Each one of us has a thief inside of
our heads, threatening to steal away our joy. 

And it’s our responsibility to
turn our backs on it, starve it of oxygen and let it die on its own. 

Otherwise
it won’t stop until it sucks us in and drags us down into the darkness. ‘

The
problem is, this is an unnatural process for which we have limited tools and
training. We have fewer skills than our psychological environment demands. And
nobody teaches us how to physically step out of our mental nightmare and into
the real world. 

They do, however, model
it. Because regardless of where we live, everywhere we look, there are
individuals consciously pursuing joy. All we have to do is watch and learn. To
notice the absence of expectation and judgment and justification in people’s
joyful behaviors, and then honestly ask ourselves what were doing the last time
we felt the same way. 

The world is a mirror. And it’s our best defense against
the thief. 

Look, I know we’re supposed to shit ourselves with fear, but the
reality is, life is just so goddamned wonderful, we won’t even believe it. 

And
the best part is, there are a thousand names for joy. And each person has the
equipment to shout those names from the rooftop. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Is there really something wrong with you, or are you just a little joy insufficient? 
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!

Clooney was right. 

It’s a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart. 

Man has the infinite capacity to prioritize feelings above facts. 

And so, attempting to blow intellectual holes in somebody’s philosophy is counterproductive. Because their attachment is emotional. They believe what they believe because of a story, not a statistic. 

Meanwhile, we’re arguing with them as if facts matter. They don’t. Not to a person whose faith has zero room for the realities of life. Not to a person who forms their personal philosophy on potent forces not subjective to the pressure of evidence. 

That’s all a belief system is. A way of perceiving the world that prevents people from testing the validity of that belief. And that can be dangerous. 

Rufus, the unmentioned thirteenth apostle, put it perfectly:

It’s better to have ideas than beliefs. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive, and working from idea to idea permits that. But beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth, new ideas can’t generate, and life becomes stagnant. 

It’s a divine invitation for each of us conquer our need to conquer the world. To call a cease fire on trying to change and save and rescue people from their beliefs. 

And instead, do the work to keep our own minds malleable. To press the refresh button of life, update the story we tell ourselves, risk changing and admitting we were wrong, rebuild our understanding of the world as we evolve and breathe new life into our brains. 

Remember, a mature mind can entertain any idea. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you examining your own ideas, beliefs and practices as rigorously as those of others?

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 our goals in life is to make ourselves proud. 

To experience the euphoric satisfaction from having lived up to our expectations for ourselves. 

And the good news is, that feeling isn’t limited solely to the external accomplishments we’ve been told are worth celebrating. 

There are also internal victories that induce just as much satisfaction. 

Along my own emotional and existential journey, for example, I find it exhilarating to watch myself rake out my tool kit and predictably pop myself out of a state of imbalance and into a state of equilibrium. 

Anytime I employ my capacity to process daily life, to accept my emotional state without condemning it, to spontaneously soothe and comfort myself internally, to create safety for myself right away, to meet the stresses of the day and make small but important adjustments to survive and thrive, that’s a victory. 

That’s a genuine achievement that’s worth taking pride in. 

Even if nobody sees it but me. 

You take your momentum and confidence where you can get it. You do what it takes to give yourself a psychological pat on the back, saturate your consciousness with victory and instill a greater sense of agency.  

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What accomplishments would make you feel better about yourself today?
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!

Here’s a pen, and here’s a pad of paper. 

Separately, they have limited value. 

But once you learn to put that pen to the paper, and fill it with something original, that’s significantly more valuable than the individual parts. 

Because it’s idea creation. And the idea is the great umbrella of all employment. 

Hell, the idea doesn’t even have to be good. It just has to exist. 

That’s your leverage and competitive advantage. You created something, something that wasn’t there before, and the other guy didn’t. You facilitated what physicists call emergence, meaning, the process of things coming alive when their elements are integrated into one another. 

That’s the difference maker between success and failure. It’s where your efforts land on the following continuum. 

Consume.

Comment.

Collect.

Curate.

Create. 

Only one requires the impulse to originate. Only one requires the emotional labor of courage and vulnerability and honesty. Only one requires the foolishness to put your whole heart on show and reveal your feelings to the crowds below. 

But that’s exactly why the level of satisfaction is the highest. Because you combined pen and paper to create something that didn’t exist before you came along. 

When I published my hard cover, full color, oversized coffee table book that functioned as one third art piece, one third motivational masterclass and one third dream journal, I was so ecstatic it hurt when I pee. 

In fact, I even took the book for a walk around the park, just to see how it looked in the sunlight. 

It was goddamn gorgeous. Because I made it. From nothing. From the ideas inside my head. And now it exists in the world. It’s a real thing that I can hand to somebody. And nobody can take that away from me. 

But had I spent all my time consuming, commenting, collecting or curating other people’s art, that glorious feeling of satisfaction never would have been available.

 
LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

What did you write today?

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!

Epictetus once said that human beings have two ears and one mouth so they can listen twice as much as they speak.

It’s a corny sentiment, but it’s also an effective strategy. 

And this is coming from a professional performer and extrovert who loves talking to people, cherishes an engaging conversation and feels completely comfortable interacting with almost anybody. 

But still, I never enjoyed talking just for the sake of talking. I’m not compulsively sociable. Despite the fact that I’ve been wearing a nametag twenty four seven for the past seventeen years, I still subscribe to the old saying, don’t break the silence if you can’t improve upon it. 

That’s why I don’t think of myself as chatty. More like, listeny, to coin a phrase. I find it deeply pleasurable to stand back, soak it in and allow the stimuli of the world to wash over me. 

Especially if I get to take notes about the interesting things that I observe and add them to my idea inventory. 

That, to me, is the juice of life. Breathing it all in. 

Clinton famously said that he never inhaled, but in my experience, that’s where I learn the most. On the inhale. Exhaling may be gratifying to the ego and a necessary component of the communication process. But in the pie chart of human interaction, I aim to make listening the largest slice. 

To use my ears twice as much as my mouth. 

And to communicate to other than listening is a priority in my life.  

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you known as somebody who monopolizes the listening or monopolizes the talking?
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!

Goldthwaite famously said that we should keep quitting until we end up some place where we don’t want to leave. 

It’s a brilliant, albeit bruising approach to the dreaming process. 

But it also implies a key question. How do you decide when it’s time to let go, and when it’s time to dig deeper to keep your dream alive? 

Nobody knows. Because nobody talks about it. This country doesn’t take kindly to quitters. That would be unamaerican. Round these parts, giving up ain’t an option. 

Which is an inspiring slogan for bumper stickers and billboards. The only problem is, if knowing when to give up on a dream and try something else isn’t a subject that our culture is comfortable with, people will never learn how to quit intelligently. 

I’ve quit dozens of things in my life, from teams to universities to jobs to relationships. But although each experience was unique to its own time and place, the missing link was always desire. 

I had lost the ganas, to invoke the legendary math teacher. And that’s not an insignificant thing. 

Desire is the one ingredient that allows us to withstand the pain and doubt of the process. Desire is what fuels hope and ignites the soul, even in the face of the rejection, ridicule, and indifference with which the world often greets our dreams. 

History has proven this a thousand times over. When our desire has no bounds, when we want it more than anybody and will do whatever it takes to make it happen, not even gravity can stop us. 

However, if our desire has atrophied into obligation, if it’s feeling harder and harder to even care anymore, it’s like multiplying by zero. No matter how big that number is. Because anything multiplied by zero is still zero. 

And so, that’s when we should quit. When the desire is gone. We should move on because there is not enough glue left to keep us motivated to make it through the many challenges and disappointments we will have to face. 

That way, we can forgive ourselves for our failures, find the next stone on the path and keep moving the story forward until we land somewhere that we don’t want to leave. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How do you decide when it’s time to let go, and when it’s time to dig deeper to keep your dream alive?

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!

There’s no need to panic at the thought of our own weaknesses. 

They’re worth making friends with. 

In fact, once we know what they are, and once we’re willing to face them head on, these weaknesses can actually become strengths. 

During the second world war, a small population of aerial observers were specifically recruited because they were colorblind. Turns out, their condition made them unable to distinguish military equipment that was designed for normal eyes, such as camouflage. 

And so, thanks to their disability, their impairment of vision, their eyes were never fooled. All they could see was the thing itself. Which made them an invaluable asset to the organization. 

It’s an interesting paradox, considering we live in such a macho man, alpha dog, winning is everything, only the strong survive culture. 

We back away from any expression of vulnerability. 

We overlook the value of our own weaknesses, assuming they’re best discounted, delegated or deleted; and not located, loved and leveraged. 

But the secret is, this weakness, this vulnerability, can actually become our strongest weapon. It’s simply a matter of mindset. Mental framing. It’s the story we tell ourselves about our own limitations. 

Limitations are the doorways to our deepest value. They’re always worth making friends with. 

And the best part is, endorsing our own weakness establishes our acceptance of the imperfect humanness of others. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

How might you take what should have held you back and use it to move forward?
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!

Humans first developed the ability to feel anxious because it was evolutionarily advantageous. 

Butterflies in the stomach helped protect the tribe from incoming predators. 

But that was a million years ago. The modern day problem with anxiety is, it makes our minds contract. It seduces us into focusing on the immediate threat without considering the broader context of our lives. 

We allow one bad mood, one fruitless moment or one small mistake to occlude our view from the totality of our humanity. 

This diminishes our sense of progress. It murders our momentum. The thief of the mind robs us of the abundance of the full spectrum of life’s rewards. 

I have tons of these bonehead moments. When my sense of competency and success and happiness are suddenly erased. And it’s deeply deflating. 

But what I’ve learned to do is throw myself am emotional lifeline. To look back on past victories and reinforce the belief that I’ve already made significant progress. 

For example, I keep my list of goals for the year in my pocket at all times. Because no matter how anxious I’m feeling, I can always take it out and remind myself that, in the long run, my successes dramatically outweigh my failures. That this little situation is not as important as my anxiety says it is. 

And so, next time you feel a lion charging, contextualize whatever ails you within the larger ecosystem of life. 

You’ll discover that this one negative moment is but a momentary blip on the beautiful radar of your journey.

LET ME ASK YA THIS… 

Are you focusing too narrowly on the threatening aspects of the situation, rather than seeing the whole picture?

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!