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Remember, every innovation you love came from a question.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you innovating, or just creating?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
Anneli’s book on the personal, societal, biological and historical factors that coalesced to spark the secret epidemic of unworthiness is simply revelatory.
Her research found that for those of us who are programmed to undermine our own joy, a moderate amount of fun is okay, but as soon as it rises above a certain threshold, boom, the irony bomb goes off and happiness is dead.
We strive to keep delight at bay, under control, lest our joy trigger a bomb blast of fear and dread. As if to say to ourselves, see, this is what happens when you try to enjoy life.
Despair sneaks up like a scalpel the very second you start to have fun and threatens to steal the light right out of your eyes.
This is no way to live. Traumatizing ourselves for our own joy benefits nobody. It’s just false virtue. Like the fitness guru with a severe case of body dysmorphic disorder who clutches a donut in his hand and administers an electric shock the moment it touches his lips.
I’m sorry, but that’s not discipline, that’s delusion.
If we have any intention of pursuing happiness in this life, we must light the path with the lamp of compassion. We must trust that joy is not an indulgence we don’t deserve in this moment. We must believe that we don’t have to punish ourselves to ensure we don’t become lazy and arrogant in the future.
And we must believe that whatever looks like joy, is joy, not something wicked resembling joy that shouldn’t last.
I’ve spent the last few years of my life transforming my understanding of, relationship to and practice of experiencing joy. And the one thing I know for sure is, we don’t need permission.
It’s ours for the taking. It’s the validation of our existence.
Joy the single greatest bulwark against the specter of death.
Grounding your daily life in whatever version of it available to you.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you undermining your own inklings of joy, blunting the deserved pain you think awaits?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
Net worth is defined as the total assets minus total outside liabilities of an individual.
But that’s purely in economics terms. And any problem that can be solved with money isn’t all that interesting.
From an existential perspective, however, the term has a completely different meaning. Net worth is what you have when everything else goes away.
It’s that which nobody can steal from you. The love you can never lose. Assets and gifts and memories and relationships that truly belong to you and only you, regardless of what’s happening in the outside world.
Each time that I’ve been unemployed in my life, meaning, out of a job, not earning income and not contributing to the national economy, it always feels like a blow to my psyche. I just feel so useless and unwanted.
But what I try to remind myself is, although being unemployed might identify me, it doesn’t define me. It’s not the whole picture of who I am as human being. It’s merely one channel on my identity screen.
And what’s interesting is, each person has their own version of this trap.
Who am I without my precious ______?
It could be a career or a disease or an addiction or a personal narrative or a body part or a relationship or even a haircut.
But whatever our attachment is, the assumption is that if it were suddenly taken away, we be nothing. Our lives would crumble to dust. And nobody would even recognize us anymore.
Of course, that’s an ego trap. A materialistic misunderstanding about the true meaning of net worth.
If want to rebuild the self on a genuine foundation that nobody can take away from us, we must announce to ourselves that we have value independent of external constructs.
I am worthy and interesting without my work.
I have dignity separate from my worldly role.
I have value beyond what I can give, what I have, and what I can achieve.
I matter to the world apart from my brilliant career and my precious identity and the blanket of goods that surrounds me.
I feel whole and complete and satisfied and joyful regardless of the season of life I find myself in.
Sebastian was right when he told the little mermaid, there’s more to a woman than her flutter kick.
It’s time to finally break through the stifling limits of self, stand firm in our own worthiness and find the love we can never lose.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Who were you before the world told you who you needed to be?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
We are not eating for flavor, they’re eating for familiarity.
For some comfort that could never come from food.
When I think back to the last few times I’ve inhaled an entire large pizza in one sitting, it makes perfect sense. It’s just so goddamn tempting to use addiction as a way to handle existential crises.
But in the end, we all know that it’s another dark and lonely repetitive cycle of searching for happiness in impermanent things.
Levine’s definition of addiction is the best I’ve ever heard. His book of meditations about the zen of recovery called addiction the repetitive process of habitually satisfying cravings to avoid, change or control the seemingly unbearable conditions of the present moment.
And so, the way out of this infinite regression is for us to find internal sources of happiness that aren’t dependent on or addicted to circumstances. Wellsprings of joy and hope and peace that are rooted in the love that can never leave us.
That way, should we suspect the growing presence of a massive black hole of joylessness and despair, we can take pause. And instead of mindlessly reaching for a momentary distraction from that suffocating reality, we can reach within.
I once followed a fascinating food therapy program in which you ask a series of four simple questions to distract yourself from unhealthy cravings.
Am I really hungry?
Is this what I feel like eating?
Is this what I feel like eating now?
Is there something else I could do instead?
It was tricky as hell. Because my eating habits tend to be quite mindless. But after a few weeks, I found the four questions to be a brilliant practice for changing unhelpful thinking and behavior.
Instead of getting caught up in the dance of dysfunction, I could simply pause and empower myself to find out what these feelings wanted from me.
The practice didn’t work every time I got the craving to eat my body weight in chicken wings, but it did build a solid baseline of awareness that contributed to an overall increase in my emotional, mental and physical health.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What behavior are we continuing to do despite the fact that there are negative consequences in our lives?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
Buber once wrote that most men preferred to forget how many possibilities are open to them.
That’s why the great companion of change is curiosity. To practice thinking to ourselves:
I wonder how this transition will shape me. I wonder what hidden benefits might lay beneath this mountain of adversity. I wonder what the opportunity for growth and expansion will be. I wonder how many parts of myself I will lovingly let go of. I wonder what new doors my key of curiosity will open.
Framed in that way, change is less overwhelming and more adventurous. Especially if you convert it into a daily ritual.
One of the practices I learned from my meditation teacher is a system called sleep thinking. It’s a bedtime ritual of surrendering myself to go learning about my own life and what it needs from me.
The way it works is, I repeat a single, silent question to myself as I drift off to dreamland. Ideally, something that interrupts the worry stream with wonder. Something that converts curiosity into controlled inquiry. My personal favorite is:
I wonder what I’m afraid to know about myself.
This question powers down my racing brain, frames my psychic energies in more curious, imaginative ways and catapults me into dreamland within five minutes. Every time. And in the morning, I wake up refreshed, energized and ready to take on the day and listen to what wants to be written.
Proving, that even when our eyes are closed, we can still walk through the world with wide open wonder. And so, during times of great change, each of us needs a place carved out by curiosity. A way to engage in practices that wake us up to wonder.
Because no how much of a beating we have taken, no matter how many rejections and failures and we have endured, curiosity is always standing by, ready to be awakened.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you look at the sky and wonder at your place in the stars, or do you just look down and worry about your place in the dirt?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
Cameron’s book on transitions is a collection of empowerment prayers on the nature of change and coping.
One of the arguments she makes is how we mistakenly become so focused on life as we year for it, that we neglect to live the life that we have. We think to ourselves, okay, well, once this is over, then I’ll get on with my life.
Once this is over, then I’ll get back to being kind and accepting and forgiving and compassionate towards myself.
But that’s just kicking the can down the road of our own happiness.
It’s the eternal promise of things that come, but never quite arrive. Craving the comfort of desired events and outcomes.
In so doing, she writes, we ignore the uncomfortable but exhilarating gifts of living life as a continually unfolding process in which all moments are valuable. Absorbed in our inner movie, we miss the many minute transformations that enrich and ennoble our lives.
And that’s where frustration is born. Out of our patent refusal to accept life’s seasons as they come to us. The healthier and smarter response is to align ourselves with events as they are unfolding. To believe in a benevolent future despite our shaken faith.
During my own times of transition, this mindset has been crucial. I’ve been learning to trust the tempo of my own timing. To notice and name the seasons of my life, let them to come and go like weather patterns, and to allow life to show me the new way to move forward.
In fact, it’s a series of choices.
Choosing to believe in my own resilience.
Choosing to cooperate with my healing.
Choosing to trust the generosity of life.
Choosing not abandon myself during these trying times.
Choosing to believe there is wisdom in the unfolding of events exactly as they are.
And while these choices may not help the transition happen any faster; they do keep me present to life during the process, which is what changes my relationship to time in the first place.
Remember, it’s no use wasting what you’ve got on an ideal that you’ll never reach.
Try being happy right now.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you trying to live through your changes without experiencing them?* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
I recently met the publisher of food and dining magazine who had a fascinating approach to handling upset customers.
Whenever his company makes a mistake that causes an influx of angry emails and phone calls, his strategy works as follows.
Announce, apologize, remediate, explain and apologize again.
Announce, meaning acknowledging and owning the problem immediately. Because the speed of the response is the response.
Apologize, meaning saying you’re sorry in a transparent, empathic way. Because nothing infuriates customers more than terminal certainty.
Remediate, meaning taking immediate and calculated action to solve the problem. Because people want to know you’re actively the case.
Explain, meaning educating customers why the problem occurred. Because knowing that diffuses their anger.
And finally, apologize again. That’s the critical step. Even if it happens hours or even days after the incident, it still closes the loop and reminds angry customers that you screwed up and you know and you’re truly sorry.
That makes people think, holy shit, they remembered me. I’m part of a thing. Thank you.
Proving, that caring is what makes the world work. That customers don’t stop being important the moment they buy from us.
And that if we learn to satisfy people on their terms, not ours, and actually treat them as real people with needs and desires and dreams, then we can create a truly unique interface between the company and the world.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do your angry customers want a refund, or a connection, an apology and some empathy?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
A friend of mine runs the call center for a nonprofit that has millions of members worldwide.
In order to get all of her employees on the same page, she implemented an internal program called tissue issues. Every morning before her team shows up for work, leaders hang up support reports the on the bathroom stalls and walls.
That way, every employee from every department has no choice but to be consistently exposed to the current challenges their community is facing.
They literally read the writing on the wall. Or in this case, stall.
From a service standpoint, this is a brilliant tool for keeping users top of mind. But also from a creativity standpoint, it’s a brilliant tool for generating innovative solutions to problems.
After all, answering the call of nature tends to be the most productive part of a person’s day. There’s just something special about the process of going to the toilet that sparks the imagination. The combination of quietude, isolation and complete lack of distraction works to our advantage.
Because we have to relax our bodies, otherwise nothing will happen.
And so, this contained experience, which is difficult to recreate when we’re running around the office all day, primes our mental processes and allows the brain to slip into an alpha wave state in which creative ideas can emerge.
The challenge, then, isn’t to decorate our bathroom walls with daily printouts of how our company is doing.
But to think about creative ways to leverage those little moments where our brains might be most receptive to inspiration.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Where do you get your best ideas?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
Most people who ask us for help don’t actually want it.
Help is just a safe word. A convenient veneer of civility layered over a deeper human need that is being sought out, like being seen and heard, feeling a sense of confirmation and affirmation and knowing that they’re not crazy and alone in the world.
And so, when people come to us in need of wise counsel, before we rush in to fix and save and advise and correct, before we slap on our guru hat and deliver some trumpeting insight that becomes fundamental to that person’s worldview, we first consider a few questions.
What is this person’s contextual situation?
What universal human emotion is at stake here?
What might be the big hairy thing lurking in the shadows of the surface problem?
What crucial elements has this person not told me about yet that I need to better understand before responding?
Pausing to think about these elements allows us to establish a holistic context of empathy, curiosity and understanding around our interactions with each other. It’s how we do justice to the complex context of other people’s experience and empower them to tackle their own issues.
Skilled therapists practice it on a daily basis. They understand they can’t solve a patient’s problem until they understand the story behind.
Otherwise they’re simply wallpapering over the trauma, letting the pile of unmet needs grow.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What structure could you put in place to make sure you do justice to the complex context of other people’s experience?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.
I’ve always appreciated the idiom, your eyes were bigger than your stomach.
It’s the common mistake of taking more food on your plate than you can eat. Especially when going out for sushi. You just can’t help yourself. The food is just so delicious and colorful and healthy and fresh, that the thrill of eating it almost always causes you to overestimate how much your stomach can handle.
But by the time the waitress drops the check at the end of the meal, that rice baby in your stomach has grown to the size of a small country.
Count that as another failure to practice consuming within your means.
What’s fascinating is, we repeat this behavior outside of the culinary world all the time. We start out our days with aspirations of grandeur, convinced that we can accomplish massive amounts of super human tasks by lunch.
Our to do list is so long that it doesn’t have an end, it has an event horizon.
But as proud and strong and productive as we feel in trying to eat the whole world, the reality is, we’re the ones bing eaten. We’re the ones being consumed by the frustration of trying to fulfill our ever escalating ambition. And it’s crippling our overall performance. Either because we’re running from the sheer terror of standing still, or because we’re comparing our capacity to other people and wishing ours was different.
Pressfield’s manifesto about the war of art reminds us that resistance uses our own enthusiasm against us. That it gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. And it knows we can’t sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall, he says, and we will crash.
No wonder productivity scientists don’t recommend using computerized to do lists. That makes it possible to add an infinite number of items.
But using something like an index card, on the other hand, fits perfectly in your pocket and limits you to noting only a few priority items.
Which is far healthier and more efficient than going to the all you can eat buffet every single day.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you starting your days with aspirations of grandeur?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
Buy my latest devotional!
A Year in Hot Yoga: 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat.
Now available wherever books are sold.
Namaste.