Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

Here’s a common fear when life suddenly changes and throws us off our routine. 

What if I have become so conditioned that I won’t be able to function anywhere else? 

It kind of makes you wonder if you’ll be able to thrive in your new environment. 

My biggest fear of transitioning from entrepreneurship to the corporate world was similar. What if spending the first ten years of my career working alone in my living room has crippled my capacity to play well with others? Those hiring managers will probably reject my application before they even get a chance to meet me. 

Or worse yet, they’ll hire me, but quickly realize that my fiercely independent spirit is a disruption to the company. 

My worries were perfectly rational and normal. There’s no doubt that same fear has occurred to plenty of other transitioning professionals. 

But life has a funny way of proving us wrong about our perceived limitations. Sometimes the perceived negatives we back away from are the very traits that help us thrive in the first place. 

Many startups, for example, are skewing the scale towards the privilege of autonomy. They offer loose oversight rather than micromanaged handholding. And so, they’re not hiring team members who need permission from the authorities before they are comfortable taking ownership. 

They’re seeking employees who initiate. People can essentially onboard themselves, ramping up quickly without the direct supervision that large corporations are fond of using. 

In fact, one of my startup employers literally told me on man first day, and I quote:

Sorry, but you’re going to have to onboard yourself, it’s crazy around here this week. Welcome to the team! 

Well okay then. 

But strangely enough, that process was enjoyable for me. Having somebody sit down to train me would certainly be helpful. But the experience of overwhelming myself with a massive, diverse amount of information, taking notes and trying to make sense of it, in a compressed period of time, that was pure bliss for me. 

It’s one of my favorite things to do, in fact. And only because working alone for all those years honed that skill. My background in having no choice but to do everything myself gave me permission to take initiative in the absence of direct management.  

Lesson learned, make friends with your weaknesses. Let the world prove you wrong about your limitations. 

Your awareness of your downside might actually prompt you to make it part of your value creation process. 

After all, every weakness has a corresponding strength. Whatever it is you think is going to hold you back, see if you can’t flip it on its head and find people who would value the kind of work you do. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Which of your perceived liabilities might be valuable to a team?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

If desiring to change was enough, then we would have already changed by now. 

Turns out, however, wanting to feel better is not the same as willingness to change. 

Because everyone wants to feel better. Only a small percentage of us attach action to our desire. 

Think about it from a language perspective. Desire refers to a craving or yearning. It’s an emotion directed toward the attainment of something. 

But will, ah yes, that is the capability to do something. It’s the determination to take action, despite difficulties or opposition. 

Which idea has more motivational power? 

Wanting to is not the same as willing to. Only one of those two words attaches action to desire. 

How’s your motivational needle? Are you still dragging your feet on making a change in your life? 

Take note of your language. Consider your wanting to willing ratio. 

Because the way you speak to yourself and others about change will determine whether or not you turn potentiality into actuality. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How might you create a new expectation about your ability to take action?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

Helplessness is useful. 

It motivates our choice to contribute in a meaningful way we otherwise wouldn’t have considered. 

Companies are laying off employees by the millions right now. It feels like a sucker punch to the organizational gut. People are feeling deeply disoriented, as is the case anytime team members leave the company out of nowhere. If you’ve ever experienced this kind of transition before, it ain’t pretty. 

You know what these people need right now? Not monetary incentives and not another happy hour and not some lame office theme day. 

Acknowledgement. The genuine feeling of being seen for their whole person beyond just their role. 

We never have nothing left to give. When it comes to the gift that only we contain, it’s a renewable resource. We can’t use it up. The more we offer, the more of it we have. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What motivates you to contribute in the way only you can?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

Sometimes the architecture of the world will start changing before our very eyes. 

Initially, when something like this goes down, the change is confusing and scary and lonely and disorientating. It feels like motion sickness. It’s like you have nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. 

Personally, facing the jolting reality of such a worldwide wakeup call makes my sense of control evaporate like a ribbon of steam. As my doctor friend once warned me:

Your body might not be infected with the virus, but your brain might feel like it is. 

This experience is quite maddening to me. It triggers the part of me that seems to have so many problems with reality, and it’s awfully hard to let that go. My ego convinces me that it’s better to be right than to change, which goes like this:

Goddamn it, go require that your life be perfect in order for you to love it. Happiness isn’t good enough, we demand euphoria! 

But the cold truth is, we have no choice but to accept and accommodate this new architecture. 

Hegel, the godfather of the philosophy of idealism, once called this man’s way of reconciling himself with reality in order to be at peace with the world. 

Wow, that’s no simple task. It means we have to become masters at negotiating. We have to educate ourselves on how to get what we need when we can’t get what we want. Only then can these traumatic events that quite disgusted us one day become infinitely acceptable the next. 

Are you a master negotiator? Can you bounce back from disruption like a rubber ball? 

If not, then join the club. It’s so bloody difficult to do this. Why can’t somebody just come over to my house and do everything for me? 

But the good news is, resilience is equal parts willingness and ability. Our skills of adaptation may not be expertly honed, or are rusty from years of underuse, but we can still manage change effectively. 

Maisel, the therapist whose work has had the biggest impact on my personal growth, summarized it beautifully:

If you are in fact willing to practice resilience, to bounce back, and to not dig in your heels in a dark place, try this. Take a feeling that is burdening you, hopelessness, for example, and enact a ceremony to bring back hope. The very act of engaging in such a ceremony is an act of resilience and signals your willingness and desire to come back to life. 

This approach really works. Been doing it for years. In my experience, a ceremony like this, carried out for a particular purpose and performed in a ritualized way, doesn’t inoculate us from contracting the virus. 

But it may make life feel less difficult for us along the way. 

In some cases, the coming back to life ceremony becomes the gateway that opens doors we didn’t even know existed. It may sound cheesy, but when humanity seems to be one step closer to the apocalypse as the doomsday clock advances towards midnight, we should take our hope wherever we can get it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you confronting obstacles with flexibility and patience, or aggressive reaction?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

In any kind of search, whether it’s professional, personal, spiritual or otherwise, one thing is for sure. 

It will take longer than we’d like it to. 

Without that baseline assumption, without a realistic mindset, the inevitable failures, missteps and rejections of the journey will knock us out of the game before we even get a chance to play it. 

Being a musician taught me this. It was clear from day one of learning guitar at age twelve that it was going to be a long haul. Some voice inside my head told me:

Okay, you’re going to be pretty bad at this for a while, but if you just hang in there, it will pay off down the road. Stick with it. 

In a few short years, that voice proved to be right. Playing guitar finally started to click. By age fifteen, it was bringing me joy and satisfaction and gave my life a new container into which every part of my heart could pour. I still had a long way to go, but there were enough wins under my belt to motivate me to continue. 

Later in life, when I made the ridiculous but life changing decision to start wearing a nametag every day, that same voice returned. 

Scott, you have no idea why you’re doing this, but that’s okay, because if you stick with it long enough, some purpose will reveal itself. 

Again, the voice was right. And if you’re reading this, you probably know how that whole nametag thing worked out for me. 

How good are you at not going away? Do you rage quit after two tries, or do you keep coming back again and again? 

Most people, in my opinion, have a poor relationship with this skill. Call it persistence, resilience, perseverance, whatever. They quit too quickly when things aren’t easy for them. Or they give up because they don’t want to tolerate discomfort. Or they simply don’t commit to something at all, if they do not find pleasure in it. 

That’s normal. Who among us hasn’t thrown in the towel for one or all of those reasons? 

The challenge is changing how we relate to the process of searching. Updating the story we tell ourselves about failure and rejection. Identifying our irrational thoughts about failure and replacing them with healthier ones. 

Here are a few meditations that have helped me. 

First, just because something didn’t work the first, second, fifth or tenth time, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing at all. Give the search more time than you normally would. Let go of the expectation that things should come easy and happen quickly. 

Two, if you tend to discontinue working on tasks that don’t provide you with enough intrinsic reward, figure out how to layer greater meaning on top of them. Find a way to infuse the search itself with value, regardless of the outcome. 

Third, learn how to better deal with rejection so that when it happens again and again and again, it saddens you less. Don’t waste your valuable time and energy scouring every rejection letter for a sign that you’re getting closer to you goal. Just delete it and move with your life. The most important word after no is next. Work on having the preference to not be rejected, rather than of rigidly demanding it doesn’t happen to you. 

These practices that will keep you in the game long enough to making playing worthwhile. 

Look, we’re all searching for stars on the head of a pin. It can be a painful journey. 

But by changing the way we relate to the search, and updating the way we speak to ourselves along the way, we might just make it out alive. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How good are you at not going away?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

If you’ve spent significant amounts of sacred time communing with your inner life and connecting with the outer universe, dealing with change will come easier to you. 

It will feel more like a line item than a life shattering event. 

And that doesn’t mean you won’t be sad and scared and confused during the process. Humans have resisted change since day one, and none of us are fully immune to its disorienting effects. 

It’s funny, despite my own expert ability to remain calm during most difficult events, sometimes anxiety dreams will still plague me later that night. 

Guess we’re all vulnerable to strain no matter how flexible we think we are. 

But the good news is, anyone who has kept any kind of regular contemplative practice, will have greater leverage when the tide of change shifts. Because that person will already have a deep understanding of their sense of contribution. They’ll know exactly what their gifts are and how to use them in the service of others. 

Debono, the patron saint of modern creativity, writes about this source of leverage in his textbook of wisdom:

Contribution comes with its own momentum. Contribution means that you can look beyond the despair of the moment because the time frame is larger. Contribution is what gets rid of boredom and gives the plus of involvement and achievement. 

Isn’t that exciting? We can use our gifts to reorient ourselves and other. If we understand the real, urgent, pervasive or expensive problems in the world we are uniquely poised to fill, then we can hang ten on the shifting tides of change. 

Personally, my default is a combination of encouragement, perspective, thoughtfulness and inspiration. People don’t need information or motivation from me. They just need an example. Someone who gives themselves permission and just does stuff in his own life, rather than talking about it. 

When the world is caught in the briars of chaos, something deep inside my soul whispers, dude, go get out there with your art in hand, and gift it to as many people as you can. 

Individually, collectively, personally, professional, paid, unpaid, analog, virtually, whatever.  

The medium, contrary to what the philosopher once warned us about, is not the message. No, the message is the message. Go out there and deliver it. 

This is how my head and heart speak to me. I know that even when my creative contribution is tiny, it still builds up to something significant. Hopefully for others, but often times only for my own experience of fulfillment. 

And that’s enough. That’s enough to keep me afloat in the shifting tides of change. 

Point being, if the disruption of change is causing you tremendous suffering, you’re not the only one. It’s hard for all of us. 

My recommendation is to increase your leverage by investing in yourself more consistently. 

Carve out sacred time, every single day, to commune with your inner life and connect with the outer universe. Open up a channel so you can accept supply from the divine storehouse. 

It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to make sense, and it doesn’t have to look good. It just has to be yours. 

And by the time the next change comes crashing in, you’ll know exactly what contribution you have to make to yourself and the world to avoid madness. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What real, urgent, pervasive or expensive problems in the world are you uniquely poised to fill?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    

# # # 

Cynics love to complain about how people never change. 

And yet, if you look around, it’s actually quite the opposite. 

People only change. That’s all we do. 

Hell, human skin cells replace themselves every seven to ten years. Imagine what kinds of crazy transformations happen with things like our personalities, thoughts, feelings, preferences and belief systems. 

To quote one of my favorite punk rockers, change is not coming, it is here, and things are only going to get changier. 

Think about the last time big changes happened. Did you ever feel resentment towards the world? Did you ever get angry at others because you wanted your old life back? 

It’s surprisingly normal. People start to show up differently, and we can’t help but get upset. 

Because all change is saying goodbye to something. It’s a death, and it happens all the time. We see a chapter in our life closing, and we mourn. 

And what sucks is, we discover within our grief all these depths of emotion that didn’t even realize were inside of us. Contempt, anger, spitefulness, morbidity, all these feelings bubble up to the surface when life changes without our permission. 

God damn it, if only everyone would just retain their nature and preserve their identity in amber, if only for our own comfort. 

It reminds me of an inspiring devotional book about spiritual recovery. Casey suggests that people come to enjoy change as an opportunity for renewal. 

That passage always stuck with me. It’s an invitation to become happy in the acceptance of reality on reality’s terms. Because we may not get our old life back exactly as it was before. We may have to mourn leaving that happy place. 

And so, rather than trying to recapture something that is no longer available to us, better to stay future focused on what we want to become. 

It’s perfectly human to feeling oppressed by change, but do we really want to grieve that for all eternity, or move on and live? 

Time will bring change in abundance. 

And our skin cells are only the beginning. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Wouldn’t you love to feel awed by a life you thought you knew completely?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.    
# # # 

Savvy investors know that financial markets are driven by two powerful emotions, fear and greed. 

Fear is the response to threat, and greed is the response to opportunity. Fear seeks to preserve an asset, and greed seeks to expand it. 

Fascinating economics. 

But forgetting about the stock market for a moment, consider how these two emotional states apply to the individual. Think about how fear and greed affect the marketplace of one. 

In my experience, there is a direct relationship between the quality of life and the freedom to make choices that are not based on fear. Once a person gets to the point where they’re not always preserving the self, responding to threats, anticipating dangers, preventing loss, avoiding inconvenience and scoping out the competition, it’s amazing how much time and energy are left to focus on real growth. 

On the other hand, imagine somebody who is trapped in a fear state. She would love to take intellectual risks and be more creative and try innovative projects and open her heart to love again, but her daily life is shrouded in anticipation and awareness of danger. In fact, so scared of further losses, she typically throws her most imaginative plans out the window. 

Can’t dream right now, working. Must solely resolve the economic problem of livelihood. 

This attitude is very common, completely understandable and quite useful. 

Fear is fuel. Humans have developed the ability to feel fear because it’s evolutionarily advantageous. And not surprisingly, the majority of the world doesn’t have the luxury of living any other way. 

However, if we are so blessed, there comes a point in our journey where we make the transition from fear to greed. 

Now, don’t get your prayer beads in a bunch. We’re not talking about anything sinful or illegal or unhealthy here. Because sometimes greed simply means responding to opportunity intensely and quickly. Sometimes greed simply means expanding our assets and taking care of ourselves without guilt or blame. 

Is that such a moral trespass? 

This concept will be hard for many people to grasp, considering all the religious baggage around greed as the inherently sinful act that underlines all other sins. 

But let’s go back to the stock market for a minute. 

The financial industry built something called the fear and greed index. It’s based on the premise that excessive fear can result in stocks trading well below their intrinsic values. 

You might want to read that definition once again. Because it’s exactly what happens to human beings when they get trapped in fear. We trade below our intrinsic value. 

Gekko’s famous speech outlined that greed was good:

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. 

Sounds like a winning stock to me. 

Perhaps greed is our ticket to moving from dealing with change to creating it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How would your life be different if your decisions we’re made out of fear?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.   

# # # 

Imagination is freedom.

It’s not only the force we use to transcend reality, but it’s also the indispensable tool for combatting the demolition of it.

Anytime the natural order of our universe gets disturbed, we can use our creativity to ease ourselves back into to a state of calm. Despite our disorientation, we can use imagination as our faithful force to restore ourselves.

Doesn’t that sound like a useful skill for surviving times of turbulence and transition?

It’s been a lifesaver for me. When major changes occur in my life, I’ve found that framing my new situation as an opportunity to use my creativity, is precisely what allows me to bounce back quickly and reorient myself to a place of sanity.

It almost turns it into a game.

Which parts of myself can be engaged to solve this interesting problem?

Rollo, the humanistic psychologist who wrote extensively about the creative process, frames this idea most poetically in his book:

Imagination is the outreaching of mind. It is the individual’s capacity to accept the bombardment of the conscious mind with ideas, impulses, images, and every other sort of psychic phenomena welling up from the preconscious.

Here’s an example of this outreaching of the mind.

Let’s say your daily routine is thrown out of whack by things out of your control like inclement weather, mass transit closures, travel constraints, injury, or a global pandemic in which millions of people are trapped in their homes for months at a time.

That totally sucks, and would personally make me mad at the world too.

But if you allow it to, that event will trigger the creative part of your brain.

Okay, what modifications can you make to this routine? What resources are available that would allow you to get a similar result?

It’s all just a game. Figuring out how to hack your own routine within the constraints of your situation can be as fulfilling as the activity itself.

Listen, the human brain does some strange things during times of change. When the status quo goes to shit, that disruption activates the same threat and reward responses in our brains that we rely on for physical survival.

Cortisol starts firing into our blood stream. We start scrambling for fundamental human needs like certainty and simplicity and autonomy and toilet paper.

There’s a popular study by a group of researched who coined the term neuroleadership, which is a clinical way of saying, leading the brain in a friendly way. Their work talks about the importance of generating feelings of autonomy during times of change. Because our sense of autonomy enables wellbeing and stronger cognitive functions.

In contrast, if we experience a lack of autonomy, it causes a strong threat response.

All the more reason to treat turbulence as an opportunity to use our creativity. It makes us feel like ourselves again. Like a real human being who has sovereignty over their choices.

If we learn use our imaginations prolifically, we can not only transcend reality, but combat the demolition of it.

Remember, every moment is a chance to be creative, to reinvent ourselves.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How are you making embracing constant change into a regular practice?

* * * *

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

Change is hard for all of us, myself included. In this new series, I’ll be sharing daily mediations on transition, change, reinvention. Look out all you rock and rollers, turn and face the strange.   

# # # 

Campbell’s monolith includes a phase called the belly of the beast.

It’s that formative time in which the hero doubts themselves and wishes the journey had never begun.

Skywalker famously gets stranded in a subzero wasteland in his journey. And the only protection from certain death in the freezing climate is for his best friend to slit open a dead tauntaun and help him rest inside the stinking but warm carcass.

He’s quite literally in the belly of the beast.

Thankfully, most of us will never get to that point. We will, however, encounter alien forms that will arrive and throws our schemas into doubt.

Whether they comes in the form of opinions, objects, people or experiences, the nagging clouds of doubt will threaten to rain on our existential parade.

Sometimes these doubts will annoy us, and we’ll simply swat them away like pesky gnats.

Sometimes these doubts will invigorate us, and we’ll double down on our position.

Sometimes these doubts will humble us, and we’ll give thanks that our faith has a pulse.

Sometimes these doubts will challenge us, and we’ll blast the furnace heat of faith to turn them into steam so we can blow them away.

Sometimes these doubts will trap us in a philosophical pickle, and we’ll start wondering if the doubter is obliged to doubt that he doubts.

Sometimes these doubts will confuse the hell out of us, and we will find a perverse satisfaction in indulging them.

Sometimes these doubts will fortify our commitment, and we will evolve in spite of them.

Anything goes inside the belly of the beast. And although we can’t control the smell or the heat, what we can do is be aware of how we feel and respond while we’re there.

Remember, although there’s no magic formula anyone can trust to eliminate all doubt, it’s certainly better than freezing our asses off in the subzero climate.

And you thought they smelled bad on the outside.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What will help you navigate the belly of the beast?

* * * *

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