Until everything becomes invisible but thoughts you think

Concentrate was a spooky game we used to play at sleepovers. 

The object was scare your friends by predicting their deaths. You begin by telling the person to close their eyes. Then you stand behind them, reciting gruesome chants and performing scary rituals while pounding lightly on their back with your fists. 

At the end when they open their eyes, whatever color they saw represented how they would die. 

Red meant stabbing, purple meant suffocation, blue meant drowning, and so on. 

It sounds morbid, but in my mind, this game was wildly fascinating. Not only because of my childhood obsession with horror movies and monsters, but also because the only rule was, concentrate. And concentration was one of those skills that came easy to me. 

Whatever the opposite of attention deficit disorder was, that was my diagnosis. And during the eighties when every kid was hopped up on whatever stimulant their pediatrician prescribed them for what seemed like over diagnosed fad, my ability to concentrate made me feel special, proud, healthy and creative. 

The best part is, my family and teachers never viewed it as a condition to medicate, but a gift to channel. 

That has served me well in every area of my life. 

The ability to concentrate until everything becomes invisible but thoughts you think, that can take you to the stars. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Where does your proficiency or difficulty in holding focus over time come 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


Metric Collective’s Startup Masterclass || Season 1, Episode 2: Idea Marketplaces

A startup is, among many things, a marketplace of ideas.

It’s this magical bazaar where people regularly gather to sell and purchase intellectual effects, conceptual assets and creative goods.

And the challenge giving your team members tools for testing ideas in the workshop of their minds.

Okay folks, are you ready for some startup perspective?

Then welcome to Metric Collective!

Let’s kick off today’s lesson, it’s called: Idea Marketplaces

John Milton, the great philosopher, first coined this term back in the eighteen hundreds. His philosophy of a marketplace claimed that truth would emerge from the competition of ideas in free, transparent public discourse.

My favorite thing he wrote was:



Ideas will be culled according to both their superiority or inferiority, and widespread acceptance among the population.

That’s the kind of company everyone wants to work for.

And this is the beauty of startup life.

Every employee has not only an opportunity, but a responsibility to make manifest what’s inside their heads and hearts.

Might not be right, might not be brilliant, but one thing is for sure, it’s yours.

This reminds me of the speech my boss gave on day one of my old job. He told us:



Nobody goes to a meeting without an opinion. Opinions are the only thing our clients pay for, so have lots of them.



Talk about a permission slip for creativity.

Is your business a marketplace of ideas? An open door to a whole new world of vibrant possibilities?

Certainly hope so. Because I’ve worked for companies on both extremes of this spectrum.

One job I worked was an innovation studio where creativity ruled the day. Our idea marketplace was hopping and popping the minute we talked in the door. And that made it an inspiring place to world.

Another job was at a company where imagination was squashed like cockroach. If management wanted your ideas, they gave them to you. You can guess which job experience was more fulfilling.

The good news is, it’s still possible for any company to create an environment where new ideas are embraced, not feared. Marketplaces have existed as long as humans have engaged in trade, so it’s in our blood to do this stuff. Here’s one practice that has been helpful for me:

Love every idea for five minutes.



Even if it sounds crazy, even if the idea makes your stomach churn like a lava lamp.

Agree on your team that you’ll allow intellectual effects to be exposed with a foundation of affirmation.

At the very least, you’ll remind people that their intellectual goods have a protective sanctuary creativity is recognized and encouraged.

And at the very best, you never know where that idea might lead. After all, an idea is not any good unless it’s on the verge of being bad.

Startup growth is limited only by the permission of the leaders to trade in the marketplace of ideas, and the imagination of the people who understand their potential application.

Remember the immortal words of the aforementioned philosopher:

Let all with something to say be free to express themselves. The true and sound will survive. The false and unsound will be vanquished.

Hey, you never know. Someone might say something that changes everything.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Is your company creating the occasion for intellectual goods to be publicly exposed?

No, for real, I need to know this.

Send me a text message right now. 314/374–3397

And tell me about your company shares ideas.

Well folks, that’s gonna wrap up today’s lesson from The Startup Masterclass.

Hope you got some much needed perspective.

Thanks for joining us at Metric Collective.

* * * *

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


From inception to completion

Soup to nuts is an idiom that goes back five hundred years as description of a full course dinner, progressing from beginning to end. 

At that time, soup was likely to feature as the first course of a formal meal, while a selection of nuts was offered as the last. 

Delicious. Bon appetite. 

This idea, tasty enough, can be applied to any our business projects. Because the goal is to achieve thoroughness. To manage our work from inception to completion. This requires the ability to think strategically, but also hold a long term focus while executing each step of the plan with determination and precision. 

Very few people are able to exist on both ends of the experimentation execution continuum. 

Working as an artist, entrepreneur or startup employee offers ample opportunity to hone this ability. Because in these particular environments, we have no choice but to build the boat and learn how to sail at the same time. 

Having produced hundreds of books, training videos, musical albums, educational films, podcasts, commercials, software programs and marketing campaigns over the past twenty years, both on my own dime and also within agencies, startups and large companies, one thing has become very clear to me. 

Determination naturally builds momentum. 

Even if we are scared because of a lack of information or experience, eventually, our fear melts into the madness of determination and we discover something so much better than perfection. 

Completion. 

Nobody can take that away from us. 

They can call us dirty because we have the guts to stick our hands in the mud, but done is done is done. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you seized by an irrational determination to forge ahead? 

* * * *

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


That sounds like code for more work

Here’s my favorite question on the personality type quiz. 

Do you find visionaries to be somewhat annoying, or rather fascinating? 

In my experience, most companies and organizations will choose the first answer. Even if they act fascinated in the meeting, deep down, they are probably suspicious and threatened by that person. 

It’s a primeval reaction. Anytime some visionary marches into their office with a big idea, their collective corporate sphincter tightens like a shut faucet. 

But this is not their fault. Because people at organizations are not in the business of innovation, they’re in the business of minimizing risk, preserving the status quo, not getting fired, and of course, generating profit. 

Their economic perils are clear and immediate, and bringing on some visionary simply translates into more work for them. 

And so, the frustrations within the system can blamed on its weaknesses, rather than on individuals who operate within it. 

As the rappers say, don’t hate the player, hate the game. 

But also, don’t beat yourself up for losing that game just because people who barely know you are threatened by the genius of your avatar. 

Just accept that people are going to reject you outright, solely because of the special place you come from and the vibration that you carry with you, and that’s okay. 

It’s not their fault. They don’t know any better. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Don’t you just love the look on people’s faces when you break their brains? 

* * * *

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


In full of all demands for additional bounty

Can we be comfortable without the hunger for more? 

Can we free ourselves from the constant demands for additional bounty? 

For those of us seeking a cosmic coloration in consciousness, this is an inner battle that will continue to wage on. And it will most certainly be one worth fighting. 

And so, whether we are starting a new business or changing careers or simply making a life transition, let us measure twice and cut once. 

To do so, our initial steps will be intention and attention. 

We will begin by announcing to ourselves that everything necessary for a having a fulfilling life is already part of us. We may not understand where to find it, or how to unearth it, or what it even is, but we will trust that it is available to us at no additional cost. 

This trusting intention counts for a lot, and it allows all our subsequent actions to flow more smoothly. 

Now, the other piece is noticing how often we look for more. Not beating ourselves up for being greedy, and not judging ourselves for trying to improve on the present moment, but simply noticing and naming the habit of extraneous desire. 

Keeping a jealous eye over yourself, as my favorite song lyric goes. If we can start there, from a place of trusting and noticing, then we won’t have to pay any attention to the tasty golden carrot dangling just the right distance to keep us on the hamster wheel. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

When will you have done enough to be happy with who you are?

* * * *

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


At the foothills of a struggle for survival

Everything seems, sounds and feels so much better inside our own minds. 

God bless the human imagination. It’s such a wonderful, fascinating, tricky thing. 

But as a result of this glorious machine, each of us are burdened with impossible expectation, right up until the moment life slaps in the face and says, welcome to how it works.

Epictetus comes to mind, who once said whenever he saw a person suffering from nervousness, he would think, well, what can he expect? If he had he not set his sights on things outside man’s control, his nervousness would end at once. 

This is a stoic reminder that when we give up any expectation of what things should be, and allow them to be what they are, peace be with us. 

It’s how the strong survive. We find ways to reorient ourselves. We make the heroic decision to stay with whatever life gives us. 

Take the universal human struggle of waiting in line. It’s a frustrating, boring and time consuming activity. 

Unless, of course, we bravely admit to ourselves that life is the line. We admit that we are no longer in an us versus them relationship with the line. 

This is it, this is as good as it gets, this is the best day of my life. 

I actually wrote a song in my animated folk rock opera about this very concept:

Once again: This is it, this is as good as it gets, this is the best day of my life. 

That mantra that helps me appreciate the absurdity of life and stay grounded in such situations. Every time the words come into my consciousness, the will to survive begins flowering inside of me, and the everyday resilience to persist in my efforts advances just a little bit more. Regardless of what the movie inside my head tried to tell me. 

Epictetus comes to mind once again. He also said to thank the gods for making us strong enough to survive what we can’t control. 

Next time the world says, welcome to how it works, do whatever it takes to get yourself in harmony with reality. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What would be smart for us to start doing in order to survive?

* * * *

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


What’s the unmet human need behind being bored?

Boredom isn’t a feeling. 

It’s an adjective, a description and a characteristic. 

But it’s not a feeling. 

Quite the opposite, in fact. Boredom is a word people say without any particular need to communicate how they are really feeling. It’s a rhetorical placeholder. A psychological dodge. Boredom signifies that there is an emotional reality lurking beneath the surface. 

When somebody is asked how they feel, and they respond by saying bored, it’s not that they’re wrong. It’s that they’re disconnected. 

Therapists have told their patients for decades that there are only a handful of primary human feelings. Mad, sad, glad and afraid. Everything else stems from that. 

Boredom may be a word that perfectly describe the repetitiveness and monotony of a job. But the more important question is, what’s your feeling lurking beneath the surface? What’s the unmet human need behind it? 

If you say you’re feeling bored, could that be code for lonely? Dissatisfied? Unmotivated? Might boredom be masking more specific and complicated and difficult feelings like hopelessness and apathy? 

I’m reminded of a cool study by a linguistics professors who researched the uses of the word boredom in the fiction of a particular novelist. His hypothesis stated that boredom constituted a fundamental dissolution of the distracted modern subject, in an unproductive disengagement from both world and self. 

Damn, now we’re getting somewhere. 

Have you ever felt disconnected like that before? It’s so nauseating. Just fucking lonely and sad. My entire freshman year of college was like that, and frankly, it’s hard for me to even locate any memories from that period of my life. Being nineteen was pissed away on boredom. 

That’s often what happens when someone announces to themselves that they’re bored. 

Once they buy into that narrative, they start engaging in compulsive, dysfunctional behaviors. Trying to stuff down unpleasant feelings by isolating, drinking, gaming, eating, watching six hours of television each night, whatever. 

They’re solving problems that have nothing to do with the activity itself. 

They’re not bored, they’re something else. 

Point being, we need to learn how to notice and name our feelings clearly. It’s an essential part of growing up. 

When we start experiencing difficult and complicated emotions, let’s not default to an ambiguous word that everyone can relate to and nobody will question. 

Since boredom isn’t a feeling, we should see if we can figure out what feelings that word is masking. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How might boredom be the staircase that takes you down to more interesting places?

* * * *

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


Popping our precious bubble of reality

Gollum bit off the hobbit’s finger and danced about, shouting the words:



Precious, precious, my precious, oh precious.

But in his elation to be reunited with the one true ring, teetered on the edge of the great pit, blundered into the crack of doom and burned in the molten lava. 

This is what can happen if we are too precious. About anything. 

From sentences on the page, to strategies for closing the sale, to beliefs about what constitutes success, hanging on too tightly makes anything disappear. 

We must practice a healthy sense of separation and detachment. 

Reminds me of my album from few years ago. Halfway through our recording session, something occurred to me. There was one song that didn’t feel true. It sounded rushed and forced. It didn’t fully belong to the family of music we came to record. It was taking forever to track properly. And from a thematic perspective, the lyrics interrupted the narrative arc of the record. 

And so, we trashed it. Deleted the file forever right there at the soundboard. 

It physically caused me pain in the moment. Which is normal. Anytime we pop our precious bubble of reality, there is a feeling of sadness and loss. 

Ultimately, however, it was the right choice to make, and the album came out better in its absence. 

It also taught me not to be so damn fastidious about my songs. They are not fragile vases that are going to shatter. They are not the most important pieces of art in the history of the universe. They are not the truth itself, they are my current judgment of the truth. And there’s no use throwing a temper tantrum every time one of them doesn’t pass my precious little purity test. 

Couch, the great writer and literary critic, coined a phrase a hundred years ago called murder your darlings. He said that whenever we feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, we should obey it whole heartedly, and then delete it before sending our manuscript to press. 

Are you willing to abandon your beliefs on a moment’s notice? 

If not, notice that. Because the more precious we are about our work, the harder it will be to make the tough choices that will resolve its problems. 

We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbits. Wicked, tricksy, false

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you so precious that you won’t be able to do the hard things to help your ideas survive? 

* * * *

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


You are the dark cloud our group gathers under

None of us live in a vacuum. 

The decisions each person makes has consequences for the rest of us. 

As the law of motion states, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Especially in a communal setting. Because these things are generative spaces. Holy containers whose integrity we have committed to preserving. 

During my five years on the board of a local trade association, we had one volunteer who was a huge thorn in the organization’s side. During every meeting, his persistent, pedantic questions about parliamentary procedure completely derailed the group. With every new micromanaging detail suggested, he would send forth a tiny ripple of frustration that grew more powerful with each person it touches. 

To the point that our president finally took him aside and said, look, you are bringing something into our space that is now affecting the whole group, and it’s not okay. Starting today, we are putting firm but loving limits on your expenditure of the group’s energy. Otherwise you will be voted off the island. 

Not surprisingly, that volunteer ended up resigning a few months later. 

Good riddance. He had become the dark cloud our group gathered under, and everyone felt relieved when he finally left. 

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Proving, that life is not solo adventure, it is a communal undertaking. And whatever we bring into the generative space, it will multiply exponentially. 

Let us take responsibility for the quality of the energy we bring to the world. 

Let us stay committed to preserving the container. 



LET ME ASK YA THIS…

When you walk into a room, how does it change? 

* * * *

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


Get back in touch with your meaning making machinery

Boredom is the symptom, not the problem. 

When people complain about how there’s nothing to do and they’re going stir crazy sitting around the house all day, my bullshit detector goes off. 

Because it’s not like there was this sudden outbreak of an airborne virus called boredom that forced itself into their lives, infected their immune system and now they’re helplessly stuck with it until some nerd in a white coat finds a cure. 

Boredom is not somebody else’s fault. It’s a choice. 

Boredom is a poisonous mood people trap themselves into when they’ve lost touch with their meaning making machinery. 

If someone can’t discover new and exciting things about themselves and the world in order to stay engaged, then that’s a failure of curiosity and wonder on their part. 

It’s kind of like those struggling, stifled entrepreneurs who complain about how there’s nothing new under the sun. 

Excuse me, but have you looked at the sun lately? It’s a giant flaming ball of gas that’s eight hundred and sixty four thousand miles in diameter. If you can’t find something new under it, then you’re not looking hard enough.

You know who never gets bored? Farmers. 

They can’t afford to be bored. It’s not in the job description. If they don’t tend to their crops every day, there is no harvest. Period. 

What’s more, farmers know that all ground needs regular change and invigoration in order to stay fertile. If one acre of land needs fallow time to enrich it with real rest, so be it. They’ll leave that plot alone for a season or two and go plant something else on their acre across the street. 

How are you rotating your crops? Are you varying your interests and pursuits to enrich your own land? 

It’s an essential practice of thriving as a human being. People who consciously build a diversified existence with multiple life purposes, different centers of belonging and many meaning making activities, will always avoid the curse of an infertile field. 

Ellis, the godfather of rational emotive behavior therapy, once wrote an inspiring book about recovering from problem drinking. His advice to addicts was, to avoid high risk situations that go with boredom, schedule normal activities that alcohol related chaos may have displaced. 

He told his patients to literally write out an activity chart. Make a handy list of existentially nourishing activities and tasks that are guaranteed to provide you with the experience of meaning and joy. Keep it with you at all times. That way, when a craving, trigger or trauma approaches, you can execute some crop rotation when the pressure is on. 

This strategy transformed my understanding of, and relationship to, the idea of boredom. Couldn’t tell you the last time I was bored. 

The same can happen to you. As long as you’re willing to take responsibility for your own time and attention, there is no way your land will go infertile. Or if it does, you’ll find another plot to plant in the interim. 

Louie, the standup comedian, filmmaker and philosopher, said it perfectly in his recent standup special. He told his daughters:

The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to be bored. The sense of wonder should replace your boredom and cure it. 

Next time you start moping around whining about how there’s nothing to do, remember that it’s not somebody else’s fault. 

Pressure is a choice, and so is the opposite. 

Get back in touch with your meaning making machinery, and the harvest will be plentiful. 


LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Have you discerned what will help prevent the experience of boredom from creeping in?

* * * *

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

Sign up for daily updates
Connect

Subscribe

Daily updates straight to your inbox.

Copyright ©2020 HELLO, my name is Blog!