If you’re hard to classify, we can’t count on you to repeat yourself

I’ve applied for thousands of jobs in hundreds of different industries, and there isn’t a single organization that isn’t claiming to be looking for a:

Risk taking, entrepreneurial minded, independent thinking, passionately curious, highly creative change agent to challenge the status quo and disrupt the industry forever. 

Of course, the first moment an unconventional resume lands on the human resources desk, all of that posturing goes out the window. 

Because the ultimate goal of the organization is to subjugate people’s creativity and drive employees to be transactional. The individual is the instrument, not the purpose. 

Companies aren’t in the business of helping people manifest their deepest potential. They don’t actually want anything new or different. And it’s certainly not in their best interest to encourage innovation. 

Parkinson’s provocative article about the paradox of business strategy said it best:

Companies know they have to deal with innovation, but they don’t actually want to encourage it. What they value is managed evolution. Homeostasis with incremental change for the better. 

And so, job applications are just one of the many examples of companies paying lip service to the idea of creativity, while secretly wanting employees to show up, shut up and do their jobs. 

I have a friend who used to work for a major record label. And their policy for signing new artists was:

You better know your genre, because if you’re hard to classify, we can’t count on you to repeat yourself. 

It’s a perfect microcosm for how modern business works. 

Which isn’t to say you should give up on your passion for innovative ideas. 

But don’t knock yourself out trying to let the organization know about it. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Is your position as a creative visionary working to your disadvantage? 
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!


Interfering from the unfolding of life

From an etymological position, the word neurosis derives from the words that mean abnormal condition of the
neurons. 

From a clinical standpoint, the word neurosis is defined as a relatively mild mental
illness involving irrational stress, anxiety, obsessive behavior. 

But it’s the
existential point of view that resonates with me most, which suggests that
neuroses are nothing more than our anxious attempts to prevent life from
happening. 

The blocking of the forward momentum of action. Our stubborn
insistences on controlling the future, even when there is zero hope of altering
reality. 

After all, the human brain is an anticipation machine. How dare things
not work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan? 

But before we shake
our hands to the sky and proclaim that the natural laws of the world do not
apply to us, we might consider the wisdom of history’s great thinkers. 

Buckminster said that nature has its own tempo and flow of which we are only a
small part. 

Graves said that nature does not depend on us because we are not
the only experiment. 

Hendricks said that nature is engaged in an infinite
process of creation. 

Kelly said that the rose blooms without our approval and
dies without our consent. 

Dostoyevsky said that nature doesn’t ask our advice,
and she isn’t interested in our preferences or whether or not we approve of her
laws, and so, we must accept nature as she is with all the consequences that
she implies. 

And so, if we are to keep neurosis at bay, we need more skills for
coping with what we cannot change. 

Seligman’s research on human flourishing
suggests that the knowledge of the difference between what we can change and
what we must accept in ourselves is the beginning of real change. 

And he
encourages patients to ask themselves the following cognitive reframing
question to help deepen that knowledge:



Is what you are anxious about out of
proportion to the reality of the danger you fear? 

If you’re wired like me, and
your racing brain interferes with your ability to maintain calmness, this tool
is a simple and effective way to interrupt the avalanche of neuroses and take
change of your own thoughts. 

It helps you stay present to life with its full
range of safety and danger and its full potential for good an evil. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you ready for the grief of relinquishing a romantic fantasy in the face of a disenchanting reality? 
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!


You will always see something else to desire

Why do we spend our lives searching for things we don’t have? 

Because we have this persistent belief that once we reach a certain destination, we will finally be happy. 

And the danger is, with our eyes fixed on the beguiling mirage, we deny ourselves the joys of the immediacy of the unpostponed life. We outrun our own souls chasing after some imagined future, only to tumble farther down a bottomless pit that leads to more desire. 

But it’s an infinite regression. A hedonic spiral. An existential snake eating its own tail. 

It’s one thing to take genuine pleasure in obtaining the things we want without guilt of afterthought, it’s another thing to convince ourselves that we couldn’t possibly be happy without it. 

Recently I was listened to an intriguing conversation between two medical professionals. The first was a physician who specialized in addiction medicine, and the other was family therapist who specialized in eating disorders and trauma. But both of them agreed on one thing.

If people want to take charge of their own thoughts, they have to interrupt the worry stream with wonder. They have to ask themselves pointed and truthful questions. 

Here’s my favorite example. 

Is this thing going to fuel me to better health, or is it going to fuel the idea that I’m not good enough

What a brilliant provocation to help us escape the hedonic hamster wheel. Because the reality is, we will always see something else to desire. 

But if we become so mired in stress that we forgot how great we could feel, it’s not worth it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you succumbing to the overwhelming sense of urgency that you are one purchase away from happiness?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!


Not everything has a finish line

Our culture is preoccupied with the drama of succeeding and failing. 

People are constantly setting up binary worlds that allow each other to think in purely win and lose terms. That’s why we’re told over and over that failure isn’t an option. That if we fail when nobody’s looking, it’s not really a failure. That if there isn’t an opportunity for failure, it’s not innovative. And that if we fail and life goes back to normal, our story wasn’t worth telling. 

Krishnamurti famously said that if you are on the right path for you, you will not think in terms of succeeding or failing. It’s only when people don’t really love what they’re doing that they think in those terms. 

Another endeavor that pressures people to preoccupy themselves with success or failure is the creative process.

There’s no succeeding or failing, there’s just where you are and where you want to go. 

Besides, since when did it become possible to fail at expression yourself? 

That’s the whole point. You can do whatever the hell you want. Once you’ve created something, there is no failure because you now own something that nobody can take away from you, which is the person you became by making it. 

Fuck the finish line. Just enjoy practicing.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

How does your preoccupation with the drama of succeeding and failing affect your performance?

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!


Shrinking into a little ball

Nolan’s award winning film about subconscious espionage opens with the following line. 

What is the most resilient parasite? Not a bacteria, virus or an intestinal worm. But an idea. Resilient and highly contagious. Because once an idea has taken hold in the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate. A person can cover it up and ignore it, but it stays there. Information may be forgotten, but an idea, fully formed and understood, that sticks. It’s in there somewhere. 

The challenge, so many of our ideas never it make it that far. They stay locked inside our own heads. Because we’re far too busy trying to be experts. We’re terrified of feeling foolish and looking stupid, unable to cope with the vulnerability and humility of sharing an untested vision. 

And so, when the team meeting comes to an end and the boss looks around the room, instead of raising our hands and asking tough questions and daring to deploy an opinion, we shrink into a little ball and hope no one notices us. 

Intellectual contagion? Not so much. 

I have a friend who used to run an educational software company. And every time he would onboard a new programmer, his promise to them was, if you don’t have a significant failure in the first ninety days, you’ll be fired in front of the entire company. 

Which scared the holy bojangles out of the employees, but also motivated and inspired them to take intellectual risks. And enabled the company to launch a series of software products that changed the industry forever. 

Proving, that true originality demands the willingness to experiment, the curiosity to find interesting ways to fail, and the courage create something worth being criticized. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

If your perception of and response to failure were changed, what ideas might you attempt? 
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!


Treat failure as a tool, not an outcome

Adams once attributed his success as a world famous cartoonist to his volume of failures. 

He said that the world is like a reverse casino. Because in a casino, if you gamble long enough, you’re certainly going to lose. But in the real world, where the only thing you’re gambling is your time and embarrassment, then the more stuff you do, the more you give success a chance to find you. But if you only do one thing and stop, you haven’t played long enough to win. 

Deniro famously said that the more they play, the more they lose, and in the end, the casino gets it all. But that was just a movie.

Our goal is to treat failure as a tool, not an outcome. To view it as resource that can be managed. 

When I first started wearing a nametag twenty four seven, it was humiliating. Strangers, friends and family members alike gave me weird looks, rolled their eyes, called me names, sent me hate mail, even got up in my face and ripped the nametag right off my shirt. 

And that was just the first week. 

Over the next few years, the majority of my interactions were peppered with some kind of failure, rejection, criticism and ridicule to my sticky idea. 

But although it hurt my feelings and made my doubt my own idea, it also formed a thick emotional callus. It strengthened my capacity for public embarrassment, reinforced my own ability to deal with setbacks and trained me that the beast I had always feared, failure, was not as terrifying as I thought it was. 

And that emboldened me to stay in the game long enough to win. 

That’s the value of having your ideas rejected. At the end of the trail might be embarrassment, but the journey teaches us things about ourselves and our ideas that we could not have learned any other way. 

Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen? If we fail, the cynics who never tried get to laugh at us? 

It’s just a tool. It’s fuel. It’s proof that we’re alive and taking risks. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are your failures interesting enough that people will give you more chances? 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!


Head Up, Heart Higher — Chapter 02 (2017) Scott Ginsberg Animated Folk Rock Opera

A bolt of panic stole my breath

It’s the bullet you never see shot

Deal with the devil direct
Where facts are faced but not fought

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to somethingAll love is saying yes to something

What does this feeling want from me?
To give us a gift of a low

Play the cosmic game of hide and seek

Denial she forms in my throat

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to somethingAll love is saying yes to something

And all of this helps

But none of this heals 

My leftovers last for days

Add a little bravery

Catch the goodness in myself

Now I got nowhere to be

All the time in the world to get there

Become a prisoner of my own mythology

We’re all chasing ourselves the good scare

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to something

All love is saying yes to somethingAll love is saying yes to something

Watch the whole movie here.

* * * *

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!

Help ourselves to a big humility sandwich

Human beings, by nature, demand resolution. 

It’s part of
our existential quest for meaning. We want answers now, and if an answer isn’t
readily available, we’ll happily and expeditiously manufacture one. 

Wiesel’s
award winning book on the fiery
souls of ancient religious leaders writes about this very issue:

For the believer, there is no question; and for the non believer, there is
no answer. 

It’s an interesting binary. One that doesn’t allow much room for
flexibility and openness. But it’s how so many people live in the world. 

And
so, it’s really an invitation to see if we can exist somewhere in the middle.
To see if we can cultivate a deep comfort level with uncertainty, maturely look
reality in the eye and help ourselves to a big humility sandwich. 

Personally, my
impatient, compulsive and obsessiveneed
to know
has always tiptoed the line between aggressive skepticism and
pathological curiosity. In the face of uncertainty, I’m the kind of person who
stops and drops everything until he has a significant understanding of the
question at hand. Someone with a deep longing to resolve the burden of life’s
ambiguities. 

Which is certainly be useful in a variety of situations and
endeavors, but it can also be exhausting. Both for me and the people in my
life. 

Recently, though, life has been teaching me otherwise. Because nobody
actually knows anything. We’re all just guessing. And the sooner we accept that
it’s all one big goddamn mystery, the better it will be for all of us. 

Sing it
with me, friends:



I don’t have to be in the results business anymore. 



I don’t
have to know how everything works. 



I don’t have to berate myself for not
understanding the whole of creation. 



I don’t need answers to become a
protective fence around my anxious core. 



I don’t have to rush to fill in the
gaps with nervous belief and excessive information.



I don’t have to prolong
my endless and futile search for quick explanations and efficient resolutions. 

Isn’t it liberating to know that intelligence is not the solution to everything?
Isn’t it relaxing to know that we can survive not knowing? 

Yes, it demands a
posture of vulnerability and humility and uncertainty. But it’s a far more
interesting place to be than having it all figure it out. 

Remember, true
intelligence happens when you stop trying to be smart. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

How are you making a concrete response to the mysterious?

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!


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