Noticing the places where we typically cut the threads of connection

Lieberman’s research study about the pains and pleasures of social life indicated that social needs are managed using the same neural networks as used for primary survival needs such as food and water. 

As such, threats to our sense of belonging can result in the equivalent experience as real physical pain. 

And so, it’s not something we can just shake off. People can’t get over loneliness any more than they can get over a broken leg. 

All the more reason to notice the places where we typically cut the threads of connection, and try and get ahead of the curve. Otherwise the loneliness will rip our hearts into a thousand shreds of sashimi. 

When my girlfriend used to travel out of town, my tendency would be to hide out and hug the covers tight until she returned. And in my mind, that was a romantic notion. Like not knowing what to do with yourself when your partner is gone was some kind of noble symbol of devotion and love. 

Not really. Because doing so only degenerated me into this lonely, sad, scared, television watching, pizza binging hermit version of myself. 

It took me years to realize, oh wait, the best part of me should not be you. My world shouldn’t start to crumble the moment you step out of it. 

Socially healthy people, on the other hand, know that when a significant other goes out of town for a week, they need to put a plan in place. They make daily, proactive efforts to connect with friends in their partner’s absence. And they have a menu of meaningful, connection based activities to choose from that will help keep their loneliness at bay. 

Lesson learned, each step we take out of isolation, out of our old antisocial behaviors, and into a vital connection with others, is a true achievement in the interpersonal realm. 

Choosing to reach out and cocreate with others is what floods our brains with feelings of belonging and make us feel alive. 

We’re only alone in this world if we want to. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What can you choose to do this week to not feel lonely?


* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Creating psychological fuel around something we don’t even want

Trying to understand, figure out and even fix our mood rarely helps anything. 

There are very few situations when the analysis of our temperament relieves us of it. In fact, that typically makes things worse. Because what we focus on, expands. 

Paranoia is the perfect example. When we grow suspicious of the powers that be, it’s tempting to begin engaging in worst case scenario thinking. Shacking up with doomsday possibilities. Miring ourselves in negative hope. Shrinking back from life and slide towards despair. 

Somehow, this mindset makes us feel comforted, safe and less alone. After all, we can share that paranoia with people and bond over our common misery. What’s not to love? 

But the reality is, dwelling on what we lack only keeps us in despair. It doesn’t advance the story forward, as the screenwriters say. 

Our goal is to free ourselves from the impediment of mood. To stop creating more unnecessary psychological fuel around something we don’t even want in the first place. 

For example, instead of asking why we’re so damn anxious, we might ask ourselves what we are going to do right now to reduce our overall experience of anxiety. Instead of sitting down at the whiteboard to map out the root cause of our shitty situation, we might ask ourselves what three meaningful concrete actions we can take today that will boost our sense of confidence and momentum. 

It’s the same energy, it’s just more productively channeled. 

Remember, be aware of your mood, but don’t spend much time analyzing it. 

Shift your focus in the direction of the affirmative and watch what happens. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

When will you be able to celebrate that you no longer drown in your moods?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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All love needs is to be believed in

Some people wear out their welcome in the marketplace. 

They show up with guns blazing, make tons of noise and take center stage for a hot minute; but after a while, the world grows tired of seeing them and they ultimately fade away like a bad smell. 

Strangely enough, some people do the exact opposite. Instead of wearing out their welcome, they waste it. They leave too soon. They don’t give the world a fair chance to get to know them. They don’t stay grounded long enough to build the trust and affinity and momentum that earns them the right to stick around and make a difference for others. 

Are these people impatient? Are they suffering from attention deficit disorder? 

Maybe they’re the kind of people who freak out at the mere whiff of commitment. Maybe they’re just scared of getting too close and getting rejected or hurt. 

Either way, it’s unfortunate. Because there’s a lot of love being left on the table. A lot of potential gone to waste. 

Now, there’s no rule that says people have to pick a lane and stay in it for the rest of their lives. But refusing to stay on the road long enough to arrive at a worthwhile destination, it just seems so wasteful. 

Do you know this person? Someone who rarely stays put long enough to take their talents on the ride they deserve? 

Help them not to give up what’s here for them. Help them make the conscious decision not to throw up their hands and let the alienation win. And help them remember that new possibilities are always created when we decide we are going to do something, we give ourselves over to it and don’t throw in the towel just because we can’t see further than the immediate. 

Because as my favorite songwriter once said, all love needs is to be believed in. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Can you trust any ongoing effort where the results are not immediately evident?* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Pulled into an undertow of extreme global hysteria

Once we achieve initial success with our work, there’s a question in the back of our minds that starts to fester. 

What if we could somehow tap into this on a worldwide scale? Building out the infrastructure, expanding to twelve cities worldwide, going global with our distribution, it’s quite the inspiring thought. 

The problem is, it might not be our thought. It might be somebody else’s. That’s the thing about scaling. It’s part of a system we have inherited from mainstream culture. One that tells us that bigger is better. 

Welshons addresses this discrepancy in his book about unanswered prayers:

These identities are transitory illusions. The incredibly limited, culturally defined, hopelessly distorted lens through which we view ourselves has nothing to do with who we really are. 

My publishing company easily could have scaled to include licensing options, product extensions, vertical integration, public events, mass merchandising and other replicatable elements. 

But every time there was an attempt to go down that road, my stomach hurt. A sense of dread washed over me. 

Because going big didn’t feel like me. Scaling wasn’t actually in line with my goals. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. 

My mentor even asked me point blank:

Let me get this straight. You’ve already burned out going it alone, so, do you honestly have a desire to scale in order to burn out even more? 

He was right. That wasn’t my dream. It was just an inherited option. An assumption. There was no need to reach a certain commercial level with my work. Reaching fewer people more deeply sounded better. 

If you’re feeling yourself pulled into an undertow of extreme global hysteria, step back for a moment and ask yourself what your growth aspirations really are. 

Perhaps you, similar to me, have an allergy to scaling. That’s okay. Going big might not be the answer. 

Staying small and preserving your ability to work on the razor’s edge might be. 

 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How will you skirt the difference between the commercial world and where your heart is actually at?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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The impact of doing nothing is incalculable

In war, silence is employed to throw the enemy off balance. 

It makes people suspicious, nervous and paranoid. Sentencing them to slave labor in the sweatshops of their neuroses. 

Sounds like smart psychological warfare to me. 

Strangely enough, we drop this bomb on ourselves all the time. When life gets too quiet, we grow suspicious. We badger ourselves about why the hell nothing is going on right now. And we work ourselves up into a state of panic by imagining the worst. 

Because there is a small part of us that actually loves that panic. It convinces us that we’re on the precipice of something. That we’re making things happen in the world. 

But like most things, it’s just a story. A narrative about not being enough. 

The real question is, can we finally learn to endure fallow times without panic? Are we complete enough in ourselves to accept life’s necessary silences? And can we trust that there might be a time of stillness before anything creative is born? 

If so, we become free. 

For many years, my goal was to fill any available space in my schedule with work. Because I felt too insecure doing nothing. Didn’t trust the silence. It was like the scene in the horror movie when the eerie fog creeps over the dark alley and everything goes quiet, three seconds before the hungry vampire swoops into the frame and devours the girl’s neck. 

Just keep moving and nobody can hurt me. 

Which worked for a while, until burnout reared its ugly face. And something had to change. 

I decided to take a sabbatical. For the whole summer. During which zero work could be done. 

What a terrifying prospect. Spend three months without writing, working and promoting my business? Are you sniffing glue? What if the world forgets about me and my precious brand? What if nothing else comes along and we go broke and die alone? In my head, the impact of doing nothing was incalculable. 

All the more reason to try it. Taking a sabbatical would be a real edge for me. 

Sure enough, the silence was exactly what my business, and my soul, needed. It was hard. Took a lot of restraint to not do the one thing that made me feel like myself. 

But sometimes having discipline means having enough discipline not to have discipline. If that makes sense. 

Lesson learned, trust the silence. We don’t need to feed the world our panic anymore. It has no use for it. 

Instead, let us provide the land with fallow time to enrich it with real rest. 

Having faith that we will come back stronger. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What is your addiction to busyness costing you?



* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Twinkling death’s cold nose without retribution

Put your house in order, because you are going to die, you will not recover. 



This frequently quoted scripture is a morbid but powerful reminder that death that awaits us all, it’s the ultimate reality and loss of control, and we should prepare ourselves for it. 



And not only physical death. Many times throughout life, each of us must contend with the death of who we have known ourselves to be. 



Especially when it comes to our careers. In those moments when some unexpected change or loss or transition pulls the rug out from under us, it’s smart to have a plan in place. To paraphrase another scripture:



Watch ye job therefore, for ye know not when the layoffs of the company cometh. 



When my tech startup went through its first official round of layoffs in company history, it was a very bizarre summer for us all. For those of us leftovers who made the cut, paranoia filled the air like smoke from a boiling pot. All we could think to ourselves was, damn, maybe we should put our houses in order. Because who knows where that axe is going to drop next? 



But instead of shuffling numbly through life from one day to the next, we got proactive. In our daily downtime, we began dusting off our resumes and updating our portfolios and exploring the job market and making arrangements in the event that we needed to transition on a moment’s notice. 



Call it a contingency plan, call it an insurance policy, call it a personal security system, whatever. We all did what we had to do to purge ourselves of the reek of death. To protect ourselves from a future ambush. 



After all, the only thing worse than thinking you’re being paranoid is knowing that you should be. 



And so, if your career is starting to feel the scaly hand of death beckoning you home, remember this. You’re not dead yet, which means it’s time for you to star pivoting into what you need to evolve to next. 



It’s not about what’s right or wrong, or what’s fair or unfair. It’s about your goals and what you need to do to achieve them. 



Go figure out what you need to do to take care of yourself. Do whatever it takes to be nimble, lean, liquid and able to pivot on a dime. And prepare yourself to hit the ground running, right away. 



Because as the other scripture says, if you don’t change direction, you’ll end up where you’re headed. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Do you accept your need to take special measures to protect your livelihood? 


* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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All we can do is laugh at the insanity that is to come

Camus famously wrote that accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience, but it should not become a dead end. Rather, it should arouse a revolt that can become fruitful. One that can help us restore a relative meaning to existence. 

It’s a deeply comforting thought. 

Especially when it comes to our jobs. Because the modern world of work has a tendency fill the deep wells of the absurd to the very brim. Between angry customers, annoying coworkers, corporate layoffs and company rules, absurdity has a thousand gradations. 

And when life sends us to that place of insanity where nothing makes sense, sometimes all we can do is laugh out loud and shake our hands and heavens and say, what the fuck? 

There is nothing wrong with that. There is no need to feel like a bad sport for pointing a finger at the ridiculousness that is around us. In fact, more of us, offices especially, should make time in the day to sit in a circle and take turns being ridiculous about what work is like. 

It would be cathartic, funny and make us feel less alone in our confusion. Besides, seeing the world as absurd is a healthy existential position. The suffocating yet reassuringly familiar flesh of that existential ghost is worth pursuing. 

The only agreement, of course, is that it doesn’t end there. That we use our moment as a catapult for a rebound. Camus calls this our lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert. He urges us to use the energy of our infuriation to build momentum and plunge to the heart of future. 

Certainly sounds wiser than closing our eyes before the facts of life. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Can anyone hinder you from going into exile with a smile?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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We’re capable of changing everything if we choose

To say that people don’t change is to be naïve, cynical and foolish about the human condition. 

People only change. That’s all people do. 

Each one of us is approaching some invisible frontier on the way to maturity. Each one of us is a continually changing constellation of potentialities. Each one of us is caught in this world that we never made, and to which we must constantly readjust in order to survive. 

It doesn’t serve us to throw our hands up in the air, believe that everybody stays the same forever and just get on with our lives. 

The real question is, can we be flexible enough to alter our plans in the face of the winds of change? Can we learn to understand ours and each other’s evolving needs as the years go by? 

It reminds me of something our marriage counselor once said: 



Don’t expect to stay married to the same person. 

Meaning, love me, love my changes. Meaning, treat your relationship as an opportunity to practice changing. 

Yes, allow yourself to mourn the losses of yours and other people’s identities as time marches on. But as you and others move toward your ideal self, also allow the anticipation of those changes ideas to excite you. Tell yourself that you can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner, and what a thrill it is to be with a person who’s up for it. 

You know, it’s funny, we read books, take courses, go to therapy and attend support groups trying to figure out how to change people. When in reality, the only thing we really have to do is wait. 

Because change happens eventually. 

The real work is growing in our ability to cope with the new version of ourselves and others. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Do you believe that people, yourself included, are capable of changing everything if they choose? * * * *

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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Musts and lusts outside your sphere of enoughness

My favorite definition of joy is, not wanting to do something else. 

It’s that sublime sense that your path is enough for you. It’s when a glorious current of gratitude amplifies within your bones and the muscles behind your eyes melt into radiant crystals of contentment. 

Because there is nothing else just out of your grasp that will save and complete your soul. 

Insert sitar music here. 

The rub about this experience of joy is, there is also a commensurate avalanche of horseshit that, at any given moment, can creep up and completely compromise your ability to be present in that moment. 

Like when you get sucked into the ego vortex of social comparison, spending your precious energy speculating about other people’s lives. 

Like when you start clamoring for the next big business opportunity that’s finally going to set you free, using external objects to override your inner sense of unworthiness. 

Like when you start coveting the better life you may be missing out on, provoking anxiety by undermining confidence in your own decisions. 

Wait a sec. What happened? Joy was just here a minute ago. 

My therapist once asked me a great question during the height of my workaholic years:

What will happen if you stop paying attention to everything you think should be done? 

At the time, my gut said that my business would decline, my relevance would plummet and my career would be over. But keep in mind, my gut had shit for brains. 

It dawned on me several years later. Once you learn to let go of all the shoulds and musts and lusts that are outside your sphere of enoughness, joy follows like a shadow. Once you cut to the core and strip the fat off the moment, life begins to take on a lighter quality. Once you start shrinking projects to fit reality by keeping only the parts you love the most, the vastness of your vision expands. 

That’s joy. Not wanting to do something else. 

Only wanting to be right here. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What if you dissolved your fascination and need to do all of the things?

* * * *

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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Our faith wanders and shakes hands with the craziness

It’s easy to accept the will of the universe when we can see where it’s heading. 

But when our future is shrouded in a cloud of mystery, that’s a different story. 

Emerson’s legendary university lecture on trusting the process come to mind. 

As the traveler who has lost his way throws his reins on his horse’s neck and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. 

Talk to anyone with equestrian experience. When you build trust with a horse, he becomes a willing partner that gives a hundred percent. And the trust that flows between animal and owner becomes an endless circle that builds on itself and becomes stronger over time. 

And so, like most meaningful things in the world, trust is best when approached as a practice. This active engagement with the unknown, it’s something we return to day after day. Bowing ourselves out of the driver’s seat just a little bit more each time. 

Not obsessing over some static final understanding of our changes, but rather, participating in an ongoing transformative dialogue about them. Even if that means just sitting there doing nothing. 

Our faith has wandered and shaken hands with the craziness, and that’s okay. 

Because while stepping forward is certainly an act of trusting the process, choosing to wait instead of acting in panic and urgency is an act of trust too. 

It’s far less sexy, this surrendering to allow a new way of living to enter our life and being. 

But sometimes it’s the best we can do with the little information we have. 

Don’t chime the armageddon bell just yet. Give the law a chance to work. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What will assist you in building trust with your true self?


* * * *

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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