People they mosey in their pretty little promise wheels

Send us out into the world just to get our hearts broken again

Take your thunder struck marginal notions

Take your thunder struck marginal notions

Smoke

Like a fish bone

Smoke

I’ll be one of the last ones who missed out on the boat to bliss

Begging the rose to unfold faster, you ain’t my last sir

Take your thunder struck marginal notions

Take your thunder struck marginal notions

My house feels bigger each time I return

No rest for the righteous we learn

My house feels bigger each time I return

No bread for the spineless to burn

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!

Nothing ever turns out the way you
expect it to. 

And nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going
to get. 

Think back to your first date. 

Friday night you showed
up at the front door, flowers and candy in hand, dripping with sweat and far too
much cologne, running through every possible scenario in your head about what
she might look and smell and feel like. 

It was the longest ten seconds of your
life. 

But then, the moment of truth arrived. The deadbolt unlocked, your
stomach sunk to your shoes, the door opened, and behold, the family dog jumped
on your leg and peed all over the floor. 

That’s life in a nutshell. The
story we rehearse inside of our heads never quite plays out in real life. 

Everyone is disappointing, the more we get to know them. 

But that’s no cause
for cynicism. There’s no use in crying like a baby who can’t stand to live in a
world where he hears things that upset him. 

If a person is that out of touch
with reality, only disappointment and bitterness could follow. 

I’m reminded of my favorite surrealist manifesto from
more than sixty years ago. 

Breton wrote: 

Every day brings us new indications of disappointment which we must have
the courage to admit, if for no other reason than as a measure of mental
hygiene, and inscribe in the horribly debit side of the ledger of life. 

And so,
don’t allow each disappointment to breed a cynicism that makes the next effort
at change more difficult. Use it as a tool for finding out what you really
want. 

Stand still, eat the pain, forgive the world for being what is, try not
to get too disgusted with yourself, stick the setback under the pillow, wake up
the next morning and go find the next opportunity. 

Because it’s a long winding
road, and nobody is going to keep up hope for you. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What if what you thought was your biggest setback was a rejection of a lifetime?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 a difference between compassionate surrender and callous resignation. 

The former is participative, creating a posture of love and kindness and trust and gratitude. Compassionate surrender means allowing the process to have its way with you and trusting that wherever it takes you will be exactly where you need to be. 

Callous resignation, on the other hand, is disconnected, creating a posture of frustration, coldness, acquiescence and apathy. Foolishly turning a blind eye to the truth to maintain some superficial sense of peace. 

Here’s how I’ve seen this distinction play out in my own life. 

During times of callous resignation, I would find myself sleeping half the day away and isolating myself and constantly monitoring my moods and announcing the word whatever so many times that I flushed all of the hope out of my system. 

But during times of compassionate surrender, I would find myself taking risks and feeling alive and trying new things and getting out of the house and empowering myself with hope and connection. 

Once I made that crucial transition, things suddenly turned a corner. Because I chose to joyfully tap into the rhythm of life, instead of protecting myself from actually feeling it. 

The big secret is, I didn’t make that decision alone. Thankfully, I’m sharing my life with someone who will believe in me when I start to doubt myself. 

Someone who will lovingly grab me by the lapel and remind me that I’m better than the current version of myself. 

Someone who will tell me the truth about myself because she loves me. 

Someone who will lock elbows with me, enter the valley of humility together and see what lies on the other side. 

That’s what shifts my heart from callous resignation to compassionate surrender. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Once you stop believing in yourself, whom will you ask to join your journey?

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!

Everyone has the right to make mistakes. 

In fact, history has proven time and time again that if we’re not screwing up, we’re not taking enough risks. 

But there’s a flip side to that coveted coin of achievement. Because the human soul can only take so much abuse. And if we keep missing the mark and making mistakes and getting rejected and losing the bets we place on our own talents, we might stop believing that we can trust ourselves to succeed. 

I’ve had periods of my life where it seems like nothing I do works. My noblest gestures backfire, my most earnest expressions go unnoticed and my most generous intentions go unappreciated. Everything around me is a reflection of how I’m a failure. 

It’s like I can’t win no matter what I do and I’m slowly fading away and there’s no way to stop it. It’s helplessness combined with hopelessness. And it’s not a pretty place to be. 

Because you start to question your own value in the world. 

What’s helpful, then, is first keeping things in perspective. 

Remembering that failure is okay when we know we’re on a long road. Remembering that failure teaches us key lessons about ourselves that we could not have learned any other way. 

And most importantly, resisting the urge to tie our opinion of ourselves to success and failure, and instead trusting that our value as people doesn’t rise and fall in lockstep with our latest achievement. 

Besides, it could be a lot worse. 

I have an actor friend who works on a network television show. Every time she makes a mistake, fifty people have to do their job all over again. Now that’s pressure. 

The point is, our psychological tendency to deceive ourselves about our own trustworthiness is insidious. 

And so, you have to take your precious moments of empowerment wherever you can. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say:

Come now, when you get tired of beating your head against a brick wall, haunting yourself with recollections of past mistakes, try aiming a little forgiveness inward. 

That will help move your story forward.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

When will you quit trying to make yourself into someone you don’t trust? 

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 a unfortunate difference between the fantasy of
wanting something and the reality of acquiring it. 

Especially if you spent a
significant amount of time poring over this dream that you thought would
magically make you whole. 

Ask anyone who leaves the family farm to try and make
it in the big city. There may be nothing prettier than looking back at a town
you left behind, but that doesn’t mean the place you go next won’t be ugly. 

And
so, what happens when the dream you’ve had all your life starts unfolding
before your eyes, and you suddenly realize it’s not what you thought it would
be? 

When the crushing reality of your situation fully dawns on your naive
consciousness, how do you cope with the accompanying disillusionment? 

You view
it as a gift. Something worth giving thanks for, worth finding joy in, and
worth growing from. 

To be disillusioned, then is to be stripped of your
expectations and therefore freed from the influence of illusion. 

And the
exciting part is, once that balloon of belief finally bursts, we can move
laterally to find better eyes. 

Campbell famously said that disillusionment was
a way of evoking a new depth of reality in yourself, and I agree. Because when
I think back to all of the experiences in which I discovered something or someone
wasn’t all they were cracked up to be, there was a process that followed. 

First
there was sadness and disappointment. Then there was emptiness and apathy. But
then there was reassessment and refocus. And that created newfound space and
freedom and joy in my upgraded version of life. 

Crews wrote a brilliant essay on the joy of disillusionment,
reminding us: 

When we replace illusion with reality, we step out of our
cavern of myth and take a deep breath of the air outside, brisk and with a tang
of scents unknown, but it is the real world we are inhaling and it enlivens us
to move forward and to value who and what we truly are. 

If it’s true
that a dot of unbelief might save the devotee from drowning in his faith,
perhaps a dab of disillusionment might also save the dreamer from drowning in
his fantasies. 

Sure beats floundering
on the stones of harsh pessimism and broken promises. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Which lies are keeping your from living in reality, dull your heart, clogging your ears and blurring your vision?

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!

A friend of mine is a voice coach. 

She teaches musicians, actors and other performers how to understand their vocal body as a resonant instrument. 

One of the tools she uses to motivate her students to achieve full sonic expression is by telling them:

Give us what you give to yourself when you’re alone. 

What an inspiring mantra. Because it asks us to hold nothing back. To use the public performance as an invitation to feed and find ourselves, get connected with the space, elevate whatever and whomever is around us and give ourselves complete command to be fully occupied in that act, just as if we were alone. 

It’s like watching an orthodox rabbi who’s lost in the rapture of prayer, swaying and rocking back and forth, nullifying all sense of self. 

Hassidim call this holy ritual davening, whereby the movement helps the person lock their mind and concentrate on god. And so, the swaying is an unconscious reaction to feeling of the nearness of the divine. 

Which may seem like bizarre public behavior to the untrained observer, but the rabbis are simply doing what they would be doing if they were alone. As the story goes, they view the human spirit as a candle flame. And when they’re lost in prayer and in the presence of that spirit, their movement creates the wind that sets the flame in motion. 

Our challenge, then, regardless of our singing abilities and regardless of our spiritual proclivities, is to give others what we give to ourselves when we’re alone. 

To narrow the line between our onstage performance and backstage reality. To allow ourselves rare moments of unguarded pride. To permit ourselves a grin that’s untangled in false humility. And to surrender our sense of self and just be. 

Anyone can sing in the shower, but if we truly want to share our authentic voices with the world, we must find a way to carry the spirit of the shower with us wherever we go. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

What freedoms do you give yourself when you’re alone?
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!

Kondo’s iconic system for decluttering your home suggests a fascinating filter for making decisions. 

The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away, she says, is to take each item in your hand and ask, does this spark joy? 

If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it. 

This is not only the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick by which to judge. 

Japanese speakers actually have a term for this very process. The word is tokimeku, which translates to mean, to flutter, throb and palpitate. 

Because that’s precisely what happens inside our body, mind and soul when we’re properly connected and engaged. We feel a thrill of joy. Imagine living in a space that contains only those kinds of things. 

Better yet, imagine living a life that contains only those kinds of things. Only those kinds of people and experiences. The ones which spark joy. What brilliant filter for daily existence. 

The tricky part is, such a system ask that we develop our instinct for what really inspires joy. Which is harder than it sounds. After all, joy is something we’ve been taught to accept as a fleeting emotion. A transient futility. 

But it’s not. It’s an attitude. A way of interacting with the world. A willingness to flutter, throb and palpitate, despite our society’s thousands of years of emotional baggage around joy as this wicked gateway to sin and indulgence and decadence. 

And if we believe that we have to deprive ourselves of enjoyment, then our instinct for identifying the spark of tokimeku will slowly fade. 

But if we’re vigilant about excising out of our lives those things, people and experiences which sprinkle water on our inner fire instead of add wood to it, then we’ll set ourselves up for the spark of joy at every turn. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Have you accepted that some things will never inspire joy, no matter how carefully you keep them?

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!

How can we tell if our well has run dry? 

A good driller would tell us to look for the obvious signs. 

Low pressure, long wait time between spurts, sediment in the water, air coming out of the faucet, dirty tasting liquid, over running pumps, dropping levels on the gauge and neighbors complaining about having the same problems. 

If we notice any combination of those symptoms, odds are, we have ourselves a dry well. Nature doesn’t lie. 

What’s interesting is, when the metaphorical wells of our lives run dry, we reject that reality. Despite the visible, obvious and unarguable symptoms, we retreat into a psychological fortress of denial. 

We convince ourselves that there simply must have been some kind of gross misunderstanding, technical oversight, misplaced communication or some accidentally deleted email. 

What’s more, because of our high expectations around being happy and being loved, when we suddenly aren’t, we go into a rage. And then misguided persistence takes over as we drive ourselves crazy going back to a dry well thinking there’s water. 

Believing with all our hearts that if we just focus more and dig deeper and try harder and use different tools, it’s only a matter of time before that girl call us back or that prospect signs up or that recruiter makes us an offer. 

As a consultant friend of mine used to say, I will persist until you die or hire me. 

Admirable, but there’s a clear difference between not giving up and pulling down a curtain of denial in your mind. 

If the well has clearly run dry, and noblest efforts to prime the pump have failed repeatedly, perhaps it’s time to surrender to the dirt and get on with our lives. 

To let go of what we think we deserve, to let go of fairness and unfairness, to let go of a process that’s been good to us, to let go of the places where we’re not the right fit, and to let go of what is no longer working. 

True emotional freedom. 

And the good news is, once we take ownership over it, we can use it as energy to find water somewhere else.  

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Which of your wells are you unwilling to admit has finally run dry?
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!

City birds and angry words

Sweet heart, kind soul, tired eyes

Somebody scoots to the edge of the skinny branch

I’m washing off my whiskers

Every ten days

And I’m coming early for blood

All the thoughts we bring
Have no weight

Impressive words to say

This little offering activates

A dishonest mistake

Bending wheels and making my deals

Ring like a horn

Ripping suckers out of bed

Divvy up all the bad into a equal dose

Pick a boulder kick it over your shoulder

Pick a boulder kick it over your shoulder

Pick a boulder kick it over your shoulder

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!

Harvard’s most popular course in the history is positive psychology. 

Shahar’s curriculum about the psychological aspects of life fulfillment and flourishing has been standing room only for more than a decade. 

One of the key tenants to his philosophy is the critical skill of choosing. 

It’s the highest form of creation, the professor says, and choices can create momentum by launching a chain reaction whose impact is greater than what we can foresee at the moment the choice is made. 

And so, if we want to stop holding our happiness hostage, we have to be aware of the fact that there is a always choice to make. Otherwise we relinquish control over our ability to improve our life. Consider a few of these examples. 

Instead of viewing life as a wearying burden that pins us down with obligations, we choose to believe this world is truly ours for the enjoying. 

Instead of taking the bait and getting inexorably drawn into a vortex of despair, we choose to exist in a place of enduring contentment with ourselves. 

Instead of tolerating feelings of shame and degradation over our state of happiness, we choose to allow ourselves to be carried along in the sudden momentum of the joy of living. 

Instead of mentally tormenting ourselves regarding every single thing that could possibly go wrong, we choose to keep moving until we find something positive about our situation. 

Instead of viewing our life as a hopeless speck of dust lost in an vast and unfathomably dark void, we choose to gift ourselves with small joys without guilt or afterthought. 

Instead of allowing our minds to become totally consumed with intrusive, irrational thoughts, we choose to erase programming that does not serve us anymore. 

Instead of indulging in feelings about our own wretchedness and building a case about why we’re so pathetic, we choose to surround ourselves with people who make us feel seen for our deepest talents. 

That’s power. 

Next time you’re forced to run the full gauntlet of your neuroses, remember this. 

The more choices we make, the more in control we feel; and the more in control we feel, the easier it is for happiness to have a real chance at us. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

How many other choices have you not considered because it seemed that they weren’t yours to make?

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!