You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:(Read part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here and part five here.

Here we go:

1. Act decisively on your creative talents. If you’re not doing the work for yourself, get out now. Courting approval puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. And exposing your work too soon and to the wrong eyes will hurt its chances of growing into what it needs to be. Plus, it sets you up for debilitating disappointment.

Look: Art isn’t a game of kickball. You don’t have to wait to get picked to play. Pick yourself. Stop waiting for a publisher. Stop letting the market call the tune. Stop standing by for rejection. Stop insisting that someone who doesn’t matter validate your work. And stop wondering what people will think of you once they see your work.

If the world’s not ready for your feelings, tough shit.

Stay governed by the law of your own being instead of waiting for the masses to tell you your work is okay. Just do it yourself. The fruits of your bravery will not go unnoticed. Are you pushing rocks up hills or rolling snowballs down hills?

2. Continuity builds credibility. Anyone can publish something good. But only a real artist can do it every day. That’s what separates people who make money from people who make history: They’re not writing a book – they’re contributing to an ongoing body of work. They’re not painting a picture – they’re aggregating a lifelong portfolio. And they’re not cutting a record – they’re leaving behind an artistic legacy that, when people write the history books, it will be impossible to leave out.

The hard part is slogging through what matters. Going to work everyday, knowing that you might not get it every day.

I like the way creative writing professor Junot Diaz puts it: “In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”

Remember: Don’t give up the moment before the miracle shows up. Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness. What’s your daily gift to the world?

3. Market your motivations. In a recent blog post, Seth Godin wrote, “Art is what we call the thing an artist does. It’s not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the eye of the beholder – it’s in the soul of the artist.”

Your customers – that is, your viewers, readers, patrons, fans and listeners – are buying more than just your product. They’re also buying your philosophy, your process; along with the meaning people create for themselves in response to your story. It all depends on what statement about humanity your work makes. Are you an icon people can bow down to, or an idea people can latch onto?

4. Make your life larger than your art. Art is subordinate to life – not the other way around. If you have no interests outside of your work, the world will yawn when they see it. My suggestion: Get the hell out of the studio. It’s essential for supporting, enriching, inspiring and informing your work.

What’s more, physical displacement alters your routines and patterns, stimulates creativity and feeds your social spirit – even if it’s just for five minutes.

Without making this conscious effort, however, you won’t be ale to bring anything to the table besides shoptalk. And nothing annoys people more than a one-dimensional artist who maintains such a limited worldview and openness for activities and experiences outside of their scope of interest, that it mars their credibility. Do you invest as much time in your life as in your art?

5. Allow everything you encounter to shape you. As an artist, I have a profound hunger for meaning. I’ve developed an acute sensitivity to my immediate environment. And I prepare myself not to walk away empty handed, wherever I go. What can I say? It’s in the job description. And I think anyone who pursues an artistic endeavor needs to do the same.

Otherwise their creative bank account overdrafts.

I’m reminded of the recent remake of Sherlock Holmes. In the opening scene of the movie, Robert Downey, Jr. grabs the arm of attacker, stopping the invisible dagger millimeters before slicing Watson’s jugular.

“How did you see that?” Watson gasps.

“Because I was looking for it,” Holmes replies.

What are you looking for? What are you listening to? After all, that which goes unsought goes undetected. The cool part is: When you approach life in this way – as a sponge, as a mental omnivore – your experience become living laboratory that never goes obsolete. And if you’re smart enough to vibrate with that bliss, the world will refuse to pass you by. What shapes you?

6. Be a total control freak. In the book Catching the Big Fish, David Lynch explains that it’s a joke to think that a movie is going to mean anything if somebody else fiddles with it. “The filmmaker should decide on every single element. Otherwise it won’t hold together. Even if the film sucks, at least you made it suck on your own.”

That’s the challenge every artist faces: Securing sovereignty over your work. Attaining the freedom to create what you want to create.

And what’s sad is that too many of us surrender this sovereignty. We’re afraid to let our voice ring out. So we allow people to edit us. And then we wonder why we’re grossly disappointed with the final product.

“If you do what you believe in and have a failure, that’s one thing. You can still live with yourself,” Lynch said. “But if you don’t have the final cut – and then the movie fails – it’s like dying twice. And it’s very, very painful.”

Listen to the man: Don’t give away your power supply. Have obsessive faith in yourself. Control everything. Because when you believe in yourself this much, you begin to calculate the odds differently. And that’s how you execute the work that matters. Whom are you allowing to edit your work?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “14 Things You Don’t Have to Do Anymore,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2011-2012!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Congratulations to Watson, the artificial intelligence program who recently wiped the Jeopardy floor with reining champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

If you missed the game show, here how the computer works:

According to IBM Corporation’s Deep QA Project:

“Watson’s software is powered by hundreds of simultaneous algorithmic calculations, which help the machine create human speech patterns, check them against its vast database of knowledge, and provide a most likely answer and a confidence level for that answer.”BUT DID YOU KNOW: Although Watson not only won Jeopardy – but, was the first to buzz in on twenty-five out of thirty answers – he did manage to answer one question wrong.

The question about art.

I’ll take “reality checks” for five hundred, Alex.

HERE’S THE DEAL: Having access to two hundred million pages of content still doesn’t mean you know how to feel.

The heartbeat of the human experience is a function of emotion – not information.

I don’t care how many terabytes of data you have access to – the only way to inform your aesthetic sensibility, and the only way to activate your humanity – is to wake yourself out of the LCD-screen induced coma, drag your carcass out of the basement, and get out into the world and talk to people – with your mouth.

That’s how you turn off your computer and turn on your heart.

Contrary to what the cynics say, Watson’s historic victory on Jeopardy is not the beginning of the end. It’s not a threat to our species. And it’s not the end of humanity as we know it.

Here’s the real Jeopardy question: What is, an alarm clock?

That’s what this moment in history is. It’s a reminder that we can’t filter our lives through pixels – and we can’t experience our reality through keyboards – not if we want those lives to matter.

Human beings are here to stay.

It’s elementary, my dear Watson.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What computer will replace you?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “11 Ways to Out Google Your Competitors,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

The world’s FIRST two-in-one, flip-flop book!

Buy Scott’s comprehensive marketing guidebook on Amazon.com and learn how to GET noticed, GET remembered and GET business!

You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:(Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here.

Here we go:

1. Quality can’t be your sole signature. My first book wasn’t really a book. It contained no promise; offered no benefit and provided no take home value.

It was just an idea. A story. But, it was a damn good one. And that’s exactly how it transformed from a book into a brand.

That’s the lesson: If you want to take your audience’s devotion to the next level, people need to buy the story you’re telling. After all, they respond to what you believe – not just what you create. As Hugh MacLeod explained in Evil Plans:

“Your product has to fit into other people’s narrative. It has to fill the gaps in their life. Telling your story has to become a survival tool for other people. Because it’s your soul and the purpose and beliefs your soul embodies that people buy into.”

That’s what most young artists overlook: The fact that people are buying your person, your process and your philosophy as much as your final product. If you want to play for keeps, never lose the destination for your work. Art is only as good as the why that fuels it. How are you marketing the motivation behind your work?

2. Opportunity enters through the door of yes. You are more multiple than you think. No labels, no limits, as I like to say. The problem is: You’re defining yourself too narrowly. You’re trying to tell yourself what you should be, instead of learning who you are.

If you want to get past the limited definition of yourself, widen out the boundaries of your being. Try small nibbles of your new identity. And be prepared to let go of what you’ve always been. That way you can evolve into what you were meant to be.

For example:

*What creative energy is seeking a new vehicle for expression?
*Where could you give your voice another outlet?

Maybe there’s an entirely new artistic medium just waiting to be activated. You have to say yes. You have to attend to your life wherever it moves. And you have to be willing to listen to what wants to be written. Otherwise new and valid paths for work that matters will remain undiscovered.

Remember: This is not all that you are. And the only way to know how much you want something is to try it. What would you allow in your life if you knew that every experience was part of your divine path?

3. Start stupid and broke. If I knew what I know now, I never would have started. From writing to publishing to running my own business, I always remind myself: “Thank god I was clueless.”

That’s the cool part about not knowing: Ignorance isn’t just bliss – it boldness.

How stupid are you willing to be? Because the reality is: Intelligence is the great impediment. The less you know, the less you fear. Also, lack of capital is equally advantageous. Especially in the beginning of your career, too much money replaces creativity, stamps out dreaming and eliminates the need for vision.

It’s like the rookie golfer who drops a grand at the pro shop before hitting the lynx in an attempt to buy a lower score. Doesn’t work that way. Branding doesn’t take money – it takes imagination. And even if a brand doesn’t take millions to create, that doesn’t mean that it can’t create millions.

The point is: Virtues like wisdom and wealth don’t always serve you in the beginning. Be careful not to back away from perceived negatives. Scarcity and poverty might be the best thing you have going for you. How does knowing nothing and having nothing work to your advantage?

4. Finished is the new perfect. Here’s a painful realization for any young artist: You’re the only one waiting for you to get everything right. In my experience, eighty percent is enough. Maybe seventy. There comes a point where you have to declare it done. And believe that the hay is in the barn.

Otherwise you’ll trap yourself in the infinite regression of better.

It’s like I tell my mentoring clients: “You don’t need another round of edits. You don’t need to consult with your peer review team. Just ship the damn thing. Most people aren’t even going to read it anyway. May as well write what you want.”

And I get it: It’s more convenient to be a victim of resistance than to risk executing what matters. It certainly gets you more attention and sympathy. But the biggest gamble an artist can take is not making art. Period.

My suggestion: Stop ironing out the wrinkles nobody is going to notice. Get your ass off the treadmill of the inconsequential and move on. By fixating on improvement, are you missing what you already are?

5. Robust emotional commitment. I once read an interview with a famous painter who had become paralyzed from the neck down. Not exactly good for business. The cool part was, the injury didn’t stop him from doing his art.

Unable to move his arms during the recovery process, he literally spit paint onto the canvas. And his fans stayed with him for years to come – even while he painted from a wheelchair. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.

Are you that dedicated to your work? Does your throbbing sense of commitment invite onlookers? I hope so. Because consistency is the ultimate commitment device. Take it from a guy who’s been wearing a nametag twenty-four seven for over a decade – this stuff works.

The secret is: Absolute, unquestionable and unthwartable commitment means demonstrating to the people who matter most – every day – that you are not going away. Which means commitment isn’t just an obligation – it’s a demonstration. It’s constant exertion of your values, a consistent extension of your truth and a consummate expression of your core. How will you show the world that you’re serious about your art?

6. Give yourself permission to jump. Deep inside we are all holding our breath and crossing our fingers. But eventually, we have to take the plunge. My suggestion: Stop waiting for your artistic life to begin. Stop waiting for the rest of humanity to tell you that your work is okay.

Instead of spending a decade wining approval, just start shipping.

Here’s how: Dip your pen directly into the self. Find your source of effortless functioning. And work from the place that makes your heart soar. That’s the only way to fan yourself into flaming action.

After all, a real artist works from the part of her being that is a gift – not an acquisition. She paints with the part of herself that is most the permanent. And as a result, she gives people something they didn’t know they wanted. She takes them places they didn’t expect to go.

Remember: You can only let the marketplace call the tune for so long. Eventually, you have to become governed by the law of your own being. Will you contribute to the coalition of silence or create brilliant stuff that speaks to the market in a way that has never been spoken before?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “14 Things You Don’t Have to Do Anymore,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2011!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:(Read part one here, part two here and part three here.)

1. Plunge immediately into action. The word “start” comes from the Old English term, stiertan, which means, “a sudden movement.” Doesn’t say anything about being perfect. Or big. Or good. Just sudden.

And understandably, starting can be hard. Especially when you’re paralyzed by the prospect of the artistic task in front of you. The smartest response to this challenge is to lower the threat level of execution.

Here’s how: Instead of overwhelming yourself with fears of how daunting your project is, give yourself permission to begin small. Learn to love the drudgery of small simple tasks that push you in the right direction. You’ll discover that executing small steps builds your artistic confidence – plus – gives you the freedom to pause, test, reevaluate and adjust along the way.

As Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way, “Books are written by nibbling away one sentence at a time.” That’s what successful artists know: All that counts it that you make progress in your work.

You don’t need to take the tour – you need to buy a guest past and go. Don’t to take slow for an answer. There is a clock inside of you saying now. How will you convert inertia into demonstrable forward action?

2. Brand your honesty. Here’s my official definition of writing: “Slice open a vein and bleed your truth all over the page.” This distinction is core to my work because, in my experience, bloody art gives audiences access to their truest inmost selves. It meets them where they are. It rewards them from any angle.

Unfortunately, honest art scares people. Apparently not everybody is ready for the truth. But the cool part is: The more personal your work is, the more universal your appeal is; and the more universal your appeal is, the more your fans relate to it. It’s almost spooky how that works.

But that’s what people love. Art that fails to be autobiographical, on the other hand, usually falls short. It remains flat and uninspiring.

Your challenge, if you want to strike a consistent cord of novelty, is to spin the work out yourself. To write with your pen dipped in your own blood, pulling your voice from where your pain lives. No need to justify your hungers. No need to defend your obsessions.

Just let your art be an extension of yourself, and it will infect the people who matter most. What are you doing to keep your work honest?

3. Labor heroically. Anybody can be successful for a short period of time before the rest of the world finds out. Sustainability, on the other hand, is a different animal. It requires patience, stamina, persistence and labor.

That’s how you build something real: By fully engaging of all your faculties. By enlisting everything you’ve got. And by committing to an ongoing investment of energy.

There’s a subject art schools don’t teach: Commitment. Probably because it’s not something that can be comfortably quantified. But it still has to be part of the equation. Because the moment you stop making art, part of you dies.

My suggestion: Never stop sending work out into the world. Instead of fabricating fantastic strategies to avoid making art, make a commitment to laying a certain amount of track, every single day. Because while you can pretend to be an artist, you can’t pretend to make art. What kind of structure can you place around yourself to make sure you remember to execute consistently?

4. Create a space where it’s impossible to hide from yourself. Some days I wish I were delusional. It would probably make things a lot easier. But I can’t stomach it. Literally. I know what happens to my body when I lie to myself. And it’s simply not worth it.

Turns out, looking away from what you need to face causes more anxiety than actually facing it. Dang it.

That’s why I write morning pages, first thing, every day of my life: They keep me from getting away with self-evasion. They align me with things that will never lie to me. And they enable me to meet myself and not turn away.

Try this: Build structure around yourself to make sure you remember to do that consistently. Honor the existence of what you’ve been evading. Then, engage in a regular practice of healthy self-confrontation.

After all, artistic originality is an ongoing process of staying true to yourself. And if you never face the page, you’ll never know who you really are. Maybe it’s time to call yourself out on the carpet and induce a little self-squirming. When was the last time you laid your world bare?

5. Develop deeper trust in your own instincts. Feedback is highly overrated. It rarely reflects who you are as an artist. More often than not, it just projects the insecure concerns and character flaws of the person giving it.

In my experience: Unless it comes from the small group of who truly matter most, it’s nothing but a confusing, discouraging, stressful waste of time and tears. What’s more, spending too much time living in other people’s worlds leads you away from your own voice.

Look: You can only be bounced around like a pinball for so long. And life’s too short to create art in response to demands of the market.

Is there something that keeps scraping away inside of you? Good. Use that. Stop worrying about which shelf your book belongs to. Just write the damn thing. Stop stressing over which genre your music is classified as. Just sing your face off.

Love yourself enough to honor the demands of the gift inside of you. Make the art you care about. Expose the place where you really live. And if people don’t like it, tough shit. Their loss. Believe in your heart that the people who matter most, will. How much of the world’s best art came from a committee?

6. Talent is overrated. As an artist, you have two options: You can squander energy worrying about how much talent you have, or, you can spend energy splattering the canvas with your heart. Choose wisely.

Because the reality is, history proves time and time again that achievements trump qualifications every day of the week.

Think about it: If you never produce anything, nobody will even care if you’re talented. If you never produce anything, nobody will ever get a chance to see how talented your work is. And if you never produce anything, nobody will ever react to your work in a way that helps you make it better.

What matters is execution. What matters is that you ship. What matters it that you sing with a human voice. If you want to play for keeps, stop operating out of the toxic idea that you need to know what you’re doing. You don’t. You just need to do it.

Hell, I’ve been doing this for ten years and I still don’t know what I’m doing. But I sure do a lot of it. And the people who matter notice. Just remember: Art existed long before degrees did. You don’t need another acronym – you need a bigger portfolio. What have you executed this week?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “26 Ways to Out Brand Your Competition,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2011!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:(Read part one here and part two here.

1. Execute the truest representation of what you are. As easy as it is to covet the genius of someone you admire, you’ve still got to find your own work. Otherwise you make art that doesn’t feel like your own. And that’s a surefire way to sentence yourself to mediocrity. In the book Art & Fear, David Bayles addresses this issue beautifully:

“Whatever they have is something needed to do their work – it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don’t lack it. You don’t need it. It has nothing to do with you.”

The trick is to gradually weed out the parts that aren’t yours. Not to edit yourself – but to stay consistent with yourself. Try asking the question, “If I were me, what would I do?” This casual dissociation gives you an object stance on your art and keeps you accountable to your core.

After all, nobody knows you better than you. And only person who can tell when you’ve accidentally taken a detour off the path of artistic truth is you.

Remember: You don’t need to make art that looks like art – you need to make art that looks like you. Are you killing yourself performing someone else’s magic?

2. Stay loyal to your imperfection. During a recent workshop with a group of writers, one of my audience members posed the following challenge, “My biggest fear is putting something down that will be viewed as wrong or stupid.”

To which I replied, “What’s wrong with being wrong? What’s so bad about being stupid?”

That’s what real artists know: It’s smarter to pump out piles of work and learn from your mistakes instead of theorizing about perfection. Besides: Perfectionism enables procrastination, blocks inventiveness and slaughters playfulness. As long as you do postmortems on everything that fails, you’ll keep growing.

The cool part is: The seed for your next artwork lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. And the only way to water that seed is to believe with all your artistic heart that you don’t have to do everything right.

Anything worth doing is worth screwing up initially. But if you’re not willing to be wrong and stupid first, you’ll never invite the opportunity to be right and brilliant second. Is your need for perfection inviting compositional paralysis?

3. Consciously engineer your artistic environment. Otherwise you’ll never cultivate the conditions for creativity to expand. Here’s how: First, direct the traffic flow of your own overcrowded mind. Give yourself quiet time every single day. Second, you need a place where you can be whoever you want to be. A consequence free space for experimentation.

Third, surround yourself with ongoing sources of raw energy. Whether you work best in public or in private, constantly engage all of your senses. Let your artist’s spirit soar. Fourth, cultivate an acute sense of when disinclination is around the corner. Discover what frustrates your ambitions. And don’t be afraid to let resistance win every once in a while. It demonstrates humility for the process and motivates you to return with strength.

Finally, create a policy for managing compositional paralysis. Know when you’ve got it, known when you’ve lost it, know when there’s no way in hell you’re going to get it, and know when you’re going to have to take measures to get it back.

Bottom line: Your style is defined by your habits; your habits are defined by your values. How can you live your life in a way that your art gets done over and over?

4. Art is subordinate to life. Being an artist isn’t just about the art. It’s about the unique life you choose to lead – and the unique identity you choose to own – that informs and inspires the art. As such, art is the residue of a life fully lived. As I learned in the aforementioned Art & Fear:

“When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; and when you hesitate, it stands there staring, with hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

Forget about self-expression and focus on creating a self to express. Your art is not some discharge left when you subtract all the things you haven’t done – it’s the full payoff for the adventurous life you’ve lived.

If you want to let the canvas become the extension of your artist’s spirit, try this: Search the world for meaning constantly and aggressively, give yourself room to respond authentically, and then draw a line from your life to your art. Every single day. You’ll never be blocked again. And the work you produce will move the world.

As John Coltrane said, “Your music can’t blast out of your instrument unless it’s been born in your life first.” Are you creating art, or living a creative life and taking notes?

5. Boldness is required to move forward. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to ship, shatter the status quo and use their art to disturb the world into something better. And understandably, avoiding the unknown has considerable survival value.

Just look at nature: Animals that leave the flock and go their own way get eaten.

But the reality is, fear is a barrier that shields you from the kinds of naked experience that fuels the art that matters most. Uncertainty is the real asset. The true companion of successful art making.

Your challenge is to go at your work in a way that freaks you out. To take the plunge with your clothes still on and trust that you’ll figure out how to swim before the water fills your lungs.

Don’t give your fears the dignity of silence. Burn safe art. Walk to the edge of the precipice. Switch off your rational mind and give yourself license to explore without a map. Are you fighting feelings of uncertainty or surfing on the waves of discomfort?

6. Anonymity is bankruptcy. Artists who play for keeps are the ones who spend just as much time marketing their work as they do making it. Otherwise all their hard labor adds up to nothing but a mere wink in the dark.

But that doesn’t mean you need a marketing plan – it means you need a visibility plan.

It means you need is to find something that you can create scarcity around that people will pay for. And not because you’re trying to trick people into buying something – but because you’re trying to make something worth buying and spreading. As my friend Mark Sanborn says, “Every product must be sold.”

And don’t feed me the Van Gough defense, either. I know he only sold one painting in his life. He also lived in abject poverty, experienced severe depression and committed suicide at the age of thirty-seven.

You’re not Van Gough. Get selling or get another career. People have to make time to visit the world you created. And when they get there, they’re buying your person, your philosophy, your process and then your product. Are you selling all four?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “35 Ways to Leverage Your Next Media Appearance,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

The world’s FIRST two-in-one, flip-flop book!

Buy Scott’s comprehensive marketing guidebook on Amazon.com and learn how to GET noticed, GET remembered and GET business!

You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:(Read part one here!

1. Preserve your freedom. As an artist, I don’t ask for much. I just want to stay free enough to write what I want to read – not what the market wants to buy. I want to define my own private creative domain. And if that means I need to walk away from certain projects, clients and opportunities, fine. If that means I have to say no for the sake of my own autonomy and creativity sovereignty, fine.

That’s the covenant I made with myself, and I will preserve my artistic freedom at all cost.

Here’s why: I think when you create to infect people with your art instead of trying to create from what the market wants – you win. Hugh McLeod made a powerful point about this in Ignore Everybody: “The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.”

Your challenge is to approach life as a creation, not a reaction. To stay focused on creating art, not being an artist. That’s how you stay the course – your course. Otherwise you destroy yourself in response to an invitation from others to stop living. Where are you holding back from expressing yourself?

2. Be emotionally ready for success. Becoming too successful, too fast, too early will either turn you into an arrogant ass or cause you to burn out. Or both. That’s what I learned the hard way: While money loves speed, velocity creates stress – and stress kills people.

Hell, it almost killed me.

When I started my career as a writer, I lacked the emotional foundation to support my (unexpected) early successes. And as a result, I ended up in the hospital with a collapsed lung and a tube in my chest. Gasp.

Pace yourself. Get rich slowly. Avoid getting sucked into the addictive vortex of success and achievement. Otherwise complacency will erase what you’ve worked so hard to achieve. My friend Jason Koteki writes and cartoons extensively on this very topic. In a popular blog post, he wrote the following:

“It’s alarming how often we chase down the secrets to success without ever stopping to consider the side effects of the ideas we are so eager to implement. We can drive ourselves crazy in that pursuit, and we can drive away the people we love the most while we do it.”

Bottom line: Working at a breakneck pace works for about six weeks. After that, you can’t bullshit your body and you can’t fool your family. Just be careful what you begin. Otherwise you’ll be so busy fighting your inner battles that you won’t have time to execute any art, much less share that art with the people who matter most. Are you monitoring your momentum?

3. Be afraid – be very afraid. One of the prerequisites of the artistic journey is acquiring the aptitude to embrace the unknown. To overcome the paralyzing fear of failure. To tear yourself away from the safe harbor of certainty, stare into the abyss and keep going.

John Keats referred to this skill as “negative capability,” or the power to remain in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts without any fact or reason.

That’s how true artists play for keeps: They accept fear as an inevitable part of the equation. And they understand that fear is acceptable as long as it’s proportionate to the situation. My suggestion: Stop trying to stamp out uncertainty. Instead, make friends with it. Figure out what it’s trying to teach you about yourself. That’s how you convert ambiguity into ammo.

Because as much as the advertisers would love for you to believe it, life is not a sports drink commercial. People who have no fear are either liars or robots. Truth is: Courage isn’t acting without fear – it’s acting beyond it. If you want to make art that matters, consider that the world isn’t trying to knock you down – it’s trying to educate you. Stop freaking out and just listen. How will you use fear as a compass?

4. Learn to weather ridicule. The more successful you become, the more torpedoes will be shot at you. This is a good thing. Being ridiculed means being noticed. Being ridiculed means being remembered.

But.

While being ridiculed does sting – being ignored will flat out kill you. That’s the real enemy. No use losing your head because some wanker left a nasty comment on your Facebook wall.

Look: You’re nobody until somebody hates you. And if everybody loves your art, you’re doing something wrong. I’m reminded of the advice given to me by graphic novelist David Mack, “An idea is not any good unless it’s on the verge of being stupid.”

Are you willing to polarize to monetize?
Are you wiling to make people react to make a difference?

Hope so. Because anything worth doing is worth being attacked for.

Instead of allowing your self-worth to hinge on the words of a few haters, consider it an honor to be criticized. Release your bottomless need for approval. And stop organizing your life around the people who don’t get the joke.

Remember: Better to be hated for what you are then loved for what you aren’t. Whom have you pissed off this week?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “49 Ways to become an Idea Powerhouse,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

The world’s FIRST two-in-one, flip-flop book!

Buy Scott’s comprehensive marketing guidebook on Amazon.com and learn how to GET noticed, GET remembered and GET business!

You’ve chosen an uncertain path.
You’ve adopted an inconvenient lifestyle.
You’ve embarked upon an unconventional journey.
You’ve felt the voice inside you growing more urgent.
You’ve committed yourself enough so you can’t turn back.

IN SHORT: You’ve decided to play for keeps.

This is the critical crossroads – the emotional turning point – in the life of every young artist.

I’ve been there myself, and here’s a list of suggestions to help you along the way:1. Carry your own standards for judging your artistic talents. Never let the validity of your talent hang in the balance of some critic’s opinion. Employ only the approval of your heart.

Create out of pleasure, not under constraint. Otherwise your art suffers the consequences of external expectation. And before you know it, people who don’t matter pilfer your life without you even knowing it.

The key decision point is figuring out whom to ignore. Because whether or not you want to admit it: Not everybody wants you to become successful. And not everybody will be happy for your success. In fact, outside of those who really, really love you – your success will piss most people off. And it will drum up significant resentment, even if it’s never vocalized.

My suggestion: Stay undeterred when people attack you for exercising your ability. Proactively pursue your own path despite lack of popular appreciation and understanding. Even when people try to push boulders into your path. Why are you still listening to those trying to talk your dreams down?

2. End the self-editing. As a writer and publisher, I have a personal policy: I don’t edit. I don’t rewrite. I don’t do drafts. I don’t go back and revisit old work. I write things once, I write them in blood, and I publish them to the world with zero regret and infinite confidence.

It’s not perfect. And sure, I might change a few words here and there. Or modify my position on an issue as I evolve. And of course, always make grammatical improvements at the request of my editor.

But that’s proofreading. Editing means correcting the core of something. And the moment you allow that to happen – to the work or to the person who authors it – is the moment you betray yourself.

That’s the problem with self-editing: It renders your creativity timid and impotent. And it’s not fair to your core to let that happen. That’s what I learned on day one of starting my career right out of college: Living a life without editing yourself isn’t just about writing. It’s about walking your truth. It’s about breathing your brand. It’s about staying loyal to yourself. What self-imposed boulder is in the way of giving your river a voice and letting it flow?

3. Engage the muscle of yes. In a recent interview on Fresh Air, The Black Keys explained how their success as a band was largely a function of companies using their music in commercials.

“Radio stations weren’t spinning our records, and that’s why saying yes to the advertising opportunity was bigger than anything we’d ever done,” said drummer Patrick Kearney. “But, we never feel that we were selling out. Just saying yes an opportunity to reach a wider audience.”

Lesson learned: Artistic abundance is a function of receptivity. And it hinges on your willingness to engage the muscle of yes. That’s the distinction: Amateurs get locked into limited concepts of who they are; but pros stay engaged with life’s possibilities.

That way, when a new artistic opportunity comes along, instead of shutting it down because it’s new, they think to themselves, “Oh boy! Another chance to do more of the things I love!” and then aggressively bite into it. Even if it’s not perfect the first few times around.

Because the reality is: Not everything you make will feel like a masterpiece. And it doesn’t have to be. Artists who make history forget about getting things right and focus on getting things moving in the right direction. They know that what matters is not the piece itself – but its contribution to their larger body of work. What do you need to start saying yes to?

4. Screw the masses. You can certainly buy tickets for the starving artist lottery, but it might be smarter – and cheaper – to go out and find the market for what you love. Or better yet, create it yourself. Even if it’s a small one. Cartoonist and writer Hugh McLeod calls this your micro-audience. This is the tiny handful of people who are likely to buy your high-end product.

“In the old, pre-internet days, if you were a cartoonist like me and wanted to be successful, you pretty much had to be famous. And those gigs were hard to come by. You needed a big time publication syndicate or media company to back you. And of course, all this required a very large audience. Thank God the Internet came along and changed everything.”

The hard part is divorcing your ego from the illusion that market size matters – because it doesn’t.

I know a guy who once wrote a book for five people. Five people. Naturally, those five people were big executives at big companies who later retained his consulting services for big money. Sounds like size didn’t matter after all.

The question is: Are you willing to change the game, change the rules, or create your own game where there are no rules? I hope so. Because waiting around for an audience is surefire path to artistic failure. Figure out which of the mainstream hoops are not worth jumping through, and then forge ahead without stopping. Why be a needle in a stack of needles when you could be the only needle in box?

5. Remove the threat of rejection. Writers love to pontificate about how many editors, publishers and agents rejected them before they made it big. Personally, I never chose to participate in that literary pissing contest. I’ve always practiced Miyagi’s Law, which states that the best way to block a punch is to not be there. For example:

Want to know how many publishers rejected my books?
None. Because I did them myself. Including the recent numero twelve.

Want to know how many agents turned my proposals down?
None. Because I never submitted any.

Want to know how many editors told me my work wasn’t good enough?
None. Because, as you already learned, I don’t edit myself – not on the page or in person.

It’s not about being afraid of rejection – it’s about putting yourself in a position where rejection can’t even find you. Why torture yourself listening to voices that don’t matter when you could be executing work that does?

Seems to me, the best way to bring home the bacon is to raise your own pigs. That way, when you’re hungry, all you have to do is grab a knife and walk outside. Sure beats waiting in vain only to be rejected by someone who doesn’t matter. What would it take for you to position yourself as the sole shot caller of your work?

REMEMBER: When you’re ready to play for keeps, your work will never be the same.

Make the decision today.

Show the world that your art isn’t just another expensive hobby.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Have you committed with both feet yet?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “49 Ways to become an Idea Powerhouse,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

The world’s FIRST two-in-one, flip-flop book!

Buy Scott’s comprehensive marketing guidebook on Amazon.com and learn how to GET noticed, GET remembered and GET business!