are corporate rackets conducted by parasites who fleece the gullible, doesn’t mean there isn’t inherent value in the core idea.

Because the reality is, if we can’t have religion, there are still profound absences in life that we have to fill somewhere else. Universal human needs like belonging, community, ritual, empathy, making meaning, connecting to nature and the satisfaction of existential longing, these things don’t just magically disappear the moment we decide that there isn’t an invisible bearded man in the sky. 

The world’s religions are packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. 

DeBotton’s research on the dangers of aggressive atheism helped mature my thinking on this topic. His theory is that we don’t need a central structure. That we are beyond the age of gurus and inspirational leaders. And so, it’s up to all of us to look at religion and see what bits we can steal and place into the modern world. 

The choice, he writes, isn’t between religion and the secular world; the challenge is to learn from religions so we can fill the secular world with replacements for the things we long ago made up religion to provide. To balance the rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts. 

Isn’t that liberating? Isn’t it a relief to know that there is a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content? 

It’s the difference between reading a holy book literally, and reading it literately. 

One is subscribing, the other is merely engaging. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

When was the last time you laid aside your own views and values in order to enter another’s spiritual world without prejudice?

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!

Buddha once said that holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else, and then you’re the one who gets burned. 

That’s a hot tip. And the key phrase, of course, is holding on. Because anger is one of those emotions that’s best invested, not ingested. 

The challenge, then, is learning to unclench our fists. Allowing anger to serve as a roadmap to our real feelings. 

In my experience, for example, anger is a signal that my boundaries have been trespassed upon. That somebody has crossed the line. That a violation or a betrayal has occurred, either self inflicted or otherwise. 

And so, when my face feels like it can heat soup, and when my toes start to curl up under my desk, I view it as invitation to take action on my own behalf. To spell out precisely what the boundary violation might have been, and how to be an advocate for those needs in the future. 

Why did this phone call make me so angry? What cherished part of me did this person just offend? And what deeply held values were called into question here? 

These questions help me let go of the hot coal and light the way to understanding. They also provide me with massive ammunition to make new art. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How many of your angry moods are you wasting?

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!

Yeager once
said there was a demon that lived
in the air. 

And that whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would
freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly and they would disintegrate. The
demon lived where the air could no longer move out of the way, behind a barrier
through which they said no man could ever pass. 

It was called the sound
barrier. 

No wonder that movie won so many awards. 

All drama aside, though,
here’s how the physics actually works. Once the plane cruises from subsonic to
supersonic velocities, a white cloud of chaotic air molecules known as a vapor
cone forms around the aircraft. 

And that moment generates a sonic boom at
more than two hundred decibels, which, by way of comparison, is about fifty
percent louder than a shotgun blast. 

The right stuff, indeed. 

What’s
interesting, though, is how pilots describe it. Because when their aircraft
approaches the sound barrier, everything in the cockpit starts to rattle and
shake and seem impossible.  

Which is a terrifying moment. But once the plane
pushes through the threshold and everything suddenly feels so smooth on the
other side, they look back and wonder what all the disturbance was. 

It’s the
perfect analogy for our dreams. We burn ourselves for an impossible vision,
working and fighting and persisting against the gravitational pull of whatever
demon stands in our way. 

And although that demon fights to tear every chance we
want away from us, we keep pushing, accepting the resistance as a natural
process and a sign that we’re on target, trusting that the world belongs to those
who resist, and those who persist. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What awaits you on the other side of your personal sound barrier?

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’ve written three dozen books books, and there isn’t a single one of them that doesn’t have at least one typo. 

Not because I have incompetent editors or negligent designers. Not because I’m playing a game to see if my readers can find them. Not because I’m leaving an imperfect stitch in the rug as a crack where the light comes in. 

But because editing is redundant, expensive, labor intensive and frankly, not noticeable in the final product anyway. And in my creative work, I’m aiming for volume, not perfection. 

My goal is to tell the truth and move on, not drudge over proper grammar and correct structure and effective persuasion.

That’s just how I’m wired. I’m not the kind of person who romanticizes the misery of racking his brain for just the right word, just the right turn of phrase, just the right hint of nuance. 

The idea of spending an hour toiling over the perfect sentence to make my art fifteen percent better makes my stomach hurt. 

It doesn’t matter. Detail work is for the birds. 

Goldberg’s book on living the writer’s life puts it perfectly:

Most people live in the realm of second thoughts, third thoughts and thoughts on thoughts, rather than in the realm of first thoughts. But if we want to build an effective writing practice, we shouldn’t think. We should stay with the first flash. It’s more honest. First thoughts, best thoughts. Every iteration after that is simply a watered down translation that shaves away another millimeter of genuine thought, another edge of reality that would have made your work come alive.

If you’re still stuck on the seventh draft, you’re not editing, you’re hiding. You’re lying. To yourself and everyone who reads your work. 

Let’s stop pretending you’re committing an act of virtue here. 

Enough patting yourself on the back for how meticulous and detail oriented you are. It’s good enough. Stop tilling the same earth. Put your red pen away. Ship it today. And move onto the next one tomorrow. 

Because life’s far too interesting to edit yourself. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you living in the realm of third, second or first 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 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

The Nametag Guy in action here!

Doubt is an unavoidable feature of the human landscape. 

It’s a sign that our faith has a pulse. 

And so, the secret in executing anything is having that default move chambered and ready to go. That way, when the doubt comes crashing in, we don’t have to think or ponder or choose. 

We simply engage our core. We take action on a foundational activity that calibrates the experience and gets us moving in the right direction. 

If you read enlisted military leader guidebooks, for example, you learn that the hand salute is a formal sign of courtesy between soldiers. But in many situations, soldiers will notice an approaching soldier in uniform, but be uncertain of their rank. 

And nobody wants to feel embarrassment because they forgot to salute somebody who was strictly entitled to it. 

Therefore, here’s the rule when soldiers are in six paces of each other:

When in doubt, whip it out. 

Salute anyway. Better to be on the safe side then to ignore and therefore dishonor a potential officer. Good morning, sir. 

What’s your version of engaging the core? How might you customize the following mantra for your own purposes:

When in doubt, blank. 

Figure that equation out, and you’ll be able to execute a foundational activity that gets things moving in the right direction. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What default move helps overcome your feelings of doubt?
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!

What I love about playing music is, virtuosity isn’t necessarily relevant for getting what you want across. 

Because a song is something that’s felt long before it’s heard and seen and touched and understood and evaluated. 

And so, whether your music is bad or average or good or great or even amazing, isn’t the point. Because emotion trumps talent. Feeling arrives at the scene first, before the audience has a chance to engage their intellect. 

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that just a barrage of heaven being unleashed on earth? 

What a glorious relief. The knowledge that being virtuous is profoundly overrated. 

Now you can just focus on being honest, not being good. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What’s the minimum amount of artistic relevance for getting what you want across? 
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!

When we’re in school, we don’t take boring classes like organic chemistry and applied trigonometry and advanced isotope geology because that knowledge will serve us later in life. 

We take them to master the habit of doing things we don’t want to do.

That’s the real education. Because once we graduate, eighty percent of life is just that. Waiting in line and sucking it up and powering through and passing the time and walking into boring moments and making it out alive. 

All the while thinking to ourselves, this is it, this is life, this is as good as it gets. 

The secret is reconciliation. Rationalization. Finding satisfaction in small compensations for your suffering. 

When I was working as a copywriter for an innovation company, most days I could knock out my entire task list by lunch. Which left me six hours a day with nothing to do. 

But instead of complaining or cutting out early or pretending look busy or falling down the viral video rabbit hole, I gave myself a project instead. An idea log. An ongoing inventory of fun and quirky and fantastical inventions, that solved real problems in the world, but had zero likelihood of actualizing in the marketplace. 

It was challenging, interesting, creative and most importantly, passed the time. It made the task of sitting at a desk all afternoon not so bad. What’s more, it supplied me with tons of new material for blogs and books and client projects. 

That’s reconciliation. Finding satisfaction in small compensations for your suffering. 

Accepting that this is it, this is life, and this is as good as it gets. 

Might as well make the most out of it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What if that thing you don’t want to do was precisely what made you so valuable? 

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 have a friend who, god bless him, always goes out of his way to show me a bigger picture of myself than I am willing to see. 

He opens to the complete possibility of what might be. 

And although I’m not always in the right headspace to confront and embrace that picture, his effort never goes unappreciated. Because as I learned from bestselling architecture book of all time:

It’s better to believe in people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance, than to see them as they are and accept it because it makes them comfortable. 

Our job, then, as friends and coworkers and lovers and encouragers, is to wipe out people’s resentment and confusion about their place in the world. To remind them that they’re overlooking the heights of their greatness and their ability to create their life exactly the way they want to create it. 

That’s what leaders do. They give people a front row seat to their own brilliance. They help others put aside their humility for a moment and think to themselves, wow, maybe I’m bigger than I thought. 

That’s one hell of a gift to give to someone. Even if they don’t believe they deserve it. Even if they don’t want to unwrap it. 

Deep down, they’re still grateful for the exchange. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you helping people see how amazing their wings look in this light?

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!