Fearlessness is the great elixir

Something is admirable to me when I know that
I couldn’t do it. 

That’s how I feel when I see person with a lot of talent. 

But
additionally, something is also admirable to me when I know that I wouldn’t do
it. 

Because I see a person with a lack of fear. That’s not an insignificant
thing. It’s a very different form of social currency than talent, one that our
performance obsessed society often overlooks. But it still matters. 

There’s a
guy I see in the park sometimes. He dances around the grass in a loin cloth,
making strange animal noises, reciting bizarre poetry and playing music on
homemade instruments. For hours at a time. It’s truly a sight to see. 

And maybe
he’s mentally ill, maybe he’s a social experimenter, maybe he’s an eccentric
millionaire, or maybe he’s just some guy who like to let his freak flag fly.
Doesn’t matter. 

Because he never fails to draw a crowd of people who cheer and
take pictures and leave tips and walk away smiling.

Not because those
people couldn’t do what that guy does, but because they wouldn’t

The lesson
is, our world rewards skill, but it also loves bravery. And so, if you’re not
high on talent, be low on fear. 

Because most people are terrified and they look
up to those who aren’t afraid. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What is the worst thing that could happen if your worst fears came true?


* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


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–>

The bait should suit the fish, not the fisherman

I have
a colleague who spent twenty years in the marketing department of a global
telecommunications company. 



Part of his job wad dealing with marketing agencies
on a daily basis. And in many cases, he would watch his budget and business
objectives take a back seat to that agency’s enthusiasm to make their mark
creatively. 



It’s no wonder he went on to start his own firm and land clients
who rehire him year after year. He knew the number one rule of business. 



Bait
the hook to suit the fish, not the fisherman. 



It’s the mistake most creatives
make. Myself included. And it can manifest in a number of ways. 



We’re so
obsessed with getting reactions, we forget to get results. 



We’re so determined
to create mystery and suspense; we frustrate our audience.



We’re so busy
performing and pointing the camera at ourselves, we forget to be useful. 



We’re
so focused on showing off and seeking applause, we forget to achieve our
objective. 



We’re so concerned about being slick and clever and funny and
unique, we fail to be believable. 



And my personal favorite:



We’re so keen on
getting credit for coming up with the right idea, we fail to get the idea
right. 



Think of as an audit for your marketing efforts. Always make sure your
bait suits the fish, not the fisherman. 



No matter how badly you want to make a
name for yourself. 



Because nobody wants to watch a snoozy tale about the
legacy of your hemorrhoid cream. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you willing to kill the cleverness that makes you shine instead of the product?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


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That’s not benevolence, that’s people pleasing

Altman’s book on living kindness reminds us that true generosity does not leave us feeling cheated, elated or superior, but joyful and alive in the giving moment. 

That passage was especially painful for me to read. Because I’ve been guilty of misguided generosity on a several occasions. 



Years ago, I gave a sizable amount of money to someone to use for a down payment on her house. All the while, convincing myself that I was being generous. And maybe I was. 



But looking back, the whole transaction made me feel queasy. And even resentful. Because there was no joy there. The gift was conditional. The money was given begrudgingly, out of a codependent combination of obligation, guilt, pressure and manipulation. 



That’s not generosity, that’s trying to control another person’s behavior and emotions. That’s not a gift, that’s buying away conflict. And that’s not benevolence, that’s people pleasing. 

Fortunately, I’m finished beating myself about up that incident. No more judgment about being wrong, only acceptance about being unskillful. 

In fact, that experience actually helped me create a litmus test for future behavior. It’s a series of simple questions that anyone can ask themselves to evaluate how they acted in a certain situation. 

When you first decided to give this gift, did it come from a place of abundance or fear? When you delivered it, how did it leave you feeling? And had you chosen not to give that gift, would you have felt like a bad person? 

It’s the kind of reflection that won’t change the mistakes of the past, but it might help us prevent them in the future. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How will you know if you’re projecting the ideal energy to be giving from?
* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

If you need an adjective, you can find it in a syringe

Work is part of the way we evaluate ourselves. 



It’s an essential symbol that confirms our place in the world. 



And for many of us, it’s the primary medium through which we become a person. 



It’s no surprise, then, that workaholism has become such a widespread phenomenon. Even though there is no generally accepted medical definition of this condition, it still affects millions of people around the world everyday. 



Call it an addiction, a personality disorder, a disease, or just an everyday compulsion, it’s still very real and potential dangerous. 



Did you know that most heart attacks happen in the morning on the first day of the workweek? 



I’m reminded of an article on the workaholics anonymous homepage that I should have read in my twenties. It says that workaholics judge themselves solely by their accomplishments and hence have the illusion that they must always be in the process of achieving something worthwhile in order to feel good about themselves. 



The thinking is, if we can just get a few more tasks done, then we can finally relax. If we can just keep climbing hard enough, we will finally get to an edge where we can lay down and enjoy the view. 



Of course, when we arrive, the ledge is never big enough. We just climb up to the next one, four hundred feet higher.



In addiction parlance, we keep chasing the dragon. Because we’re too scared to stop. Too scared to give up the work for a moment and allow ourselves the space we might need. Too scared to confront the complicated emotions we don’t understand and risk losing control. 



That’s the high ideal workaholics set for themselves. Our worth as a person seems to be hanging in the balance. If we’re not doing something, we’re failing ourselves and our family. 



And that’s why we use work to cope with emotional discomfort and feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. 



A futile grasping for salvation, it is. 



Here’s the advice I would give my younger self. 



Instead of continuing to pull a hundred rabbits out of the same hat, allow the world to spin forward without your shoulder to the wheel.



Instead of rationalizing your addiction by announcing that there are people in the world with less honorable motives, give yourself a break. 



Instead of filling any space in time with work because you feel insecure doing nothing, trust that people who don’t know of your accomplishments will think you a good person for other reasons. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you surround yourself with a work moat to protect against the dangers of intimacy? * * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Outrageous but perfectly normal misfortune

One of my favorite psychologists explained that people fall into the trap of believing that things are supposed to go well. 



And so, when we make a mistake or a difficulty comes along, we assume that something must have gone horribly wrong.



But it didn’t. It’s simply life doing what it does. And we need to accept the fact that, along with nine billion other people on the planet, we’re flawed and imperfect individuals, and we’re just as likely as anyone else to be hit by the slings and arrows of outrageous, but often perfectly normal, misfortune. 



Buddhists call this approach to life maitri, which is developing loving kindness in our unconditional friendship with ourselves. 



And it means putting an end to a few of our unhealthier habits. 



Like heaping blame on ourselves when we stumble. Like judging ourselves for having been wrong. Like berating ourselves because we expect too much out of our own behavior. 



Whatever misfortune happens upon us, big or small, none of these things help. 



If we’re busy treating out mind like a battleground where we tear ourselves up, matiri has no space in which to enter. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Do your treat yourself with unconditional positive regard when things don’t go as well as you feel they should? 

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


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Forever requiring the balloon of external love to remain inflated

If we say no to this, then nothing else will come along and we will go broke and die alone. 



It’s classic scarcity mentality. 



Buying into the belief that life is limited. Trying to hold onto everything as if it were ours and we owned it and without it we are nothing. Allowing ego and vanity to convince us that saying yes to every request means we’re somehow saving the world. 



But what we don’t realize is, saying no won’t tilt the world on its axis. If we don’t do this, life will not cease to exist. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. 



When we trust that there’s always more adventure and happiness around every single corner, that’s exactly what we find. 



I heard a fascinating interview with a horror film director. John said that when you no longer have the same consuming drive that you used to, you’re much more discerning about the type of projects you say yes to. 



Because you’re not still sweating some list of half baked resolutions you imposed upon yourself. You’re not running around trying to prove yourself and satisfy the expectations of strangers. 



Besides, there are hundred reasons to do everything, and there are a hundred reasons not to do everything. You could debate it forever. 



But every decision boils down to the same question. 



Will this help you build the kind of life you want? 



With that kind of abundance mindset, the freedom to decline a request becomes deeply empowering. 



If you say yes, it’s because you want to, not because you need to. 



Remember, each of us can choose to set boundaries minute by minute that honor what is most important to us. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What are the last three projects you said no to? * * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Shrouded in a cloud of melancholy

Sadness is an inherent part of the human condition. 



Even if the modern happiness industrial complex is bent on eradicating melancholy, selling us shiny new technology to eliminate suffering in all its forms, the reality is, truly happy people are not somehow immune from feeling sadness. They actually embrace it. 

Moore had a great phrase for this. 



Shrouded in a cloud of melancholy

What a perfectly poetic and visual reminder that sadness, like everything else in life, is impermanent. It passes eventually.

Feelings are like weather patterns, drifting in and out of the atmosphere, each of which has a beginning, a middle and an end. 

The other day I experienced a moment of unexpected and uncontrollable sadness. It was the strangest thing. All of the sudden, my gut felt hollowed out by grief. With every song I heard, every message I received and every article I read, the sadness weighed heavier. And I have no idea why. 

But unlike the typical response, which is to cheer myself up in an effort to rescue myself from sadness before actually feeling the sadness to the extent that it needed to be felt, I simply told myself that it was okay to be really, really sad right now. 

That I was going to survive this feeling, and it didn’t mean it was always going to feel this way. Sadness takes many forms, and all of them are conquerable. For now, I simply open myself up to it. 

Honoring the feeling as an emotion that serves to remind me of what matters most. Remembering that the momentary discomfort is far less painful than the prolonged suffering that comes from avoiding it. 

Sure enough, within an hour, the cloud of melancholy had lifted. Because for once, I wasn’t so intent on outsmarting my own pain. I wasn’t so consumed with escaping my own misery. And I wasn’t obsessed with trying to eliminate suffering in all its forms. 

Next time you feel hollowed out by grief, instead of searching for a misery salve, lean into the sadness and find out what this feeling wants from you.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Isn’t there something sad about a world without sadness?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Steal Scott’s Ideas, Episode 108: The Great Barrier Gonorrhea || Brittany, Conrad, Kate

What if strangers never stared at you again? 

What if glittery greeting cards cleaned your house? 

What if we turned ocean pollution into fertilizer? 

What if you had a molasses covered groin? 

What if seals copulated without destroying beaches?

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Brittany, Conrad and Kate gather in Brooklyn for some execution in public.


**Sponsored by Applyd



Execution Lesson 108: Creating the company that houses your own art.

We get work when we decide to work whether we are working or not.

That’s how working works. It’s not whether we are good, although talent certainly helps, it’s whether we are moving. Because while opportunity is attracted to talent, it’s also mesmerized by momentum. And the best entrepreneurs have both.

Instead of patiently suckling the pink teat of institutional permission, they hire themselves and get to work. Whether or not their work is even going to work.

Roark, the mythological architect who refused to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation, once said that the question is not who’s going to let us, but who’s going to stop us?

Nobody, that’s who. Not a goddamn person.

It’s actually quite surprising the first time we taste this flavor of freedom. We start working and realize, oh damn, not only are people not stopping me, they’re actually supporting me. That’s momentum. It works.

Lesson learned, new work opportunities find us through the attraction of working, not the arrogance of waiting. If you are hoping to get more work, just remember this.

Not working is not working.

It’s not enough to making work, we also have to create the opportunity to make it.

Master than, and you will soon learn that you are much freer than you allow yourself to imagine.


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How could you build the house where your freedom resides?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Working full time versus working all the time

I have a friend who ran a successful jewelry business for many years. 



She schlepped her wares to craft fairs, developed her brand presence, built a solid customer base, got her art featured in key industry publications, even opened a small brick and mortar shop to grow her company locally. 



But like many entrepreneurs who turn their passion into a business, it was a heaping shit ton of work. She wore every hat in the company and slaved away nights and weekends, only to barely keep the enterprise above water. 



And she loved it, but in the back of her mind, she also knew that she couldn’t sustain it forever. Nor did she want to. 



Kind of reminded me of myself. She was already burned out going it alone and had no desire to scale in order to burn out even more. 



In the end, she decided close her company doors. Proudly and without shame or regret. Because the time had come for her to move into the second act of her career. 



Interestingly enough, one of her vendors heard the news and offered her an amazing customer service job in the small business department of their corporation. She accepted the job and couldn’t have been happier.



Years ago when I asked her how the new gig was going, her response summarized the journey perfectly. 



An employee now, I work full time. But when I was an entrepreneur, I worked all the time. 



That’s perspective. My friend didn’t sell out, she outgrew her origins and changed directions proudly. 



Hoffman said it best in his book about inventing the future. 



Pivoting isn’t throwing a dart on the map and then going there, it’s changing your path to get somewhere based on what you’ve learned along the way. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you locking yourself into a single career path, or remaking yourself as you grow and as the world changes?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com


It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

Taking extreme ownership of your world

We cannot fathom having no excuses. 



It’s what separates us from rest of the animal kingdom. Human beings possess the unique ability to pick up their blame throwers and abdicate responsibility for their work. 



But in nature, it’s much different. Beavers and squirrels rarely surrender accountability for their actions. Because they’re not professional victims. They just do the work building dams and collecting nuts or whatever else woodland creatures do all day. 



I recently caught myself trying to justify work that wasn’t as good as could have been. My entire body started sweating as I began scrolling through my rolodex of excuses, hoping to find a good enough reason why the execution fell short. 



And in that moment, something occurred to me. 



The stress of avoiding the pain of owning my reality isn’t worth it. Reminding everybody of all the factors that were out of my control isn’t helping. 

Taking extreme ownership of my world is much faster, healthier and more productive. 

Ziglar use to say that when you point the finger of blame at someone else, there are three times as many fingers pointing right back at you. Hokey but true. 

Instead of shrinking back from the implied responsibilities of our lives, we must relentlessly work to avoid opportunities to use our ability to blame. 

Because everyone has a perfect excuse. 

There’s a great question my mentor taught me years ago. Anytime you’re thinking about picking up your blame thrower, ask yourself. 

Is there anyone else who has had the same excuse as me but is moving ahead successfully nonetheless? 

There usually is. And that’s often enough to put ourselves on the hook and take extreme ownership of our world. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What are you not doing in your life that you could be doing that you are blaming somebody else for not doing for you?


* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!


Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.

Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs.

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