When you’re a workaholic, somehow all the warnings in the world don’t quite convince us that it’s time to stop. 

Here’s the lie we love to tell ourselves. 

There’s nothing wrong with putting in consecutive fourteen hour days if we love the work and it feels like a calling and we’re making a meaningful difference in the world, right? 

May as well just keep pushing until our body gives out and forces us to rest and take care of it. 

Then we can stop. Then we can take some much needed time off and make a contribute to our own life. 

If that’s the case, we’re most likely running on the steam of a delusion. Convincing ourselves that our noble compulsions are serving something other than our own ego. 

It reminds me of something my yoga instructor once said in regards to dehydration:

Don’t try to be a soldier when your body needs you to be saint. 

Listen to your body, not your ego. 

Our daily practice, then, is to always allow unscheduled time for unexpected self care. Instead deluded ourselves into thinking that another time will be different, we honor our body’s promptings in the moment.

We listen to what it needs, regardless of what our ego wants. In short, we have to stop trying to impress ourselves all the time. 

Life is not a performance. There is no studio audience. 

There are no panel judges with numbered signs. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you still gripped by a mad delusion of invincibility?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Reading recovery literature taught me how to identify a martyr. 

They use suffering to attract attention. They view themselves as unfortunate creatures caught in a web of circumstance. Their daily existence is a walking battleground. A montage of crises bookended by catastrophes.

And so, overwhelmed with life’s problems, they quickly and easily fly into blind rage over completely inconsequential bullshit. They allow their imaginations to build small troubles into big ones. Wresting with situations that aren’t actually worth a second thought. Collecting injustices like beads on a string, carrying around trouble like a backpack full of boulders, conjuring up all sorts of mishaps and calamities for themselves. 

But the real danger of martyrdom is, it’s highly contagious. People’s drama attempts to bait others into a life of worry. It aims to drag the rest of us down into their whirlpool of resentment. 

People shake their heads and murmur under their breath, silently formulating their exasperated little sob story to recount to everyone they encounter. And they coming knocking on every door in town, asking everyone we know to sign their petitions until there is a whole army of people who agree with them that everything is wrong and everyone is mobilized against them. 

It’s sad. Serenity has no hope of seeping into the chaos of their lives. 

Of course, feeling sorry for these heroes doesn’t help, either. It only further enables their behavior. 

There’s no point here. Martyrs just bother me. And every time I see one in action, the bell of awareness rings. 

Reminding me to make sure that my core values really have been violated before jumping to high drama. 

And that we have nothing to lose but our misery. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

Are you still making life more difficult than it needs to be?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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How do you come to respect yourself? 

Does the journey call
for epic achievements like scaling mountains and winning triathlons and
building million dollar businesses? 

Or does it come from the simple, ordinary
and everyday victories you achieve in the battle of being a human being? 

Faulkner once said that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart
in conflict with itself. Maybe that’s where respect for yourself starts. In the
ordinary difficulties of living. 

Like when you listen closely to your real
feelings, and then honor whatever arises. Or when you give yourself the freedom
to express your emotions, and then refuse to judge yourself for having them. Or
when you permit yourself to put words to your needs, and then take an active
part in meeting those needs. 

Or when you develop faith in your own experience,
relying on inner resources to support you. And when you honor the journey
you’re on, and then trust whatever step you take to be the right one. 

In each
of these moments, you’re reframing everything you do as a conscious choice and
facing the world each day as your best self. That’s worth your respect. And
there are no medals and awards and acronyms bestowed upon you for your
accomplishment. 

Because that’s not the point. Nobody even has to know. This
battle is between you and you. 

Mckee famously wrote in his screenwriting bible
that true character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under
pressure. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the
choice to the character’s essential nature. 

Notice, he said nothing about
climbing mountains. Just making choices. 

That’s victory enough. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

How did you come to respect yourself? 

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Accepting that we need to change is always first step. 

But it’s not the only step. Just because we have accepted our problems doesn’t mean we can expect everything to magically fall into place. 

We can’t just shake off the problem right away. We have to take our struggle in stride. We have to trust the tempo of our timing. And we have to accept that most growth and change is a slow, subtle process. 

No matter how much we’d prefer for the pain to go away now. 

It’s like the old recovery adage. 

Few experiences are of less value than fast sobriety. 

My therapist used to bust me on this all the time. During our stress reduction sessions, my patience hung at the other end of a very thin thread. I had such an immature sense of time. Insisting that everything had to be done right now. And considering my workaholic tendency to devour life rapidly in huge chunks, the mantra may as well have been, hurry up and relax. 

Eventually, though, I learned how to relax my armor against the present moment. To dismantle my sense of victimization around time, believing that time is a gift, a threat. And to finally retire from the results business. 

Because for anything that matters, timing is never quite right. Not according to our egomaniacal, control freak clocks. 

We may well enjoy the process. We may as well trust that our life will fall back into place again. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

Does your impatience distort your growth by not allowing it proper timing?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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No matter how enlightened and accepting we think we are, inside each one of us is a judgmental axe ready to fall. 

And it’s very difficult to resist. 

Our ego loves judgment because it gives us a sense of being right and superior. The problem is, it doesn’t move us forward. It’s just a way of spinning our selfish wheels. Every time we spend our precious mental energy speculating about someone else’s life and how it compares with ours, it only deepens feelings of anger and resentment. 

There’s a powerful passage from a recovery book on this very topic:

What a sad waste it is to occupy ourselves with other people’s affairs, gossiping and inventorying and comparing and judging. We must focus on keeping our house in order, not theirs. 

It’s like watching the office clock to monitor what time people arrive each morning. 

Sarah is always thirty minutes late, and she usually leaves thirty minutes early. Totally unprofessional. Who does she think she is? This is bullshit. Somebody should send out a company wide email and passive aggressively remind all employees that we start work here at nine. 

It’s exhausting, holding onto these petty little fantasy battles inside our heads. Taking other people’s inventories is a pointless endeavor. 

Besides, we can’t learn anything if we’re in the judgment business. 

And so, next time that voice shows up, simply say hello and let the judgment continue on its way. Allow others to live their own lives, and you’ll have much more time and energy to tend to your own affairs. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

What if the only inventory you needed to take was your own?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Buddhists remind us that happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. 

And so, if somewhere nervously out at the periphery of our minds, we would rather belong somewhere else, that’s going to cause us pain. 

The goal is to give up of all hope of alternatives to the present moment. The goal is to reach a place of enduring contentment with ourselves. 

It’s harder than it sounds. 

I have a colleague whose career path took an unexpected but lucrative turn into the world of legal education and training. Sam isn’t an attorney by trade, but his decades of experience as a teacher, comedian, salesman and performer are the perfect combination for that particular role. 

He’s very good at his job, his clients love his work, his business is thriving and his family has a great life. But it took him several years to truly own that position. To fully give himself credit for the person he had become in the present. 

Because nobody lays in bed at night as a child dreaming about standing in a small conference room teaching eleven patent attorneys how to make more persuasive opening statements. But that’s where his life landed. And it’s filled with joy because he would rather not be somewhere else. 

Whatever your present moment consists of, try this. 

Instead of avoiding the risk of accidentally embracing something that would make life turn out the way it shouldn’t, bolster your sense of being in the right place at the right time. 

Instead of making the present moment into a monster to be defeated or escaped, remind yourself that you have chosen wisely and are exactly where you need to be. 

Instead of getting caught in the headlights of tomorrow, own where you are, right now. It makes life so much more enjoyable. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

Are you constantly nibbling away at your commitment to the present moment?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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My truest moments of community have always seemed to work in the following way. 

Everybody starts by laying down their cross. Confident that their suffering is the heaviest. Convinced that they would trade places with anyone if they could. But once they take a look around, once they really feel the weight of the suffering other people have been carrying, they reach down and pick their cross right back up. 

You know, on second thought, my problems aren’t so bad after all. 

It’s a beautiful and surprising moment. Accepting our mistakes as proof of our humanness, it doesn’t get much better than that. 

It reminds me of a passage from a recovery devotional. The former addict explained that joy was multiplied in direct proportion to the extent that she shared it. 

Which then means, that pain is divided in direct proportion to the same. Once we admit what we think we are alone with, magically, we grow closer together. We realize we’re less alone than we thought. And we learn that underneath people’s perfectly curated masks of pleasure, there is always a fellow human being beset with problems and difficulties just as we are. 

It’s not about misery loving company, it’s about failure finding everybody. 

Remember, bravely going forward alone isn’t a sustainable coping strategy. Move your heart out of isolation contraction and into connection. 

Tap into the power of we. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

When was the last time you admitted what you thought you were alone with?
* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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They were the dream company to work for. 

Everything about this consulting firm, from the people to the process to the perspective to the product, screamed my name. It was a perfect fit. 

Their circus must meet my monkeys. 

And so, let the courtship begin. 

I started reaching out with a steady campaign of emails, proposals, social media outreach and even a few face to face interviews with internal hiring managers. 

And it almost worked.

But for whatever reason, the company decided to go in a different direction. God damn it. 

A few years later, long after I had mourned the rejection and gotten over the disappointment and been hired for another job, I found out that some massive media conglomerate ended up acquiring my dream company. 

Sadly, within four months of the buyout, the firm was shut down. Every employee, including the two founders, were fired. Nobody knew what hit them, nobody heard from that firm ever again. 

Lesson learned, disappointment is relative. Sometimes what we so desperately want at the time would actually have not have been the best thing for us. Our vision was just too limited to see that. 

And so, whenever the ground beneath you suddenly disappears, try not to drown in your seething cauldron of deep disappointment. 

Trust that you will begin to discern some purpose in the experience. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

If the world disappoints you, how will you choose not to disappoint yourself?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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The frustrating thing about growth is, it comes on its own terms and in its own time. 

It’s realized at nature’s pace and speed, not ours. 

And so, growth is less intentional and more incidental. We don’t try to grow, per se. We simply accept ourselves as we are, and then we grow automatically. 

A few years ago when my left wrist injury kept me from performing locust posture, my first instinct was to solve the physical problem immediately. 

Let’s get into therapy and heal this weakness in three months. Then my life can get back to normal. 

But that was just a form of fighting the problem. Waiting for miracles to happen according to my own personal timetable. Which actually weakened my chances of finding a solution. 

Only when I accepted my body for what it was, not for what it might become, did my wrist magically start to feel better. 

Funny how that works. When growth is no longer our goal, we have more of it. 

And so, as you continue to evolve toward an ever more perfect whole, remember these mantras. 

You may not always find what you want there, but you trust that this is where you need to be. 

You may not progress at the speed that our anxiety would hope, but you believe the appropriate energy is available for the task that needs to be done. 

You may not always accomplish things on you schedule, but you recognize that you’re growing and developing at the rate that’s right for you. 

That way, wherever you finally arrive, you don’t regret what you had to go through to get here. 

Remember, when expectations become demands, you’re in for a world of disappointment. 

But when you lead with acceptance, there are no wrong turns. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Aren’t you just a little worn out from believing you have to control everything?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Whatever thing you’re afraid of, it’s merely an ancestor of something deeper and stronger and more human than you realize. 

And if you don’t follow that fear down the chain, you’ll never uncover the truth about yourself. 

Like when you’re running twenty minutes late for work and suddenly your whole body is sweating so you start power walking down the street, weaving in and out of traffic, hurdling over small children to try to make it into the office on time. 

Somewhere in the cluttered and nervous room of your mind, the fear is not that you’ll be late for work. Or that you’ll get fired and run out of money and deplete your savings and get evicted and have to leave the city and move back in with your parents. 

No, the fear is that in the process of doing all that, you will lose the community that you worked so hard to build. And that you will be alone again. 

It all goes back to belonging. The basic human need to connect and touch and feel heard and become part of something larger than ourselves. 

Right after food, air and water, that’s the one thing we’re all afraid of losing. 

The practice, then, is interrupting the worry stream with wonder. Anytime the fear comes knocking, we ask ourselves:

What’s the fear behind the fear? 

What’s the deeper issue that lurks in the shadows? 

Addicts in recovery programs often use a similar approach with the word halt, which stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. 

Each one of these four physical or emotional conditions, if not taken care of, leaves that individual vulnerable for relapse. 

And so, whatever they’re feeling, it can likely be traced back to one of the big four. 

Try going there before you assign the wrong name to your fear. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What fear ancestor are you really afraid of? 

* * * *

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.