Tag: the nametag manifesto

The Business of Distraction

Entertainment is the business of distraction.

That’s why audiences hand over their hard earned money.

To feel, laugh, cry, play, gasp and have their imagination captured, so they can forget about, not worry about, evaporate from, take a break from and get the hell away from life.

Even if only for a moment, a minute, an hour or an evening, it’s always worth it when we’re distracted.

Not all the time, of course. We still have obligations to fill. But life’s too short to be focused all the time. Everybody needs a taste of the sweet nectar of cognitive escape.

To be distracted is to be safe. To be distracted is to disappear and merge with the divine. To be distracted is to cope with the anxiety of living. To be distracted is to escape from life’s unanswerable questions. To be distracted is to bond with each other through our shared humanity. To be distracted is to stop thinking about the fact that we’re all going to die.

Distraction is the highest form of living.

And as artists, entertainers, performers and creators, we have been given a license to distract.

Let us not dodge that great honor. Let us not shy away from the obligation to satisfy people’s deep, human longing to disconnect from reality.

People crave distraction.

Let’s give the audience what they want.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What does your performance provide?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

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


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

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Do You Start with What’s Cool or What’s Possible?

Lester Young was the original king of cool.

In the late twenties, not only did he originate the hipster ethos with his cool tenor sax style, he literally coined the word “cool” in jazz circles as a slang term for someone, someplace or something that created a smile in the mind.

Nearly a century later, cool still matters. In fact, cool matters more than ever. With the end of mass, the rise of tribes and the popularity of social sharing applications like Pinterest and Instagram, people don’t just know it when they see it – they share it when they see it.

And while cool isn’t a guarantor of success, a substitute for quality or a panacea to anonymity or, it’s certainly a powerful accelerator to help our ideas travel.

But most of us take the safe bet. We’d rather bow to the altar of practicality than knock at the door of whimsy. Like my friend Mike reminded me, instead of asking, “Will this be cool?” we ask, “Will this be possible?”

Can you imagine what our world would look like if Steve Jobs thought that way?

He didn’t design for practicality – he designed so customers would lick their computers. Literally. Apple products belong in our mouths. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.

The point is, if we plan to change the world, we need a reasonable amount of irrationality.

Starting with what’s possible can be profitable, but starting with what’s cool can be priceless.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How cool do people think you are?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “8 Ways to Move Quickly on New Opportunities,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

The Nametag Guy Live: What’s in a Nametag?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What’s your nametag?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “23 Ways to Make Your Fans Super Happy,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Let the City Crumble, But Come Home Together

Every relationship I ever ruined suffered from the same dysfunction.

We got lazy with each other.

Somewhere down the line, we no longer bothered to bother. We no longer took a minute to make a moment. Caring became a chore, and complacency became the norm.

No wonder those relationships never worked out.

But not this time. Since then, we’ve adopted a new mantra. Something my dad said that echoed in my heart forever.

Let the city crumble, but come home together.

I kind of knew what he meant at the time, but it took a while for the idea to truly settle in.

Now that we’ve relocated to New York, what we’re starting to realize is that the city isn’t just a pile of buildings.

The city is anything worth blowing up for love. The city is anything competing for shelf space in our hearts. The city is anything in our lives that, without love, doesn’t matter.

Career. Wealth. Ego. Pride. Whatever.

Let it go, let it crumble and let love take over every square inch of our lives.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Who is your valentine?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

Go hug that person.

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Adventures in Nametagging:

“Acts of friendliness in moments of anonymity.”

That’s why I wear a nametag:

To invite people to join me, to remind the world that face to face is making a comeback and to create spontaneous moments of authentic human interaction infused with a spirit of humor, playfulness and connection.

And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a nametag is worth a thousand stories.

Here are my most recent adventures:

DAY 4,099: Today I met a guy at a party who asked why I was wearing a nametag. I told him I just moved to New York and didn’t know anybody. He said, “I’ve lived here forever and I still don’t know anybody!”

DAY 4,121: Today the bouncer at the door examined my driver’s license and said, “I guess your name really is Scott.” Then we discovered we were at the wrong bar.

DAY 4,122: Today my yoga instructor thanked me for wearing a nametag. She said it made her job easier. Then, during final meditation, she sang “The Greatest Love of All.” Man, I’m really going to miss Whitney Houston.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What’s your nametag?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “23 Ways to Make Your Fans Super Happy,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Do You Own the Story Behind What You Make?

To hit the target that matters most, we have to shoot with our own ammo.

We have to hire ourselves, fight for what we believe in and execute our own vision, on our own time and on our own dime, fingers stuck in our ears, ready to rock on a moment’s notice.

That way, it won’t matter if we win or lose. It won’t matter how many people don’t love us. We’ll still earn attention and respect for doing our own thing. We’ll still walk home happy. And we’ll still have the satisfaction of hiring ourselves.

Because in the end, it doesn’t matter if the world likes what we make.

It only matters if we own the story behind it.

When the story we tell is our own, we’re always successful, even if we’re not successful.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What did you create yesterday?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “79 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Who Said Anything About a Job?

Being an employee is a risky endeavor.

Because when we have a job, that means we can lose it.

On the other hand, if the work we do every day is our art, our passion, the thing that’s under our fingernails, the thing that means everything in the world to us, then nobody can take that away.

It’s ours, always, forever.

Not because it’s a job, but because we simply do our work in a creative, collaborative, passionate, and meaningful way, it creates value that makes people’s lives better, it’s why they compensate us accordingly, and it’s what enables us to live the life we want.

Who said anything about a job?

If we want security, we just hire ourselves and go to work.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What do you do all day?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the 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


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

The Nametag Guy Live — Ridicule Changes Us

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What’s your nametag?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “23 Ways to Make Your Fans Super Happy,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Every Interaction is a Chance to Change Somebody’s World

Everybody is somebody’s somebody.

It all depends on what we see when we see people.

When we sit down on a bus next to a complete stranger, we
have a choice. We can take the easy way out, crack open a book, put in our ear
buds and disappear into ourselves.

Or we can say hello. We can notice people. We can create an
act of connection in a moment of silence.

It doesn’t work every
time, but we have a lot of times.

What’s neat is, once we have a chance encounter with a
stranger that changes everything, we start to see strangers differently. Our
posture changes. What we see when we see people isn’t what it used to be.

And that’s when the real fun begins.

Not because we see somebody as a mark, but because we view
every interaction as a chance to change somebody’s world.

Maybe theirs, maybe ours, or maybe both.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How many people did you go out of your way to ignore last week?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

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


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

Was Your Work the Same a Year Ago?

Evolution is inevitable.

On the personal side, at least.

But professionally, if our work is the same it was a year ago, if what we do hasn’t evolved with who we are, we’re in trouble.

Some of us fail to renew because we’re lazy. Others because we’re comfortable with the current level of our success and don’t want to let go of what’s working. Some fail to renew because we don’t think we need to evolve. And some of us fail to renew because we don’t think renewal is necessary to become great.

But more often than not, we fail to renew because we fail to reflect. We fail to renew because we’re so busy with the day to day, wrapped up in the demands of the marketplace, that we forget to take time to step back from the work and ask ourselves what the work is evolving into.

And as a result, we become prisoners of our own labors.

Instigating a process of renewal is so essential. Without it, we don’t just grow stale, we grow cynical as we watch the evolvers pass us by.

We can’t keep telling the same story just because we know it’s guaranteed to get applause.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Where do you need to renew?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “15 Ownership Phrases That Payses,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg


That Guy with the Nametag


Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting


[email protected]



Never the same speech twice.

Now booking for 2012-2013!

Watch The Nametag Guy in action here!

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