Putting at risk the success you’ve become

May 16, 2016 1:00 PM

When you become chronically concerned with remaining the way you are, convinced that it’s impossible for you to exist in any other way, it will never occur to you to take any actions beyond that state of being.

And why would it? As long as you think you’re playing the game effectively, you don’t question the need to play it.

But the pathway to new power is putting at risk the success you’ve become. Burning everything down, salting the earth, zeroing out your board and having faith in yourself that you can rebuild once again.

I recently spent two years enmeshed in this very process of reinvention. And the story unfolded in a beautifully unexpected way. First, I accepted the fact that I was bored, burned out and lonely working as a freelancer. And so, I wrote myself a ten page letter of resignation. Then, I went on sabbatical for three months. Next, I got a day job at a marketing agency while maintaining my own business on the side.

A year later, I got married. Shortly thereafter, I became restless again, realizing that everyone I worked with was a total asshole. So I quit my day gig. Then I spent the next four months applying for more than twelve hundred different jobs, getting rejected from every single one of them. At which point I accepted the fact that companies don’t need a creative visionary.

And so, I recommitted to my own enterprise, but with greater perspective, stronger boundaries, and a more sustainable approach to working. Then I made a concert documentary about the entire process, coming out of music hibernation after more than ten years.

And now, two years later, I feel like myself again. Only more complete. More whole. Fully integrated. Leaving no asset unharvested. It’s as if I’m myself, but at a higher vibration. Whew.

What a ride. Turns out, shattering your beliefs about what your life is supposed to look like is exhausting. Because it’s a death, really. That’s the nature of personal transformation. Changing requires mourning and letting go of a portion of your identity.

But the good news is, every change offers us a new canvas. It’s simply a matter of picking up that brush and painting again. Cook said it best in his book about the curves of life:

A spiral is always growing, yet never covering the same ground, not merely an explanation of the past, but its also a prophecy of the future.

And all we have to do put at risk the success we’ve become.

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Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

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

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com