If the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, then the greatest trick the ego ever pulled was convincing us that we actually needed it. 

Of course, we completely bought into it. And now everyone has developed an allergy to being wrong. Now everyone makes a conscious effort to kick doubt’s ass right out of their minds. Now everyone is distracted by the sparkling but false lures of certainty. Now everyone is surviving on a steady diet of happy hunches and lucky guesses. 

In fact, our thirst for certainty is so strong, that we believe we’re idiots anytime things surprise us. 

But the thing about everyone is, they’re wrong all the time. Nobody knows anything. 

People who say they know what’s going to happen are either lying or trying to sell you something. 

This reminds me of a great research paper about the prevalence of worrying and coping mechanisms. The psychologists reported that because the future is intrinsically uncontrollable, searching for certainty not only doesn’t work, but ironically, heightens the likelihood that we’ll suffer. 

Being right, after all, is an attempt to prevent pain. 

And so, our major challenge is to let go of the ego’s stranglehold. To lean into the thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next. Maybe even to treat certainty as a public health crisis. 

Here’s a simple first step. 

Get together with a few friends or coworkers. Have everyone in the room answer one question. 

What did you believe five years ago that now makes you wonder, what was I thinking? 

A similar exercise is to have everyone remember a time in their life when they sad, I would never do that, and then spend the next few minutes telling the story when they did that thing. 

Think of these exercises as a method for sneaking up on people whose beliefs have stabilized and have dozens of years to look back on. 

It’s a perfect starting point for using humility to free you from the bondage of ego. 

That’s the challenge before you. Lessening your stake in being right. 

Transforming the lead of the ego into the gold of surrender. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How will you guard against your ego begging to run the show?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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The problem is not that life is insecure, the problem is that we expect it to feel secure. 

And that foredooms us to bitterness and disappointment. 

Here’s how it typically works. 

The world falls short of our fantasy, other people fail to fulfill the assignments we mentally give them, and the future stubbornly refuses to unfold exactly as we expect it to. 

Then we feel like a failure and start being unkind to ourselves. 

But instead of maturely wondering about our role in the problem, we chalk it up to something external. As a friend of mine likes to say:

Blaming the red light for conspiring to make us late. 

And so, how do we respond to the crooked, confusing and overwhelming nature of the world with calmness, grace and understanding? By developing a healthier perspective on our own personal expectations. Learning how to get ahead of the story before we become it. 

There’s a cognitive behavioral therapy program, which is a combination of breath awareness and mindfulness meditation, that helps me daily with this issue. Through a series of customized incantations, this program allows me to practice the art of expecting nothing. 

It’s remarkable. By literally announcing to myself, multiple times a day, that I am expecting nothing, it not only relaxes me in the moment, but also dramatically reduces my grieving time when and if calamity strikes. 

It’s one of my favorite tools for coping with an external world that will not submit to my imagined demands. 

The good news is, how each of us responds to the world is ours alone. 

There’s no reason to treat life’s circumstances as a hideous betrayal of all our hopes. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you expectations serving or frustrating 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.

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You’re never alone in the world unless you want to be. 

If you are lonely, it’s because you are not letting other people in. It’s because you are surrendering to your antisocial tendencies and isolating yourself from the world. 

And maybe it comes from a place of stubbornness. You already convinced yourself that you are not a team player. Or maybe it’s rooted in an outdated identity narrative, because you romanticize your loneliness as a form of heroism.

But whatever way you spin it, ultimately, you are the result of yourself. You are the perpetrator of your own separation. 

This realization hit me like a hammer about six years ago. After a decade of going it alone as a freelancer, spending most of my days working on a laptop in my living room wearing pajamas, these mini anxiety attacks started to show up. Little existential waves of dread swelling inside my brain that lasted for about ten minutes. 

They were nothing that required medication or hospitalization, but the attacks seemed to be getting heavier and more frequent. And that’s when the voice of reason told me the following. 

The way you’re working isn’t working. Not anymore. Solely existing in the lovely timeless world inside your head might have been a sublime arrangement for an earlier version of your heart. But attaining the pleasure of solitude by paying the price of loneliness is no longer a healthy or sustainable business model. This has to stop. It’s time to bridge the lonely gap of alienation in your soul. Otherwise loneliness will continue to visit you, gradually move in, and eventually take over for good. 

Thus began a journey of reconnecting to the world. Changing my pronouns. Searching for those feelings of belonging which I had been seeking for so long, but unknowingly ran away from. 

A good friend of mine said it best:

You are obviously being called to something different. You’re currently in the liminal space, in severance, pulling away from your previous patterns. And that requires you to do the opposite of what you would normally do. If your tendency is to drive towards solitude, you must consciously create more moments connection and belonging with others. If your tendency is to do stubbornly do everything yourself, you must intentionally create work that forces you to collaborate with other people. 

She was right. It’s very uncomfortable admitting that your biggest problem might be yourself. 

But it’s the first step towards healing. It’s the first step towards to the glorious release from being all alone. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Do you remember what it was like to look around and feel your loneliness had lifted and know you belonged? * * * *

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.