I used to work for a boss who would tell the new hires:

Never go into a meeting without an opinion. Sitting in silence doesn’t help the team or help your chances of getting hired. Speak up, argue and debate. 

This is a critical balance in group dynamics. Because on one hand, we don’t want to take over the group and monopolize the conversation and bulldoze every idea in the room. 

It’s not a competition. The goal isn’t to win the meeting. 

But at the same time, we can’t just sit in the corner and hide behind our notebook and hope that nobody calls on us. After all, opinions are the only thing people pay for. We should have them. 

Since starting my business over fifteen years ago, I’ve been fortunate to be a part of numerous mastermind groups, support networks, discussion meetups, leadership councils, entrepreneur roundtables, writers clubs and board of directors. 

And whether we met once a week, once a month or once a year, the social, emotional and professional benefits were always invaluable. 

But often times during meetings, I would experience contribution inadequacy. Because I would watch other people in the group exchange a larger amount of intellectual or emotional support than I did. And I would get down on myself and think, damn, that guy’s ideas were really good. Much better than my pointless suggestions. 

And by the end of the meeting, feelings of guilt and insecurity would flood my system. Because I could have done more. I could have made better suggestions and asked smarter questions and expressed deeper empathy for my fellow members. 

But that’s the reality of true community. There’s no scorecard. 

The goal isn’t to win, it’s to belong. 

Certain days you might get your needs met, certain days you might meet other people’s needs, certain days it’s mutual. As the saying goes in the recovery world,:

Sometimes you need a meeting, sometimes a meeting needs you. 

What matters is that we keep coming together. And that we trust the arc of our journey to even out in the end. 

Knowing that everyone fulfilled their role, contributing as much as they could, as best as they could, as often as they could. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

Where do you experience a version of contribution inadequacy?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who pioneered the theory of flow, explains that every flow experience contributes to the growth of the self. 

After each episode, we’re a little different from what we were before. Our consciousness inputs fresh information about what our selves are. 

This is not an insignificant victory. Any effort to chase down and expand the authentic self is valuable. Because it proves that we’re making progress in our journey to freedom. 

I’m reminded of an award winning performance poet who tells the story of her childhood anorexia. The one verse that caught my attention was:

My house feels bigger each time I return. 

It’s proportional. As the girl shrinks, the space around her seems increasingly vast. 

That’s heartbreaking. Can you imagine having those kinds of feelings as a teenager? Can you imagine what it’s like to physically contract yourself into scarcity and tension? We sympathize with her struggle. 

And yet, there is a certain beauty to her words, when considered in a more existential context. Because our duty as human beings is to grow the self at every opportunity. 

To seek out as many experiences and moments of absorption, flow, engagement, fulfillment, timelessness and meaning as possible, trusting that our house, so to speak, will feel bigger each time we return. 

This realization is wildly useful during the more mundane and time consuming activities of life. Because when we spend three hours of our day trekking around town in the freezing cold rain only to arrive at the office of a prospective client who has absolutely zero intention of hiring us for anything, our gut instinct is to chalk it up to a loss. A complete waste of time. Three hours that we’ll never get back. 

But that all depends on the story we tell ourselves. When framed strategically, that three hour experience could contribute to the growth of the self. 

That’s why I love asking myself the question:

Am I learning enough through this experience to consider it part of my education? 

If the answer is yes, it’s not a loss, it’s simply an experience that makes our house feel bigger when we return. 

Here’s a song I wrote about this experience:

Remember, each of us already has the capacities for the personal growth that will be needed. 

As long as we don’t cut ourselves off from the vital impulse for existential expansion, no experience is wasted. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

How will you allow your consciousness to input fresh information about what the self is?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Never walk into a meeting empty handed. 

Show up with ideas. Physically written out on paper. And when the time is right, don’t just hand it over, deliver it. 

This practice is not only fun, memorable, unexpected, engaging and creative, but it also speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. 

Somebody who brings value. Somebody who invests personal preparation and perspiration into their appointments. Somebody who knows how to dig into a problem and understand what people are looking for and bring real ideas to the table. 

Besides, ninety percent of the prospects you sit down with are just going to reject you anyway. Why not use those meetings as opportunities for practicing creativity and living your values and sharpening your problem solving skills? 

There’s absolutely zero downside. 

When you show up with ideas, you walk into the room already a winner. And nobody can take that away from you. 

But when you come through the door empty handed, they have the power. 

When I worked as a strategist at marketing agency, the research and discovery process was my favorite. Because it gave me a chance to go deep early. That way, I could show up to our meetings with ideas. 

Was it necessary to watch two documentaries and read the company founder’s book on the first day? Probably not, but that’s who I am. Homework is my thing. By overwhelming myself in the beginning of the process, by inhaling as much content as my intellectual lungs can handle, it always pays off somewhere down the road. 

Next time you have a meeting with a client, prospect or coworker, show up with ideas. 

Claim intellectual ownership of the space. 

Use your next meeting as a platform for generosity and expression. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

Is there an entity that will have trouble living without you?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Gilbert’s memoir on creative living beyond fear makes an inspiring case against rejection. 

She writes that when she used to get rejection letters from editors, she would permit her ego to say the following aloud. 

You think you can scare me off? I’ve got another fifty years to wear you down. There are people who haven’t even been born yet who are going to reject me someday. That’s how long I plan to stick around. 

Elizabeth’s ritual proves that rejection, like most things in this world, is a neutral construct. Rejection doesn’t suck, our feelings about it suck. What matters is our response to it. 

Think of it as a spectrum. On the positive side of rejection, we can choose to stop counting, grow accustomed to it, learn lessons from it, own it as part of our character, turn it into a game, convert the energy into fuel and ride it like the wind until a yes comes our way. 

Asking ourselves, is this a huge setback or the rejection of a lifetime? 

The other option is to take the low road. Here’s how that spectrum of rejection plays out. 

We stop caring, grow emotionally numb, get cynical and untrusting and resentful, seek revenge on people, conclude that we are useless, give up completely, shrink back from life and slide towards a toxic, black hole of despair. 

Asking ourselves, who are we if we don’t wake up with this rolodex of people that we resent? 

Who would you be without any bitterness? 

The point is, as long as we stay in the game, we’re going to be rejected. 

And how we respond to it is the determining factor of our greatness. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

What story do you tell yourself every time you receive another rejection?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Rand’s character notes in the afterword of her legendary novel are fascinating. 

She actually
wrote them several years before the publication of the book itself. Not for any
outside reader, but for the clarity of her own understanding. 

And what’s
interesting is, although the notes weren’t included in the final manuscript,
they’re still some of the most important words in the book. 

Roark, our
protagonist, is depicted in both his spiritual and physical elements as
follows:

Howard’s feeling is a steady, unruffled flame, deep and hidden, a
profound joy of living and of knowing his power, a joy that is not even
conscious of being joy, because it is so steady, natural and unchangeable. If
outside life brings him disappointment, well, it is merely a detail of the
battle. 

That’s not a architect, that’s an archetype. And it’s a life philosophy
worth learning from. 

Rand’s words implore us to seek refuge inside ourselves.
To become free from the threat of external evaluation. And to weaken our ties
to peripheral joys. 

Doesn’t that sound blissful? Doesn’t that seem healthier
than tricking ourselves into thinking security comes from somewhere outside
ourselves? 

It’s the love we can never lose. The love that belongs to us. The
love that nobody would dare take away because it’s too deep, too hidden, too
natural and too steadfast. 

One way to keep that flame unruffled is by asking
ourselves the following question. 

What do I need to do to water the root of
inner joy? 

Whatever the answer is, it’s not something that can be
bought, bottled, bent or beat. It’s ours. 

And once we take extreme ownership
over it, no amount of rejection, disappointment or criticism can touch us.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

Are you fanning the flame within, or forever requiring the balloon of external joy to remain inflated?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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 once saw a group of guys at bachelor party walking through a casino. 

Each of them was wearing a powder blue shirt with the icon of a bride and groom at the altar, chained to the phrase, game over. 

What a perfect microcosm for how our culture views marriage. How it’s the ultimate loss of freedom. Hence, the bachelor party. One last chance to enjoy the sweet nectar of independence before your carefree and spontaneous days of singlehood are over. 

Because once you say I do, it’s game over. 

This narrative about marriage’s impending loss of freedom is just a story we’ve bought into. And it’s been perpetuated for decades by mainstream media, the movies, and of course, the marriage industrial complex, who stands to earn billions in the process. 

That’s why I didn’t have a bachelor party. Because in my experience, marriage, aka, commitment, is the ultimate form of freedom. Freedom to be our true selves, freedom to let our guards down and be vulnerable, and freedom to fart as loudly as possible without being judged. 

When I was single and struggling to find someone to share my life with, exhausting activities like resenting and pretending and impressing took up a lot of space in my heart. Space that could have been used for love. And I ended up wasting a great deal of energy that could have be more usefully employed. 

But the moment we tied the knot, all of that vanished. Suddenly, I was released from the prison of having to prove myself. Suddenly, there was no more fear of having to walk through this world alone. Suddenly, there was this person that I committed to who knew everything about me, and loved me anyway. 

Marriage was constraint that set me free. Which probably explains why I woke up at five in the morning the day after our wedding and started sobbing uncontrollably into my bride’s shoulder for ten minutes. Because some tightly wrapped coil of stress must have let go. My body knew it was finally free. 

Spezzano’s popular book about relationship psychology dedicates an entire chapter on this very issue. 

Commitment is neither slavery nor sacrifice; commitment is freedom. But there are two types of freedom. One is an independent form of freedom from things, a freedom where we get away from this thing that bothers us. The other is a true freedom that comes from within, a freedom toward things, a freedom we feel in any situation because our level of commitment, our level of giving. For example, if we are in relationships where we feel bound, in sacrifice, because it is something we have to do, all the fun and capacity to receive is gone. We feel that we have lost our choice. But when we choose to be there, committed, giving ourselves fully, our choice allows us to transcend our imperfections and feel the freedom of commitment.

Game over? More like, game on. 

I don’t know about the rest of the married couples in the world, but I can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner, and what a thrill to be committed to a person who’s up for it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

What constraint will set you free?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Romeo was first smitten by another maiden. 

Rosaline, one of the unseen characters in the play, was involved in a short lived romance with our hero, who expressed dismay at her not loving him back. 

Juliet, of course, walked into the costume ball and changed everything. The moment our protagonist lays his eyes upon her, good old what’s her name is history. And he expresses one of the most cherished and symbolic lines in all of literature. 

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, for I never saw true beauty till this night. 

His eyes betrayed him. He thought had had seen beauty before, until this moment. But as this woman now graces his presence, the memory of whatever came before has been completely erased. 

It’s an amnesia of the heart, and it’s an experience each of us goes through in our lives.

The key word in the passage is forswear. It means to give up an idea, belief or habit that we’ve held previously. When we forswear, we abandon something completely. We formally reject and disavow a closely held belief, under the pressure of something much bigger than us. 

These are the moments that shape us as human beings. When we see something that changes everything. When a person waltzes into our life and steals our heart away and presses the delete button on anything that came before and silently asks us to never be the same person again.

The vulnerability of this experience is terrifying, but if we’re willing to subject ourselves to its power, that which awaits us on the other side is nothing short of a miracle. 

Shakespeare proves that each of us is an ocean under a fickle moon. That we’re all susceptible to the demands of the head and the needs of the wrist and the longing of the heart. 

And so, we should treat our beliefs as temporary. Prepare ourselves to abandon them at any moment. Be ready to imprint a set of new beliefs into our system. And grant ourselves permission to forswear. 

Because the more desperate we are to believe in something, the more it will seem to delude us. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

What evidence would convince you that you’re wrong? * * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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 heard an interview with renowned chef who compared her career to getting a tattoo. 

There was never any plan, she laughed. Every single choice and endeavor focused around what felt pleasurable in the moment, and she trusted that this new tattoo, which was now stuck on her body forever, would create a residual ongoing effect that nobody could ever take away from her. 

It’s a deeply courageous career path. One that demonstrates an awareness of a pulsing presence in the heart of things. One that’s paved with authenticity and uncertainty and faith. 

And the tattoo metaphor is actually quite perfect. Because in addition to the liberated spontaneity of her projects, she’s also forced to reckon with their inevitable permanence. 

Once the work ships, aka, once the ink dries, she wakes up and stares at her new tattoo in the mirror and thinks, okay then, for the rest of my life, I need to take real responsibility for this thing in the world. 

That’s the balance each of us should hope to strike in our careers. When that thing sticks inside of us and says right now, we execute with all of our might. 

And then, when that thing is living and breathing and creating value in the world, we do everything we can to keep that project alive for as long as possible. 

Because even if it doesn’t quite turn out the way we originally envisioned, it’s still our baby and deserves love. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

How many career tattoos are you willing to get?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Seeking help, in whatever necessary form, is the most important part of the entrepreneurial journey. 

If we don’t connect our goals with people who can help make them happen, pushing that boulder up the hill is going to take a very, very long time. 

But equally as dangerous as not asking for helping from the right people, is accepting help from the wrong ones. Here’s a summary of my experience making that very mistake. 

I know you have a lot of experience in this area. And I understand your perspective would certainly give my work a greater chance of succeeding. But there’s a fear in me. Because every time I ask for your support, the moment you jump in, you hijack the project and treat me like your little helper and make me feel like a disempowered intern who isn’t adult enough to take ownership over anything. And then, when I start acting all huffy and defensive and short and resentful, you get angry with me for not implementing your brilliant feedback, which makes me shut down even more. Is it any surprise that I stopped coming to you for help years ago? 

That’s the lesson we must learn. That our bodies and minds don’t respond to people’s words, they respond to our history with the person using those words. 

As the old saying goes, once we’ve seen a ghost, we’re always afraid of the dark.

And so, if you’re not sure whom to ask for help, listen to your body. Surround yourself with individuals who aren’t trying to silence your unringable bell. 

People who have compassion for your context and allowing you the space to take extreme ownership of your world. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

Who is the person you no longer ask to help you?
* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.

Negative inspiration is when we see something in the world that we don’t want to be a part of, and it sparks action. 

It’s a beautiful moment in the creative process. 

Because it enables our divine dissatisfaction with the way the world is. And that’s a very specific and valuable emotion that we can’t access when we’re happy. 

The good news is, once we tap into that energy, we can channel it to creatively shine a light on how we think the world should be. 

It’s the reason I’ve always viewed reading bad books as a good thing. That experience angers me to the point of saying

Christ, this guy’s writing is embarrassing, and if I don’t get to work right away and restore the creative balance in the universe, I might snap into pieces. 

In a world where the muse is usually depicted as the glowing white shoulder angel who lovingly strokes our hair and tells us that everything is going to be okay, perhaps a little negative inspiration would do the soul some good. 

Remember, if we can’t listen to and take action on the messages of our negative emotions, we’re not being truly creative. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…   

Are you so happy that you’ve forgotten your anger?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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.