The surprising thing about vulnerability is, people don’t go away when they find out who we are. 

It’s quite the opposite. Instead of rejecting or abandoning us, they come nearer. Our truth draws them in like a warm fire. And our tender but universal intimacies become a platform for deep connection. 

Train has a great song about this universal emotional experience. 

These bruises make for better conversation, loses the vibe that separates, good to let you in again, you’re not alone in how you’ve been. Everybody loses, we all got bruises. 

Are you willing to share yours? Even the parts of yourself that might need some work? 

Don’t worry. No need to lift up your shirt for strangers. The goal here is putting a priority on speaking your microscopic truth. Actually expressing your internal experience as you are currently perceiving it, as often as you can.

The simplest approach is giving data about what sensations we’re feeling in the moment. The pang in our stomach, the heating up of our face, the goosebumps on our skin, these simple expressions are single serving, low threat, easy places to start. 

And with some practice, will pave the way for more vulnerable expressions like deep feelings, strong emotions, personal failures and other profound experiences. 

Proving to us that intimacy truly means, into me I see. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you putting a priority on speaking your microscopic truth?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Debotton’s philosophy research makes the crucial distinction between desire and need. 

A desire is whatever you feel you want at the moment, but a need is for something that serves your long term wellbeing. 

For example, our desire might be to consume our entire body weight in buffalo wings, but our need is to feel nourished. Our need is to create a foundation that sustains and supports and strengthens us in the face of life’s challenges. 

See the difference? 

Turns out, by framing our feelings this very holistic and human way, it actually becomes easier to make space for nourishing moments in each day and life a satisfying, fulfilled life. 

Therefore, if we are prepared to peel back the layers of compulsion and distraction and expose the core, there is a seedling of joy that awaits us. 

All we have to do is be honest with ourselves about what desire versus what we need. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are willing to going deeper to meet your truest needs?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Hell isn’t other people, hell is comparing ourselves to them. 

Any time we assign magical qualities to others, allow ourselves to become over impressed by people’s successes and idealize those who likely share the same mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses that we have, that’s hell. 

Any time we use other people to gather evidence of our own inadequacy, shame ourselves for failing to meet their values and vandalize our worthiness by making unfavorable and foolish comparisons, that’s hell. 

Any time we justify our resentments towards successful people, trap ourselves into thinking we deserve better than them, and let their awesome lives spiral us into a paralyzing state of shame, depression, and bitterness, that’s hell. 

And understandably, it’s difficult look at the pain we cause ourselves when we compare. Because we’re too blinded by the stars in our eyes. 

Donaghue’s inspiring book about sex outside the lines uses makes a point about how technology can tip the comparison scales in either direction:

Used properly, the internet can create a nourishing and supportive environment of influence. Used improperly, the internet can create a toxic, brutalizing atmosphere of detrimental comparison, leading to a debilitating sense of loneliness and an unhealthy desire for unachievable norms. 

A nice reminder that whatever we carry in our minds either nurtures us or tires us. 

And comparison does the latter.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you endangering your physical and emotional health in the attempt to conform to some ideal?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

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Humans love to create emergencies for themselves. It’s what helps make us feel big and important and dramatic. 

But in a world where most people are trapped in the frantic scramble for position, prestige, profit and power, frankly, there’s nothing more soothing than encountering someone whose inner calm you can literally feel. 

Everyone has someone like this in their lives. People who have settled down and found a measure of peace. People who know how to flip the calmness switch. People who have realized that humility is being at rest. People who honor their body’s unique need for balance and move at a pace that neither rushes them nor proceeds too slowly. 

These are my heroes. Not athletes or rockstars or startup founders or internet celebrities, but exquisitely ordinary people who have exceptional letting go abilities. 

That’s what it all comes back to. Because every little act of acceptance allows people to relax a little bit more. If someone is more calm than you, it’s because they have let go more than you. 

Remember, the meaning of meaning is to set the pace of being. If we don’t choose to push back against our hectic tempo and move toward simplicity and harmony, eventually, life is going to pull the rug out from under us.

May each of us learn to live within a rhythm of life that’s actually sustainable. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What if you didn’t have to work so hard to make them love you?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

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And
now for my favorite new joke:

How many optimists does it take to screw in a
light bulb? 

Who says it’s dark? 

If you didn’t laugh at that, then you’re not an
optimist. And that’s okay. Because being optimist comes with an inherent blind
spot. 

You’re so optimistic that you believe everyone else is optimistic too. 

But sadly, not everyone you meet elects and adopts your attitude. Not everyone
you meet allows the landscape of hope to become their reality. Regardless of
how hard you try to reaffirm even the faintest glimmer of optimism in their
failing spirits, they still won’t look on the more favorable side of events. 

And regardless of how often you send forth a tiny ripple of hope, they’re still
waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Ask any midwesterner who’s ever relocated
to the big city. You don’t realize just how optimistic you really are until you’re living in trash ridden hellhole surrounded
by eight million cynical centers of the universe who have long lost the heart
to be happy and the nerve to be hopeful. 

The point is, next time you feel like
a time traveling visitor from a bygone age of optimism, don’t beat yourself up.
Stay focused on taking your place in the sun as one of the world’s hopeful
possibilities. Continue to measure your work by the optimism it leaves behind.

And when people lament about the darkness, just remind yourself that the light
has been on the whole time.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What story do will you tell yourself to become freed from the tyranny of pessimism? 

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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We can never assume other people are having the same experience that we are. 

And we can never assume other people operate inside the same value systems as we do. 

Doing so only leads to disconnection, tension and conflict in our relationships. 

For example, certain cherished habits that we believe positively represent our character, like discipline, focus and ambition, may be negatively perceived by others as stubborn, obsessive and brown nosing. 

But those people aren’t wrong. It’s simply their experience of our behavior. 

And so, there’s no use getting upset when somebody misinterprets our actions. 

All we can do is remind ourselves that we live in a world with other people. All we can do is develop enough humility so that we recognize our part in any misunderstandings. All we can do is let go of asking people to be just like we are. 

In short, what’s good for the goose may be infuriating for the gander. 

We must be careful not to burden our relationships with too many misconceptions, faulty assumptions and arbitrary rules. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you seeing people as they are, or projecting your own autobiography onto them? 

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Campbell famously wrote that the more we mythologize and idealize the person we love, the more disillusioned and disheartened we grow as we come to know their imperfect humanity. 

Interestingly enough, the same principle applies to our work. 

Careers, not unlike intimate relationships, are this constant battle between romantic fantasy and disenchanting reality. 

Take the newly hired employee. Once onboarding is finished and she’s settled into her new position and she starts getting hang of things, something shifts. The honeymoon is over. Reality removes the veil that gently drapes in front of her eyes. 

And now that she finds herself on the inside, she starts to see how the business really operates and what compromises are regularly made. 

In fact, one of the company veterans sits her down at lunch one day to have the talk. As if to say:

Okay, you’ve been here long enough. Let me tell you how this place really works. 

It’s not an uncommon experience. We all endanger ourselves in the attempt to conform to some ideal. There’s plenty of disillusionment to go around. 

But if we learn to maintain an internal locus of control, knowing that the world may disappoint us, but we can still choose not to disappoint ourselves, disenchantment doesn’t have to swallow us whole. 

Here are a few questions worth asking ourselves. 

Can we sit with the rawness of things not working out the way we want them to? 

Can we forgive other people for not being as we’d hoped? 

Can we navigate our disappointment with the world not being the perfect place we thought it was? 

Can we let go of unrealistic expectations based on conventional wisdom? 

If so, then we’ll probably be okay. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you so enchanted to your work and the wealth you think it will bring that you cannot see its weaknesses? 

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

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When we feel the rumblings of dissatisfaction, stuck in the twilight zone of unfulfillment, trapped in the repetitive habit of escalating discontent, it’s important to remember something. 

Boredom is the symptom, not the problem. 

It only appears when broader meaning is absent. 

Maisel’s research on natural psychology explains it as follows. 

Boredom arises as a special, terrible problem for smart people. Because a smart person has a lively brain, that brain wants to work, it is primed to think, and if you give it nothing to do, it will do nothing for as long as it can bear to do nothing, but it will not be happy. It will be bored and, worse yet, begin to doubt the meaningfulness of life. 

This is usually around the time our compulsive and addictive behaviors step in to save the day. They seduce us into engaging in exciting and soothing behaviors to deal with our painful state of affairs. 

And it rarely works out for the better.

A healthier response to boredom is to reframe our language around it. To see it for what it really is, which is a meaning crisis. 

Unless we train ourselves think of it this way, unless we learn the appropriate language to diagnose and treat boredom, we stand defenseless against it. 

Boredom isn’t the problem, meaning is. 

Which is something that is made, not found. 

Instead of expecting the world to relieve us of our feelings, we ought to try converting our divine dissatisfaction into genuine improvement.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How do you solve your frustrated quest for meaning?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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My favorite definition of surrender is letting go of trying to control what we never had control over in the first place. 

It’s the most glorious relief known to man. Because once we courageously risk letting go of our own will, our mind no longer has to perform the acrobatics of rationalization and justification and expectation. 

And we can just be. The pain ends and hope takes its place. Whatever circumstances that don’t serve us in the grand scheme of a life, we can watch them float by like leaves on a river, drifting downstream and out of our view. 

That’s the beauty of surrender. 

It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we let go.

It’s not that we quit, it’s that we accept. 

It’s not that we’re better than anything, it’s that we’re freed from everything that is no longer beneficial to our growth. 

And the best part is, this process actually deepens our relationship with the rest of the world. In surrendering to life as it unfolds, we find ourselves on an intimate adventure. 

Anonymous, my favorite of the existentialist philosophers, said it perfectly in his book on healing the whole person:

To surrender is to win. To fight or run is to lose. When we lose we are isolated and lonely. When we fight, we can’t reach out potential. But when we surrender, we are alive and connected with society. 

And, exhale.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Where did you develop your frame of reference for surrender? * * * *

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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