Compulsive behaviors initially are about stopping the pain. 

But they only create more. 

Like reaching for an unhealthy coping mechanism during times of great stress. It’s rarely necessary, often expensive and almost never what we really need to get better. Most of time, it just keeps us stuck in a cloudy fog of denial. 

And in my case, a set of orange fingers from my favorite savory snack. 

The goal, then, instead of trying to eat or drink or shop away our feelings, is to stop and deal with what’s going on inside, right now. 

This is a very difficult habit to get into. Especially when a catastrophic force breaks us out of the normal circle we’ve learned to cope with and sends us into free fall. 

But the good news is, any conditioned habit that our brain has learned, can also be unlearned. Sometimes we just have to enter through the side door. 

Jung’s widely quoted theory on tuning into the body’s wisdom comes to mind. He said that often the hands would solve a mystery that the intellect struggled with in vain. 

That’s why yoga has become my number one diagnostic tool. It forces me to confront the whole self. To listen to the story it’s trying to tell me. To access my emotional reality through my physical reality. 

Think about the last time you got a professional massage. The therapist’s hands are like flashlights in a darkened room. Where we’re touched is where our attention goes, and that provides information we were not aware of before walking into the room. 

In fact, we may not even realize that we’re tense or sore until we’re massaged in our calf, neck, shoulder or lower back. But that physical experience gives us new information, which gives us new choices, which gives us the power to deal with whatever life hurls at us. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

How will you use the power of the body to access the needs of the heart?

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!

Seinfeld was once asked what the secret to show business success was. 

He said the difference maker was hunger. It’s who wants it more. 

Of course, that’s also the great paradox of life. We can mess up something because we want it too much. By overextending ourselves to make something happen, we actually stop it from happening. 

There’s a balance. Loving the labor, but not living for the fruit. Doing the work, but avoiding the psychological mistake of having expectations for what you think you deserve in return. 

Skilled rock climbers understand this principle better than anybody. They know that gripping onto their rocks, tools and ropes too tightly can lead to sweaty blistered palms, forearm cramping and loss of stamina. 

Which, if you’re hanging off the side of a mountain, can be the difference between an enjoying an exhilarating outdoor adventure and plummeting to your bloody and gruesome end. 

The point is, don’t let your desires run away with you. It’s one thing to have hunger, it’s another to eat yourself alive.

Stop trying so hard to make things happen. Hanging in there is critical to long term success, but hanging onto your dreams too tightly might make them disappear before your very eyes. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What result are you contaminating because you want it too much?
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!

Bristling with impatience, we constantly ask ourselves:

How long is this going to take? 

And without fail, the answer is always the same. Longer than we’d like.

The lesson, then, is to stop trying to gain a clear perspective before it’s time. To stop refusing to tolerate the way we progress. And to stop being in such a hurry to move on. 

Let the pearl sink, as my therapist used to say. Allow experiences to profoundly penetrate you. Take time to absorb and assimilate life’s wisdom. And just know that if clarity is not available to you today, you can trust it to come later. 

I’m reminded of a profound conversation between a comedian and a doctor. The physician consoles his patient during a heartbreak by saying the following. 

Misery is wasted on the miserable. You think spending time with her, kissing her, having fun with her, you think that’s what it was all about? That was love? No, this is love. Missing her because she’s gone. Wanting to die. You’re so lucky. You’re like a walking poem. Would you rather be some kind of a fantasy? Some kind of theme park ride? Is that what you want? Don’t you see? This is the good part. This is what you’ve been digging for all this time. Now you finally have it in your hand, this sweet nugget of love, sweet, sad love, and you want to throw it away. You’ve got it all wrong. The bad part is coming, so enjoy the heartbreak while you can. 

This is a modern version of the classic zen koan, a pupil in such a hurry learns slowly. It’s a reminder that we shouldn’t try to outrun the pain. To do emotional jujitsu on ourselves, sidestepping whatever inner conflict bubbles up so we can move on before any of the punches land. 

It’s more worthwhile to let everything register. To sit with the mental waves as they come crashing in, trusting that we’re at the threshold of something important, and we should pay attention and keep going and run the extra mile just to find out how the story ends. 

That’s the benefit of misery. It gives us window into our values. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Will you meet the raging tides with radical grace?

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!

Rogers hypothesized that the
realization of the self was a process. 

In his most popular book, which helped pioneer the humanistic psychology movement, he
wrote the following. 

Accept yourself as a stream of becoming, not a finished
product. A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing
river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing
constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits. 

The goal,
then, is to surrender our limited and fictitious sense of identity. To step
across the borders of the self and into the unknown. 

Because even if we’re
afraid that the personality police is going to put us under arrest for
experimenting with a part of ourselves, the reality is, we can do whatever we
want. We can be whoever we choose to be. And not everybody has to be aware of
it. 

In fact, for those of us with portfolio careers and diversified identities
and multiple centers of belonging, we might be different things to different
people. 

Years ago, a family friend of ours died from cancer. And at her
funeral, it was truly inspiring to see how many different peer groups and
friend circles and professional colleagues showed up to honor her life.

She was so many things to so many different people. Debbie lived a double,
triple, quadruple life, and not in the schizophrenic sense of the word. She was
fully engaged in life. Diverse and multidirectional. A polycentric person with
multiple centers of interest and attention. 

And in a world that constantly
tries to keep us in our lane, insisting that we only become one thing in life,
that’s a victory. 

We have to stop pathologizing anything that’s diverse. We are
people of deep dimension. 

Here’s another way to think about it. 

Broadway
musical audiences don’t know that the drummer in the orchestra pit also plays
banjo in a bluegrass band on the weekends. Nor do they need to. Nor would they
care if they did know. 

Yoga students
don’t know that their favorite instructor also performs shows with a traveling
burlesque act. Nor do they need to. Nor would they care if they did know. 

College students don’t know
that their physics professor also competes in stock car races during the
summer. Nor do they need to. Nor would they care if they did know. 

Agency employees don’t know that their lead
programmer also sits on the board of a charity that’s trying to shut down coal
fired power plants. Nor do they need to. Nor would they care if they did know. 

Why? Because we’re not
supposed to be one thing. We can do whatever we want. And nobody is going to
stop us. 

It’s all a matter of permission.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you hammering one nail all your life, or hammering lots of nails, one way, all your life? 
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!

To satisfy our fanatical need for control, we try to force life’s events to unravel and unfold in the manner and time that we designated. 

It’s like some kind of jedi mind trick. 

Our brains start tossing and turning, crashing and burning, around and around on an endless carousel of compulsive and anxious thoughts, because it make us feel like we’re actually doing something to solve our problems. 

We’re so proud of this work. 

But then, when reality dashes our best laid plans to rubble, and the object of our obsession fails to bring us the joy it promised, we feel cheated and angry. 

How dare the department of public transportation not ask my permission to shut down the subway during the blizzard? 

How dare the barbecue nachos I spent all day fantasizing about taste like boiled socks? 

And that’s when resentment starts rising like zombie from a grave. We realize that our sneaky little mind was playing tricks on us the whole time. As if to laugh in our faces and say:

Just when you get there, there disappears. 

It’s all part of the neverending battle for enoughness. Finding and developing our own internal supply of peace. Building solid spiritual ground that we can stand on. 

Arriving at the place where we believe, not just affirm out loud five times a day, but really believe, that who we are, right now, is okay. And it’s enough to claim joy. 

Remember, when we constantly believe that we should be more than what we are, we enter into a totally antagonistic relationship with ourselves. 

But when we humbly make the most of what we already have, it turns into more. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What story will you tell yourself when you’re handed a heavy dose of 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!

The
biggest emotional red flag is when we think to ourselves:

I shouldn’t be feeling this. 

It’s the absence of true acceptance.
Refusing to give ourselves permission to value our real desires. 

Like a child
holding his breath as a physical tool of denial for reality. 

The goal is to
hold ourselves in a more gentle, kind and compassionate way. Which that means
we have to abandon expectations about how we’re supposed to feel. We have to
accept that our feelings aren’t good or bad, right or wrong, positive or
negative, healthy and unhealthy. 

Binaries like that only add stress to our
lives. 

Truth is, only our actions can be wrong, not our thoughts and feelings. 

And so, we shouldn’t be afraid to give weight to our negative feelings about
another person for fear of throwing them under the bus. We should feel the
feelings and let them fade, without guilting or judging or punishing ourselves
for the morose movies playing inside of our heads. 

Because it’s not about
punishing another person, it’s about not punishing myself. 

Freud, on the other
hand, believed that human beings should never be allowed to truly express
themselves because it was too dangerous to the powers that be. The very idea of
examining and analyzing our inner feelings was a threat to society’s absolute
control over us. 

No wonder we’ve morphed into a society of fugitives from our
own feelings. There’s a century’s worth of barriers in all of our minds that
prevents our hidden and unwelcome impulses from the unconscious from emerging. 

A set of fundamental beliefs that are so ingrained in our society that we
hardly know they exist, much less examine them. 

And so, the path to safety and
belonging and compatibility with the world is to say:

I’m sorry, here is this
feeling that is inside of me, this thing that I’m not allowed to have an
appetite for, can you please help me get rid of it? 

Enough. The time has come
for us to own our emotional realities, no matter how it feels or what its
societal implications may be. 

To advocate for the people we truly are, as
opposed to the one we think we’re supposed to be.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

When was the last time you told yourself that you shouldn’t be feeling something? 
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!