And as a result of the pandemic, I’ve spent the last year focusing much of my attention on how to make the most of the challenges.

I released a new book titled Personal Creativity Management and launched GetProlific.io, an online community where people can find an effervescent fountain filled with vivid and compelling ideas dedicated solely to helping people see, smell, taste and even experience how they can dramatically improve their productivity for themselves and others.

As we’re coming on the One Year “Panniversary” of Covid, here’s my list of tips to help you stop worrying and learn to love the pandemic:

1. Challenge Yourself! Find the silver lining to every dark cloud!

During covid, we have all developed pandemic fatigue. And rightly so. Even right now, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Are there ways to turn this positive? What’s so awful about tunnels? Sure, the air is chilly, the thick darkness makes it tough to walk, and it kind of smells. But any student of history knows that tunnels have helped people throughout the ages win wars, escape persecution, protect villages, move goods, travel safely, transport waste, bury treasure, park cars, link cities, treat water, find gold and escape to America! Let’s give the tunnel a little credit.

With no light at the end of the tunnel, we are forced to get creative so we can see in the dark. And just like we learn to download and carry a super bright flashlight app to help us see in the closet, we learn to make better use of our technology.

The question isn’t whether or not there’s a light at the end of this tunnel, but whether we maximize the opportunities we encounter while crawling and stumbling our way through the darkness.

2. Use Colorful Energizers and Be Like a Bunny

All of my 50+ books started out as color-coded notecards at home on my kitchen table. The bright colors stimulate your creative juices, get the ideas to flow, can be moved around freely to organize, optimize and capture the evolution of critical thoughts and breakthroughs.

It’s a way to create organized chaos that attracts conversation and sparks the interest and enthusiasm of people in the vicinity of the table. They can often offer up new ideas and perspectives which improve the work, and to tell him to clean up the table before dinner! Just hand them a pencil and a sticky note or a notecard and say “Have at it!”.

3. Use Spreadsheets to Plant a Field of Ideas and Grow Bushels of Wonder

Years ago, back when the power was on, I expanded my publishing empire by converting thousands of colored notecards and stickies and into a spreadsheet with four columns:

• What’s the Problem?
• The Idea
• How Does it Work
• The Tag Line

This handy structure guides the development, continuous improvement, and performance of each critical element and action needed to create hundreds of innovative unique patentable projects.

I then turn each row of columns into a page of attractive useful information that is then packaged in a unique and often times hilarious set of Steal Scott’s Ideas cards that illustrates the process and helps people and teams innovate anything and everything they are thinking about.

This method is particularly useful and is easily utilized to a new global crisis, new information, unforeseen changing circumstances (like unemployment), and surprise opportunities (like unemployment) and if the power is on, you can share the spreadsheet via text, email, social media, and Google docs and get comments on all sorts of crazy ideas.

4. Everyone Wears a Nametag on Zoom!

Twenty years ago, I gained national recognition for tattooing my name on my chest.

Now that using Zoom is the norm, everyone in a meeting has a nametag right above or below their picture. My utopian paradise where everyone is wearing a nametag finally came to fruition. While clinical proof is lacking that wearing a nametag helps fight the pandemic, it clearly helps with the challenges of social distancing. You know the name of 25 people in seconds! And everyone knows you too!

5. Congratulations! You Made It Through Another Day!

It may not be sexy but it pays off in spades to keep a victory log on an annual wall calendar where you place a gold star on it every time you complete a major step in one of your goals. Then at the end of the day over dinner when your spouse says “what did you do today?”, you can point to the wall and say “I executed steps 4, 5 and 6 and got halfway through number 7, dear!!”

If your spouse is impressed you might get to receive a “Gold Star” for the calendar on the wall of your office or even one for the good deeds you do at home for your refrigerator. Lo and behold, time will fly by and when you get enough Gold Stars, you can vocally declare without any guilt that it is time to take an impromptu day off, and you have the victory log and the visual proof to justify the looks of doubt and far that are reflecting back at you.

6. Encourage People to Take the Artistic Initiative

Before the pandemic, young people (e.g., in their teens and twenties), had the opportunity to perform songs at Karaoke Bars and even at open mic nights. While this high labor intensity labor of love demonstrated a very low return on financial investment, the pandemic has made it very difficult to perform these live in-person events.

But guess what! Opportunities abound! You can encourage your kids and teens to grab their guitars and microphone to an empty parking lot and park your car near a picnic table and then just hook up an amplifier with a power-supply to your car, and voila! Live concert in the park, or in a tunnel, and on social media for all to listen to.

If you scope out a spot at a venue with a lot of foot traffic, remember to bring a hat or a money jar for donations when the kids play and sing as loud as they possibly can for maybe two hours at a time. You can even place a pay me button using PayPal or Venmo on social media! This may turn into a job so be forewarned. It could also turn out to be a local news story that prompts a concert documentary about the whole experience.

Told you tunnels weren’t so bad!

Happy Panniversary Everyone! Hope these tips help you stop worrying and learn to love the pandemic.

 The hard part about suffering is that it doesn’t have a pie chart.

There’s no clean way to accurately beak down the source, or sources, of our pain. It’s not thirty percent job stress, forty percent political climate and thirty percent ordinary depression.

Truth is, whatever stuff we’re going through is a complex convergence of multiple factors. Some of which we can see, some of which we can’t see; some of which we can control, some of which we can’t control.

And until we accept that, we will continue to ensnare our minds in the why of our suffering.

This is a fatal flaw of our culture. We live in a society of mastery and closure and problem solving and wanting things to be over, so we can just move on to the next thing. We demand to know why things are so fucked right now, or else.

But if there’s one lesson life seems to keep teaching me, it’s that there aren’t intellectual answers to suffering. Explanations might come later at the earliest, or they may never come at all.

Which is infuriating, but then again, trying to will answers into existence is a waste of the limited energy we have. Tracing the source of our pain like some computer glitch that we troubleshoot for twenty minutes is a distraction that steals us away from our current reality.

What we need to focus on is triaging. Stop the bleeding. Determine the severity of our condition and apply immediate care might to make the most positive difference as quick as possible.

The Dude, the grandmaster of zen, is someone who demonstrates an unwillingness to judge or jump to conclusions, and he is slow to arrive at any easy answers.

This is not a personality, it’s a practice. It’s something each of us can work on during our own moments of suffering. We can resist the intellectual low hanging fruit supplied by everything from our ego to our culture to mythology.

My favorite tool for of doing this is to recite an incantation in the form of a provoking question while drifting off to sleep:

I wonder what wants to be written?
I wonder what wants to be written?
I wonder what wants to be written?

It’s amazing what kinds of ideas are waiting for me upon waking. They don’t necessarily solve my problems, but they certainly add color to whatever is plaguing me in the moment.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you adventurous enough to commit to an uncertain outcome with an open heart and mind?

Managing anxiety is a frustrating process.

All the work you do to get less stressed becomes the very thing that gives you more of it. What an absurd, twisted infinite regression of the human condition.

Just ask anyone who has ever suffered from mania or panic attacks. They might tell you that it’s like an ouroboros of suffering, aka, the snake eating its own tail.

Their anxiety, mania or panic is triggered by feeling short of breath, which leads to more shallow breathing, which makes the attack worse, which makes it incredibly difficult to break the cycle and get themselves down to baseline.

Kind of makes you want to take a deep breath just reading about it.

Have you ever found yourself writhing in one of those epileptic dances of panic? Disoriented and helpless walking down the same aisle in the bodega for twelve straight minutes? Fighting a demon of your own creation that you can’t touch or name, exhausting yourself with nothing to show for your labor?

It’s the worst. And you can’t just snap out of it, either. It’s a loop. You’re trapped until the storm passes.

Which it will. All feelings are weather patterns with a beginning, middle and end.

But it’s hard to see the way out when you’re in the thick of it.

If you’ve ever tried to argue with your anxiety in an attempt to logically reduce it to rubble, you know that strategy doesn’t work.

Watts, the great zen teacher, once said that the only way to escape the heat is to go right into the middle of the fire. He was right. The best way out is through. Sometimes you just have to outlive the damn thing.

Another option comes from a different zen parable.

Miyagi tells his student that the best way to block a punch is to not be there. Meaning, find a way to nip the anxiety in the bud by stepping out of the loop before it starts. ‘

Because the good news is, you’re not sick, you’re not insane, your body is simply doing exactly what millions of years of evolution have programmed it to do.

But you do have to stop the flood of adrenaline before it takes over your system. Otherwise the path of fear will continue to double back on itself.

One way to break the cycle is to physically displace yourself. Leave the office, the house, the block, the hood or the city.

You don’t even have to know where you’re going, you just need to move your body and change your state. As quickly as you can, surround yourself with unfamiliar terrain that isn’t littered with the same old triggers of your familiar surroundings.

And by fighting the urge to panic and instead focusing only on what you can change, like your geography, your prehistoric brain will start to calm down. 

Yay anxiety!

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What’s your defcon five strategy for stepping out of the anxiety loop?

There’s a popular bumper sticker you’ve probably seen that reads, live the life you love.

It’s an uplifting and inspiring message about being true to yourself.

But tears ago, I’ll never forgetting driving past a car in the parking lot of my local post office that had the same sticker, but with one modification.

The third letter in the third word had been scratched off.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but either way, the sticker now read, live the lie you love.

Talk about a play on words.

And yet, there’s something really powerful about that message too. In a confusing, challenging and changing world, sometimes the best defense is a good lie.

Sometimes the best way to cope with our reality is to find healthy ways to alter our perception of it.

Burton’s imaginative and touching story about a man who thought he was a big fish comes to mind. In the opening credits it prefaces the movie with the following disclaimer:

This is a story, full of lies and fabrications, but truer for their inclusion.

What’s beautiful is, throughout the movie, the main character shows that sometimes it’s impossible to separate the fact from the fiction, the man from the myth. Sometimes people tell their stories so many times that they become those stories.

That may be delusion, but it’s not dishonest. Story is a survival tool. We remember the past the way we need to, not the way it happened. We talk to ourselves about the present the way that soothes us, not the way that’s accurate.

Who cares if those stories might not be true? If creating a powerful, functional delusion for ourselves administers the necessary anesthesia to survive the human condition, then so be it.

Authenticity is highly overrated. Live the lie you live instead.

Tell yourself what you need to hear. Learn to develop creative and healthy ways of shifting your reality and altering your awareness and expanding your consciousness.

It’s one of the great survival tools we have.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Which fabrications make your story truer for their inclusion?

Being the winner at competitive suffering is a false victory.

Because it’s not about whose pain is bigger and sadder than everybody else’s. It’s not about whose despair earns the greatest amount of sympathy. And it’s not about whose story of struggle gets the most epic applause.

This thing called being human is fucking hard, and suffering comes for us all. There’s no way to outmaneuver the darkness.

Tweedy writes about this his poignant music memoir. He tells a story about a fellow addict in a rehab clinic who taught him the following lesson:

We all suffer the same. We don’t get to decide what hurts us. We just hurt. And mine ain’t about yours, and yours ain’t about mine.

If you are a person of any kind of privilege, this will probably be difficult for you to accept. Because anytime something goes wrong in our otherwise charmed life, part us believes that our torment is too gorgeous to be taken seriously.

That our little speed bump of suffering doesn’t really count, considering how bad so many other people have it.

This story of unworthiness does not serve us. If we are to act compassionately towards ourselves, we must let go of the guilt and give weight to what happens to us.

No matter how brief our trauma history may be, and no matter how puny our suffering may look compared to the rest of the world, if it hurts, it hurts.

Neff recommends a more loving and life giving response in one of my favorite books of all time:

Put a supportive arm around our own shoulder. See yourself as a valuable human being who is worthy of care. And learn to meet more and more of your life experiences with kindness and understanding.

We all suffer the same. Trust that feeling the gravity of our own struggle is not a sign of weakness, nor is it an insult to others.

It’s just part of being human.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How might your suffering become a form of generosity in your relationship with yourself?

Asking for help is hard, accepting help is harder, but trusting that you’re not a burden for doing it, that’s the hardest.

This is precisely what happens inside your head. When life suddenly decides to turn you into a needy, vulnerable and helpless mess of a human, layered on top of whatever pain you already feel, guilty feelings start pressing down on you like a lead weight.

The voice inside your head starts saying:

Whoa, not so fast there partner, don’t make that late night phone call to your friend and wake them up with your pain. Definitely don’t send another super emotional text message to your mother and give her a heart attack. And don’t darken the doorstep of your neighbor and disturb them with your sorrow.

Have you ever heard that voice before? Have you ever let it talk you out of asking for some much needed help because you felt like a burden?

It’s certainly happened to me before. Whether it was a petty issue, heavy burden, or somewhere in the middle, guilt somehow managed to finagle its way into my psyche and stop me from getting help. Many times.

Until one night in college when the tables were turned. One of my closest friends showed up at my front door at three in the morning, crouching on the ground, sobbing her eyes out, in desperate need of a friend to hold and care for her.

Turns out, she was just dumped by her longtime boyfriend, and was totally despondent. Heartbroken as a character in a country song.

And when she came inside, all she could do was apologize. She felt like such a burden for showing up in such a mangled state and waking me up, which only made her more upset.

Poor thing. Of course she felt guilty. Who in their wrong mind wouldn’t?

And yet, from my perspective, her showing up wasn’t a burden, it was a gift. Because she gave me the one thing that every friend dreams of receiving.

The chance to be there for someone they love.

It’s actually the opposite of a burden. The opportunity to be unexpectedly generous to someone we care for, are you kidding me? That’s a privilege. The human condition has no higher honor.

It’s literally the reason we’re alive. To be there for each other.

In fact, the only heavy burden in this life is having nobody to carry. Nobody to be of service to.

But when someone gives us that gift, when we accept their holy invitation to hold their cracked open heart and let it bleed all over us, there is no encumbrance upon us.

For those of you who are in pain right now, plagued by darkness either small, medium or large, here’s the best thing you can do.

Let people be there for you. Let your friends have the chance to actually be your friends. That’s what they signed up for.

Yes, those pesky feelings of guilt will probably flood your mind, and that’s okay.

But just know that your sorrow, salty and murky as it feels to you in the moment, is worth sharing.

P.S. I wrote a song about called Rest With You, if you want to hear more.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What have you convinced yourself is too dark to burden people with?

I’ve wanted to write this book since 2005. Pumped to have it finished!

You can buy it here: https://amzn.to/3dZ6ay2.

And if you’re curious how the hell I managed to put out (yet another) dang book, check out getprolific.io!

Here’s the synopsis:

# # #

Now That I Have This, What Else Does This Make Possible? offers ambitious entrepreneurs and creative professionals, or anyone who thinks like one, a much needed framework to parlay all their talents into a more fulfilling life. This book is packed with thought- provoking questions that will fundamentally transform the way you think about one life-changing concept: leverage.

Open to any random page and you’ll discover a leverage question, paired with an inspiring meditation from Scott Ginsberg, aka, the guy who made a career out of wearing a nametag every day. Delivered in the digestible, devotional format, each chapter draws from Scott’s twenty years of building sticky brands for himself, his clients and his employers.

Inside, you will learn leverage questions to help you…

• Begin tasks from a baseline of excitement and momentum
• Reframe mundane work so it taps into your strengths
• Create value when the rest of the world is freaking out
• Reinvent yourself creatively and confidently during career transitions
• Integrate and deploy all of your skills to give yourself a competitive edge

And, you’ll learn leverage questions to help your team…

• Collaborate more seamlessly with one another
• Overcome cynical people and attitudes that gridlock execution
• Remove potential friction points and bottlenecks in any project
• Keep schedule with projects that have many moving parts
• Eliminate the need to generate energy from scratch each time you sit down to work

Now That I Have This, What Else Does This Make Possible? is written for any professional seeking to make the most out of their unique talents, this book is a practical and inspiring handbook that will spark your brain profitably. Asking these questions over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you’ll unlock the creativity, resilience and motivation to make your work stick. Even if people think you’re nuts.

You can buy it here: https://amzn.to/3dZ6ay2.

In relay sports, the anchor person is strongest or fastest competitor on the team.

They help pick up the slack at the last stage of the race and hopefully get the squad across the finish line before the competition.

However, in the sport of business, the anchor person is a bit different. They’re not necessarily the fastest or smartest, but what they bring to the organizational table is a mainstay of support.

Anchors are solid and strong and constant. Their reliability is what enables the rest of the company to function. They lay comfortable ground under the rest of our feet.

And while they have confidence in their own abilities, they also give other people confidence in theirs.

This is not an insignificant contribution. Anchors have a calming presence that simultaneously lifts people’s anxiety and also make them want to try harder.

Senge writes about this in his book about learning organizations:

A shared vision effort is like a theater production. You will need a strong anchor person backstage to help you be successful onstage.

Who are some of the anchor people at your company? Who makes it possible to weather the daily beating that comes with the territory of working at a startup?

Make sure those people are acknowledged and rewarded for being in that role, even if they did not choose to be there.

Because within a team, having anchors is kind of like having cartilage. These people have the potential to transform the bones of a good organization into a great one, especially during times of stress.

And you might not realize the anchors are there, but they still hold everything together.

In a world where so many people have become chronically late, overcommitted excuse queens who can’t be counted on for anything other than blowing around in the wind like a snowflake, anchors sure are relieving and refreshing to have around.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Who is the most reliable person you have ever worked with?

Believe it or not, the best part about having a nametag tattooed on my chest is not when strangers ask me to open my shirt and flash them in public.

It’s when my friends flash people for me.

Here’s how it usually happens.

Someone will be talking to me about my nametag for the first time. They’ll begin asking some practical questions about the backstory and logistics of my social experiment, at which point a friend of mine will walk up, interrupt our conversation, unbutton my shirt and say, hey, check it out, this guy even has a nametag tattoo!

Not exactly a model of healthy boundaries. And I’m pretty sure indecent exposure is a class two felony. But then again, the look on people’s face is really funny. The gasp of shock and delight and disgust from that person is a moment to behold.

That’s why most of my friends get a hall pass. Their joy in delivering this hairy punchline is as memorable as the reaction from the stranger.

Of course, sometimes the joke backfires. There were many incidents where the other person in the conversation gave us both weird looks and the conversation never recovered.

Some people simply walked in the other direction. One lady dry heaved.

One man asked for my phone number. That guy is now my husband.

Just kidding. We never made it to the third date. Sheesh, some people have no sense of humor.

Listen, you’re not a bad person for thinking it’s funny, you’re a funny person for thinking it’s funny. Everything is a joke, if you think about it long and hard enough.

Seinfeld summarized it best when he asked the question:

What fun is life if you’re not making jokes all the time?

My most memorable interaction from my public speaking career was about the nametag tattoo. A woman from the audience approached me after the speech, shook my hand, then pulled her right breast out of her shirt and presented me with her own tattoo.

In giant cursive letters right above her nipple it read, Big Sexy. 

She smiled seductively and said, now you know how it feels.

Can you believe the nerve of that woman? Who in their right mind would just open their shirt in public and…oh, wait.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
When was the last time you did something just for the story?