What Smart Entrepreneurs Know about Leveraging Their Limitations

I’m tired of people telling me that there are no limits.

Yes, there are.

Everybody has them. And to ignore your limits is to deny your truth.

HERE’S THE REAL SECRET: Instead of running from your limits – or, worse yet, pretending they don’t exist – try leveraging them.

Leverage, as you may recall from previous posts, is, “To increasing the rate of return on an investment.”

But leverage isn’t a word. Or a strategy. Or something you do to make money.

Leverage is a lifestyle. A way of thinking. An approach to doing business.

I like to think of it as killing to two stones with one bird.

Take it from a guy with no background, no job experience and no credentials – who turned a simple idea like wearing a nametag everyday into a successful enterprise.

Twelve books later, if that’s not leverage, I don’t know what is.

Today we’re going to explore a collection of ideas to help you leverage your limitations: 1. Objectivity is equity. In the past eight years, I’ve delivered over six hundred presentations for corporations worldwide. And typically, I’m the outsider. The freak. The only person in the room who doesn’t know the inner workings of the industry.

Initially, I viewed this as threat to my credibility. A disconnect between the speaker and the audience. But then it occurred to be: People need fresh air. A new perspective from an unbiased source that has no stake in the organization. That’s when I began leveraging my outsiderness as a strength – not a limitation.

If you find yourself in a similar position, ask yourself a few questions:

*What limitations enable you to be more objective than your competitors?
*What assumptions can you explore that most people never think of or take for granted?
*What thinking patterns can you deliver as a result of your ability to detach from the outcome?

Remember: It’s a lot easier to break the limit when you don’t know the limit exists. And the less you know, the more likely you are to come up with an original idea. Are you willing to tell people you know nothing in order to change everything?

2. Magnify your unhideables. With the exception of plastic surgery and cryogenic freezing, age isn’t something you can hide. However, that can work to your advantage if you position yourself strategically.

For example, let’s say you just graduated college. And you’re the youngest person in your office by twenty years. Instead of viewing your youth a sign of immaturity and lack of experience – consider it an asset that enables you to offer a continuous flow of vitality and perspective to your organization.

If you’re proactive and powerful – without coming off as arrogant and annoying – people will notice.

Or, maybe you’re the company veteran. And you’ve been around longer than most of the interns have been alive. Instead of seeing yourself as a dusty monument of irrelevance, position yourself as a reservoir of diverse experience and wisdom who can predict forthcoming industry trends.

If you’re inspiring and visionary – but without coming off as condescending and entitled – people will notice.

Remember: A chicken ain’t nothing but a bird, and age ain’t nothing but a number. Are you focusing on the years or the mileage?

3. Limited palettes make for stronger expressions. In Alan Fletcher’s inspiring book, The Art of Looking Sideways, he explains that the first move in any creative process is to introduce constraints.

Which sounds counterintuitive, as art is an expression of freedom. But having boundaries is what forces you to tap into – and trust – your inner resources in creative ways.

What’s more, limitation is inspiration. When you use it to fuel your creative fire, it enables you to create something that surprises yourself. And that’s where genius lives.

Take the recession, for example. I don’t know about you, but the devastating economy was the best thing that ever happened to my business. Sure, profits aren’t as high the used to be. But the pendulum will swing back eventually.

Meanwhile, in light of shrinking client budgets, I’ve been forced to evolve my service line, expand my role repertoire and provide new value to accommodate my markets. Now, with multiple profit centers, my company has evolved into a more robust, more diverse and more equitable enterprise.

And as a result, my client positioning shifted into that of a resource – not just a writer. And that’s worth money. All by virtue of the economy sucking big time. How could you put yourself in a position that would force your to renew your resourcefulness?

4. Know what you aren’t. This spring, I’m releasing a series of customized, limited edition art prints for my clients. They’re extremely scarce, very expensive and highly unorthodox. But the product is worthwhile because it assures one thing: Their mission becomes more than a statement.

The problem was: I couldn’t draw a straight line if I tried. I’m an artist of the verbal – not the visual. And as much as my ego wanted me to be responsible for every part of the process, I eventually made the decision to surrender.

Thanks to the suggestion of my friend Matt, I hired out the artwork to a brilliant letterpress shop called Firecracker Press. And to my delight, their craftsmanship was a million times better than anything I could have ever attempted.

Lesson learned: It’s a beautiful moment when you realize what you can’t do. After all, sometimes that’s the only way to free yourself to focus on what’s left. Like the boxer with a broken arm, you realize you have no choice but to develop your speed. Or, in my case, pay someone to punch for you. What are you afraid to let go of?

5. Limitations are the doorways to your deepest value. In Hugh Macleod’s bestselling book Ignore Everybody, he shares a fascinating theory about circumventing limitations:

“Picasso was a terrible colorist. Saul Steinberg’s formal drafting skills were appalling. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan couldn’t sing or play guitar. But that didn’t stop them, right? And why should it?”

Lesson learned: Don’t be stopped by not knowing how. In fact, not knowing how might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Think about it: If you don’t know where you’re going, nobody can stop you – not even you.

Instead of berating yourself for limited proficiency, use the absence of know-how to activate the excavation of know-why. Tap into the truest motives behind your work. How will come in time.

Until then, just start. You don’t need lessons. You don’t need a degree. And you certainly don’t need anybody’s permission. Just start. As George Carlin once said, “It’s not enough to play the right notes – you have to know why the notes need to be played.” What will sucking make available to you?

REMEMBER: Limits are a beautiful thing.

They expose value.
They galvanize focus.
They renew resourcefulness.

Learn to leverage them, and you’ll kill two stones with one bird every time.

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Are you ignoring, avoiding or leveraging your limits?

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

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6 Ways to Make People Feel Essential

Congratulations. You remember names. You celebrate birthdays. You memorize preferences.

But that’s not what makes people stay.

Making people feel valued, important, special, needed – or whatever other simplistic leadership instructions you read in How to Win Friends and Influence People – is pretty much expected at this point. It’s the baseline requirement of being a leader.

But that’s not what makes people stay.

If you want the people who matter most to show up in full voice, work their hearts out for you spread the organizational love like a fever, you have to make them feel essential.

Essential meaning, “Your work matters.”
Essential meaning, “We would crumble without you.”
Essential meaning, “If you were gone, people would notice.”

Are you a practitioner of essentialism? If not, try these ideas:1. What do you see when you see people? That’s the question approachability hinges upon. For example, last week I met a woman whose specialty was securing venture capital funding. Neat lady. She was sharp, aggressive and energizing. But when she learned about my work, she confessed that her clients and colleagues historically perceived her as being unapproachable.

“The problem is, only one out of a hundred people I meet are ideal clients. And my default programming is to uncover – as quickly as possible – whether or not they’re one of the ninety-nine. Otherwise I lose interest.”

Which makes total sense. Especially from a prospecting point of view: You don’t want to burn your days chasing non-economic buyers. But while it’s one thing to qualify – it’s another things to compartmentalize everyone you meet into convenient little boxes.

Turns out, if you approach people as unique individuals – as human beings – they remember feeling essential. But if you exploit them as a means to an end – as integers – they remember feeling small. Are you memorable for the right reasons?

2. Decide how you want to leave people. Approachability is about how people experience themselves in relation to you. And while you can’t control people’s emotions – outside of manipulation, punishment and coercion – what you can do is be more intentional in how you walk away from them.

For example:

Want to leave people laughing? Help them evoke the humor in their own lives.

Want to leave people inspired? Enable them to give birth to their own realizations.

Want to leave people heard? Reflect their reality by taking.

Your challenge is twofold: First, to identify the baseline emotion you want to leave people with. Second: To remind yourself of that emotion on a daily basis. Because in the end, it’s not about being the life of the party – it’s about bringing other people to life at the party. And it’s not who you know – it’s whose life is better because they know you. When you walk out of a room how does it change?

3. The speed of the response is the response. Marshall McLuhan was right: The medium is the message. And when you hold a leadership position, that principle seeps its way into everything you do – especially now.

Because culturally, “good, fast and cheap” has been replaced by “perfect, now and free.” How are you adapting to that shift?

Here are three examples: First, questions. Because it’s not just about being askable – it’s about how quickly you let people know that you’re searching for an answer. Second, responses. Because it’s not just what you say – it’s about how long you make people wait before they hear it.

Third, troubles. Because it’s not just about fixing the problem – it’s about how well you communicate to people as you fix it. Without that kind of “speed sensibility,” your people end up suffering in silence. And instead feeling essential – they feel evaded. Do you return calls faster than your competitors?

4. Preserve people’s fingerprints. As an artist, I make a conscious effort to alert people when they’ve inspired my work. Not with a thank you note. Not with a one-word text message. And not with some insincere compliment they forget by lunch. I physically gift them a copy of the finished product they helped created.

Whether it’s a book, an article or a limited edition art piece, I want them to own it. Forever. Because it wouldn’t have come into existence without them, and they deserve to see it live.

Notice I said gift – not give. Huge difference.

If you want to make people feel essential, don’t gift expecting reciprocation – gift to let people to know their words have weight. Gift to keep your art in motion. Gift to bring yourself closer to the recipient. Gift to help people remember that their existence matters.

Remember: Success never comes unassisted. Learn how to thank or get out. How do you pay homage to the voices that shape you?

5. Recognition is the mainspring of motivation. People crave recognition. It’s a universal human need. And it’s one of the chief determinants of employee engagement. But, whether or not people satisfy that need depends on if they can answer, “yes” to the following question:

Is my voice heard here?

My friend Derek is a master of this. His marketing agency, goBRANDgo, has a “Win Wall” in their office. Every time an employee achieves a victory of any kind – from landing a new client to delivering ahead of schedule to killing that pesky mosquito that’s been buzzing around since August – they write it on a sticky note.

And the cool part is, each employee has his or her own color. Then, at the end of the week, they aggregate all the wins onto a blog post for the entire world to see. Totally awesome.

And the lesson: It’s not about just praising people publicly – it’s about being a stand for people’s greatness. It’s about giving them a front row seat to their own brilliance – while inviting the rest of the world to sit in the audience with them.

That’s the secret to recognition: Isn’t corporate initiative – it’s a constitutional ingredient. How are you making gratitude palpable and recurrent?

6. Increase your mental flexibility. Have you ever worked with somebody who went out of their way to pretend like they cared? Like the boss who thoroughly listens to your input, thanks you for your suggestion, and then goes back to doing exactly what he planned all along. Geh.

Nothing makes people feel smaller. I’m reminded of a classic Scott Adams cartoon in which Dilbert undergoes a performance evaluation. Sitting across the table in complete silence, his manager says, “I’m not going to comment – I’ll just look at you until you agree with me.”

If you want people to feel essential, let them experience that they can change your mind. Be quick to ask for their opinion, and be slow to interrupt when they give it. This shows them that you can bend. That you’re vulnerable enough to admit that your perceptions might be misguided. And that you’re willing to shelf your ego and approach everyone as your mentor. Do you treat people like vestigial parts, helpful additions or vital components?

REMEMBER: Making people feel important isn’t that important.

What matters is that they feel essential.

That you honor their essence as a human being.

And that’s something you’ll never learn from a Dale Carnegie book.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
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* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2011!

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How to Keep Backbone Engaged

You can only nurture pointless relationships for so long.

Sometimes, you have to be willing to hold a courageous conversation to reinforce your boundaries.

Otherwise your life is no longer your own.

This isn’t just about saying no.

This is about filtering your life.
This is about safeguarding your time.
This is about honoring your boundaries.
This is about televising your priorities.

If want to keep backbone engaged, try these moves:1. Reject invitations that don’t serve you. If you don’t make conscious choices about the individuals you allow to participate in your life, you won’t like your life. Period.

For example, I recently received an email from a woman I didn’t know very well. Her request was as follows:

“I’m going through a major life change and need advice from lots of people who aren’t close to the situation so they don’t approach it with a bias. Would you be willing to hear what it is and share your thoughts? I’d greatly appreciate it.”

Although my ears were flattered by the bend request, my heart told me to stay away. Not that I wasn’t sympathetic to her life situation. But I barely knew her. And this request came out of nowhere. Out of respect, I replied affirmatively and sympathetically:

“Thanks for reaching out. Sounds like you’re going through quite the adventure. Currently, I’m already over committed and won’t be able to offer my ears. Good luck.”

That’s how you keep backbone engaged. As Julia Cameron explained in Walking This World, “Don’t turn yourself into a food source for others, allowing them to dine freely on your time, talents and reserves.”

Remember: Life’s too short to surround yourself with people who use you as a garbage dump for their emotional refuse. Who is a chronic abuser of your time and attention?

2. You don’t have to react to every attention magnet. Saying no doesn’t make you snobby; it makes you discerning. Just because somebody wants to arrange a meeting with you so can he can pick your brain for two hours – and, ultimately, take no action on the advice you give him – doesn’t mean you should feel obligated accept the invite.

And certainly, there will always be incidents when making yourself available as a resource is a generous, worthwhile endeavor. Personally, I do this on a regular basis as a way to pay forward the help I once received.

But you’re not a lunch whore. And your time isn’t just valuable – it’s billable.

Besides, in order to be fair to everybody, if you said yes to one person, you would have to say yes to all of them. And that would result in you working a hundred hours a week.

Look: Nobody likes to be rejected, and nobody likes rejecting. But you can’t let the undertow of social guilt whisk you away into an endless spiral of unnecessary obligations you clearly loathe. Otherwise you’ll wind up interacting with people in a false performance mode, which is actually worse than not being there at all. Who is helping you build a future that you’re going to feel obligated to be a part of?

3. Speak up at the slightest sense of discomfort. If you don’t set healthy boundaries for yourself, people will set them for you. And then they will violate them. And then they will tell their friends to do the same. All because you failed to set a precedent of value.

Not because they’re terrible people – but because you never taught them how to treat you.

To avoid this, be prolific in your communication. Constantly educate people on your priorities. Especially those who are habitually taxing, or whose perpetual laziness constantly begs your assistance. Otherwise, in the absence of communication, people will make up their own story. And it probably won’t match yours.

When all else fails, sometimes you just have to look people in the eye and say:

“Let’s get something straight: I’m not your playmate, I’m not your project manager and I’m not your delegation receptacle. We’re done.”

Remember: Don’t be unfair to yourself by continuing relationships with people who abuse your energy. You’re a person – not a welcome mat. Is this an opportunity, or an opportunity to be used?

4. Everybody has a saturation point. When you simply don’t have the personal bandwidth to sit down with every stranger who wants to siphon your genius, you need to have alternative responses ready.

Here’s what I would do: Make a list of the top twenty questions one of these bloodsuckers usually asks. Answer each question in a paragraph. Save the file in a convenient location. Then, when the time comes, simply say:

“You’ve raised several key issues that I’d be happy to address. Here’s a helpful document I’ve put together that answers most of your questions. If you need anything else beyond that, feel free to holler. Thanks.”

That’s called a deflection. And it works because it’s respectful, positions you as an approachable resource; yet still reinforces your boundaries.

The best part: Instead of draining your creative bank account, abusing your energy and exploiting your brainpower for their benefit, most people will thank you, review the document, and never bother you again. What’s your system for rejecting people respectfully?

REMEMBER: Martin Luther King famously said, “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”

Filter your life.
Safeguard your time.
Honor your boundaries.
Televise your priorities.

Keep backbone engaged.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What are you prepared to say no to?

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For the list called, “11 Things to Stop Wasting Your Time On,” 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!

How to Use Your Personal Brand to Switch Careers

You’re not in the job market – you’re in opportunity market.

As such, branding is no longer a novelty – it’s a necessity. It’s the price of admission. And it’s got nothing to do with dressing for success, company logos or flashy websites.

Branding is the best version of you.
Branding is how people experience you.
Branding is how people experience themselves in relation to you.
Branding is what you’re known for, what you’re known as and what you’re known for knowing.

Think of it from an algebraic perspective:

Your brand is the coefficient, and the goal is to make that number a little stronger every day. That way, when a new job enters the equation, you’re prepared to multiply the hell out of it.

Reprinted from my regular column at The Ladders, here’s how to use your personal brand to pave the way for career transition:1. Develop a predisposition to compromise. Meeting life in the middle doesn’t make you weak or small – it makes you human and malleable. And if you’re starting over, I can’t think of two more appropriate adjectives to describe your ideal state of being. Ask these questions:

*What if you adopted your skills to a more vibrant industry?
*What if you repackaged your talents into a volunteerism lifestyle until the economy shifted?
*What if you gave away your talent to the market until they were ready to pay for it?

Remember: Don’t commit solely to one course of action – cast a wider net. Learn to live larger than your labels, uncover new territory for personal and professional expansion and profitable use of everything you are. Will you accept the flux of life – then learn to ride it?

2. Quality can’t be your sole signature. People need to fall in love with your process as much as your product. Because if they don’t love the person doing the work as much as the work itself, starting over is going take forever.

My suggestion: Articulate the portrait of the person you want to be. Start serving people from who you are – not who you pretend to be. As you extend your brand into the marketplace, consider branding your service, your language and your honesty.

That’s what will get you noticed, get you remembered and get you the job. What gives your personal brand its power?

3. Make creativity a conscious priority. Readers often ask me how I decide what to write about each day. My answer is simple:

“I don’t – I just listen for what wants to be written.”

That’s how creativity works: It’s a process of surrendering. And if you plan to start over, that’s the smartest attitude to maintain. Because opportunity never stops knocking – you just stop listening.

The secret is to lock into the right frame of mind to pursue opportunities as they arise. To maintain the emotional willingness to open yourself to new possibilities.

For example: Examine the smallest revenue centers of your business. Then ask, “With some reinvention could this become a brand new business unit?” Who knows? By giving your artistic voice another outlet, you might activate a market segment that just can’t wait for your arrival.

Remember: Creativity isn’t an entitlement – it’s is nurtured by constant cultivation. How do you reap what your brain sows?

4. Create a network of human healing. In the book, Who Gets Sick, Blair Justice revealed how beliefs, moods and thoughts affected health. In one particular study, his research found that social support protects your health by reducing the intensity with which you look at and react to stressful events.

What they failed to mention however, was that that you don’t realize how strong your support system is until the world on top of it collapses. And trust me: You don’t want to wait for that to happen.

If you plan to start over, plan to create a network of healing to keep you alive in the process. Because without support from your loved ones, the road less traveled will become very windy.

The point is: Success never comes unassisted. You personal brand can be an island. Ask for help early and often. And believe that the people who love you most want nothing more than the opportunity to come through and show you so. Do you live in an atmosphere of encouragement and expectation-free support?

REMEMBER: Branding isn’t a novelty – it’s a necessity.

As you make the transition through the opportunity market – not the job market – remember that if you don’t make a name for yourself, someone will make one for you.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How do people experience you?

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For the list called, “205 States of Being That Matter Most,” 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!

Why It’s Not the End of the Human Race

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?

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

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How to Make Your Company Smaller

If size mattered, dinosaurs would still be around.

Truth is, the corporate veil of bigness and anonymity no longer works.

If you want to be approachable, be less.

This is a topic I’ve been addressing a lot lately.

First, with a post called 21 Reasons to Stay Small.
Second, with a post called 6 Ways to Stay Small and Win Big.

And this week, my client at American Express Open Forum ran the latest piece called How to Keep Your Company Small.

Here’s how your company can embrace that possibility:1. Plan is a four-letter word. Big companies love to plan because planning preserves their sense of control. It underwrites the illusion that they know what they’re doing. The problem is, planning is a big decision. And big decisions cause you to prematurely commit to a trajectory that (might) later prove to be unprofitable.

What’s more, over time, the more you plan, the harder it becomes to invite healthy derailments. That’s how you miss unlabeled opportunities to grow: When you’re too busy managing the stress of planning to experience the benefits of executing. Don’t close yourself off by making gods out of your plans. Have your long-term plans turned into anchors?

2. Cut down to the bone. Enough to make the bone nervous. Here’s how to trim as much fat from your process as possible: Remove redundant procedures. Axe inactive people. Delete stupid expenses that drain organizational resources. And instead of wasting time tinkering with broken processes, invent a new way to do it, jettison outdated procedures and get on with your life.

Ultimately, it’s about excising as much fat from your process as possible. That’s how you become lean, trim and nimble. Are you yielding gracefully to necessity or kneeling obediently to mediocrity?

3. Sweat the small stuff. That’s what big companies do: They sacrifice experience for expense. And as a result, the hallmark of their size is providing impersonal, emotionless non-service.

On the other hand, if you’re small enough to care, you can make a conscious decision to put the experience above all else. You can move beyond the mechanical and transactional and into the emotional and transformational.

That’s what customers are coming back for anyway: How interacting with you makes them feel. What small action might make a big difference?

4. Capitalize on the momentum. Big companies are quick to think – but small companies are quick to act. That’s the best part about keeping your size down: Speed.

No standing by for approval before tweeting.
No waiting for legal to clear a customer service complaint.
No lingering three days for human resources to sign off on your blog post.
No spending a year in meetings trying to calculate earning potential and assess how to mitigate risk.

You just go. You just try things. And you execute with all your might – not all your policies. How impatient are you willing to be?

5. Never overlook the profitability of accessibility. According to a recent survey by eMarketer, small businesses are not only keeping up with large companies, they’re actually beating them when it comes to acquiring customers via social media.

The report found that nearly half of small businesses around the world have acquired a customer via social media, as compared to twenty-eight percent of larger businesses with larger budgets.

As small business educator Josh Kauffman writes, “Large companies move slowly and good ideas often die on the vine because they had to be approved by too many people.” How many of your big ideas were jailed last month?

6. Learn to delete the average. Average inhibits your ability to flourish. Average chokes your ability to matter. Average numbs your ability to contribute. And priding yourself on average means programming yourself for irrelevancy. Try saying no to the mediocre work.

In so doing, you preserve your ability to choose how much to grow. What’s more, saying no to the good makes room to say yes to the best. If you want to stay small, you have to set standards for rejecting opportunities. You have to develop a policy for saying no. Otherwise you wind up getting so big that you have to give up the parts you value most.

Remember: You are what you reject. Differentiate yourself by saying no. Are you big and average or small and awesome?

7. Lose the posture of pretense. Ditch the pomp. Erase superficial distinctions. And speak with a casual voice. That’s how you make communication between employees and customers unexpectedly personal.

Otherwise, if you’re too busy defending past decisions, massaging executive egos and destroying evidence of your shortcomings, you’ll never carve out the time to be human. And that’s when your customers will stop listening to you.

Think of it this way: If clothing conveys class, hierarchy and status, your organization is too big. Are your messages sending people scurrying for dictionaries?

8. End the editing. Most big organizations are designed to restrict individual expression, mitigate dissent and preserve the status quo. There’s simply too much red tape to be honest.

My suggestion: You don’t need more procedures – you need more philosophy. Policies are restrictive devices that keep people from doing something; philosophies are enabling devices that empower people to do something.

In a beautifully small organization, your employees should be able to express themselves without resorting to code, take action with asking for permission, take a piss without submitting a requisition form and make adjustments without having to go through the chain of command. When does the feeling of formality keep you from communicating freely?

9. Make your mission more than a statement. The bigger the company, the less likely people are to feel essential. For example: Employee’s inboxes don’t need another boring, overextended piece of corporate communication that they delete immediately or (at best) peruse passively.

If your words don’t speak directly to what’s important to them, you’re nothing but spam. That’s another problem with big companies: Their sense of mission easily fades. And under the weight of irrelevant action, they perish spending time on the wrong priorities.

Your mission is to stay in touch with your own story. Are the messages that deliver that story notably professional or dubiously slick?

REMEMBER: Getting as big as possible, as fast as possible, isn’t the only goal that matters.

You don’t always have to take it to the moon. Resist the pressure to expand.

Seek greatness – not bigness.

It’s more manageable, more flexible more approachable and, most importantly, profitable.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Where do you need to be smaller?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
For the list called, “8 Ways to Out Question the 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]

“I’ve been a supporter of the approach that mentoring should not be a paid activity as this has the potential to change the dynamics of the relationship and create a power imbalance. But I have to be honest and say that after Scott’s first mentoring response to me, the fact that I had paid something to be working with him left my mind – as far as I was concerned, the value of that (and subsequent) exchange of wisdom and knowledge, far outweighed any payment.”

–Gilly Johnson The Australian Mentoring Center

Rent Scott’s Brain today!

A Young Artist’s Guide to Playing for Keeps, Pt. 5

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!

NametagTV: Marketing Questions That Matter, Pt. 1

Video not working? Click here for Adobe Flash 9!

Or, watch the original video on NametagTV.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How do you use questions to get ahead?

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For a list called, “10 Reasons Your Business Doesn’t Really Exist,” 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]

Sick of selling?
Tired of cold calling?
Bored with traditional prospecting approaches?

Buy Scott’s book and learn how to ~~sell~~ enable people to buy!

Pick up your copy (or a case!) right here.

Why Facebook Isn’t the Cause of Your Divorce

My local television station recently started a new segment called, I’m Just Saying.

They’re inviting St. Louis celebrities, public figures and leaders to share exactly what’s on their minds.

My piece is called, Don’t Blame Facebook for Your Divorce.

If you can, leave a comment or two after the video. The more traffic they get, the more they’re likely to hire me again for future pieces. Thanks!

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What are you just saying?

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For the list called, “19 Telltale Signs of the Perfect Job,” 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]

“I usually refuse to pay for mentoring. But after Scott’s first brain rental session, the fact that I had paid something to be working with him left my mind – as far as I was concerned, the value of that (and subsequent) exchange of wisdom and knowledge, far outweighed any payment.”

–Gilly Johnson The Australian Mentoring Center

Rent Scott’s Brain today!

A Young Artist’s Guide to Playing for Keeps, Pt. 4

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!

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