If you took the 18+ minutes to listen to this week’s An Eventual Life podcast (which I will note is only slightly longer than a talk we allude to later in this interview), you heard Seth Godin’s discussion with me. Either way, you can read it here now or have it read to you. Read on to see what we both had to say in question and answer form.
Me
Thanks for joining me today, Seth.
Seth Godin
Thanks for taking the time to have me.
ME
As many people know, you’ve covered a wide variety of topics on the ‘net – you’ve got a blog and that blog even has a Twitter account. I wanted to let you know while I’ve seen you all over the web over the years, but the first book that I really noticed was Free Prize Inside. The reason being is that I’m a big fan of cereal. I shook it, got to the end…I really had to read the whole thing to “get” the prize. It was released over five years ago – and I’m wondering what has changed since then and now?
SG
Well, just so people understand it came in a cereal box…and it was a sequel to Purple Cow which came in a milk carton. I don’t like bacon – so you had the milk and the cereal box and they went together. And there was a free prize in the box – a fake edition of The Wall Street Journal that sort of riffed on this, that and the other thing. I’m delighted to report that soon after that I came out with an action figure to raise money for charity and it’s still available from Archie McPhee, the world’s best company. So what Free Prize Inside was about is that people don’t really buy the thing, the buy the thing around the thing. They buy the story, the way it makes them feel, the extra, the bonus. When we choose an airline we’re not just necessarily picking the plane that will get us from A to B – which is the ostensible reason for the purchase – we’re picking the way the airline makes us feel, the way we’re treated and what happens to our frequent flyer miles, etc. It was perhaps the most tactical book I’ve ever written in terms of answering questions that people had asked me when they read Purple Cow. What has shifted for me is that I discovered that giving people corporate strategy – talking about the concept about how ideas spread and how great organizations deal with them only go so far if the people within the organization aren’t willing to do the hard work of being human beings. And that’s what my last two books have been about.
ME
In a recent discussion Scott Belsky (author of Making Ideas Happen) had with me, he explains that his new book discusses the notion of killing ideas. This hearkens back to the book you’d written called Unleashing The Ideavirus. Is that what was for? It’s my understanding that the ideavirus does just that – kills ideas.
SG
Oh, okay well if you did then you probably didn’t read the book.
ME
Well played, Mr. Godin. Well played.
SG
What the book is about is ideas that spread…spread like a virus. If we look at the way that centers for disease control track viruses what we see is that it matters how contagious they are, it matters how long they sit with the host, it matters how they are “sneezed” or transmitted to large and small groups. Ideas work exactly the same way. So it’s possible, for example, to make a viral stupid video on YouTube that goes to lots of people but has no impact because it’s so lightweight. It’s also possible to write a dense 600 page book that’s only read by 10,000 people but if those 10,000 people are captains of government, industry or organizations it may have a huge impact on the world. So that book – which is still free online – is about how the Internet is changing the ways that ideas spread and how anyone with an idea worth spreading can use it as a platform.
ME
Your most recent book is entitled Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? – I saw the cover and immediately judged the book. First thought was: superhero. The logo on the front cover looks like that of a superhero. Then I read it and it is a superhero book – of sorts. You could look at it that way, I imagine. And I like to imagine.
SG
Yeah…you know, the most unrealistic thing about Superman is that he would be so busy that the stuff that happened in the comics would never happen, right? Because there’d be this endless queue of people who wanted him to bend the course of mighty rivers and stop bullets and move trains and things like that. He’d be working 24 hours a day. The more relevant problem with Superman is he had no angst and no fear. Even if he’s from Krypton, if he’s remotely human it’s the angst and the fear and the voice in our head that holds us back that makes us people. And what Linchpin is about is the fact that our economy has realigned itself so that you could have all the superhero powers in the world – access to capital, great ideas, a laptop that’s world class at connecting you to the marketplace that is the Internet and you could still fail. And the reason you will fail is not because you’re not good enough, but because you haven’t conquered the Lizard Brain – the fear, the voice – that holds you back.
ME
So the Lizard Brain is like the villain…or the kryptonite.
SG
Absolutely. And it’s orange kryptonite. It’s not red kryptonite. Red kryptonite, you may recall, is the kryptonite that kills Superman. The Lizard Brain doesn’t kill anybody. What it does is transforms us – like orange kryptonite does – into horrible shadows of our former self. When the Lizard Brain kicks in, it’s the one that gets us to self-defeat. It’s the one that gets us to say the wrong thing or go to an expensive conference and not speak up or come 85 percent of the way to finishing something and then not ship it. Oh, and thank you for the kryptonite reference because that’s exactly the way I want to describe it.
ME
You’re welcome. On the note of shipping, what sort of way do you ensure that you ship. As you know, Eventualism is a system that involves eventual productivity – do you have a system in place? If so, what is it? What do you recommend people do as far as being productive and getting things out there?
SG
Well, the first thing to do is not copy anybody else’s system because then you can blame them…and it doesn’t work. My system is that I’m more afraid of not shipping than I am of shipping. I think that is a huge and difficult shift to make. But once you make it, then things change. If you’re a successful lifeguard, you are more afraid of not rescuing someone than rescuing them. Right? When someone is drowning you’d view it as an opportunity to do your art and to save them and not as a risk of something you need to get your nerve up. You don’t have time for that. Saturday Night Live goes on live. Every week. Now, it may not be perfect but it’s never absent. You never turn on NBC at 11:35 and see a black screen with a note from Lorne Michaels saying “We’re really sorry, but we didn’t get the show done this week.” Never happens. Because they are more afraid of not shipping than they are of shipping. You know, I want to sort of challenge the name of this segment and work because as soon as you put the word “eventual” in it, you are giving in to the Lizard Brain. You’re giving in to say “Well, I’m just waiting until it comes around again. I’m just waiting until the stars align and it’s the right time.” This is the the right time. This is the best time. And you don’t ship now then you might as well just give up.
ME
So you’re suggesting I post this interview pretty much as soon as possible. Bold.
SG
No, I’m not saying it’s about soon. I’m saying it’s about date certain. You determine when you’re going to ship. You know, I’ve done 122 books – I’ve never once missed a deadline. I’ve given more than 1000 speeches – I’ve never once showed up late. You assign a date and you make it. There’s no discussion and there’s no excuse – none whatsoever. You ship. That’s what you do.
ME
Well one thing that is usually eventual in nature is obtaining an MBA. Sometimes it even takes years just to decide that you want one. You had a program that allowed some to get one in six months. What’s that all about?
SG
Well, I generated some controversy by pointing out – even though I have an MBA from Stanford – that an MBA is overpriced, takes too long, is a waste of time and money and distracts people from the real issues that matter. That you can learn 90 percent of what you learn in a typical business school by spending four weeks reading the right books. You don’t need to go to business school and pay $150,000 in actual opportunity costs just to get knowledge. Knowledge is cheap. So, at one point I walked in on a day when I didn’t really have a lot on my agenda – the problem of having a blog, of course, is that you can go from idea to public in twelve seconds. So I posted this idea and then I had to do it. This idea was that I was going to get together nine extraordinary, generous, gifted, talented people and we’d sit at my desk every day for six months and they’d walk away with more than an MBA could ever give them. And it was free. And I did for fun and love. And it worked. I’m not sure I’m going to do it again anytime soon – I’m doing a different one in a few weeks that only lasts five days. That one is not purporting to replace an MBA but what its function is to help people in organizations that are doing good work to amplify their work and get more focus on shipping things out the door.
ME
Now, when I read Linchpin, I read the audio version. You’ve done a ton of audiobooks. They’re great because when you, the author, read them it tells me that you truly believe what you’re saying – as opposed to those other authors who let actors read their work and collect the vast profits. Do you find that audiobooks resonate better or just differently than regular books that you actually have to read with your eyes?
SG
Well, I will make a confession. Sometimes I listen to my own audiobooks…and they even work on me. If I get stuck and I’m trying to get back on track I’ll just put it on in the car and I’ll discover that I’m glad that I did. I believe that books are magical in that they go to a part of our brain that’s rarely open, where we let a stranger in and she gets to lay out a vision of the world. Audiobooks are magic in a different way because we can’t control the pacing, so that voice is going to a different part of our brain – at its own pace – forcing us to get into sync with the person who is reading the book. At least for me, it’s very effective.
ME
What about TED? You’ve been to TED, I’ve been to TEDx. They’re similar in that they both have the name TED in them. What role does TED play in getting ideas out there and perhaps creating more linchpins?
SG
Well, what Chris Anderson and the people who run TED have discovered once they put up the video – it was sort of an accident that they put up the video – is that you can reach half a million or a million or more people with a good idea if the video is delivered in a way that people want to receive it. They’ve since posted more than 300 videos. Given the choice between spending 18 minutes on FARK or wasting time poking around on dating sites, you could change your life with 18 minutes of video…which is incredibly powerful. I credit them with inventing a whole new medium, which is this bite-sized powerful person-to-person connection between someone with an idea and someone who wants to hear it. I think that there’s all these different ways that we absorb information and the in-person TED is one of them, the video TED is another, audiobooks is another – I just wish people would spend more time doing those things and less time watching television.
ME
Normally, I’d ask my guests before we end their discussion with me what they eventually plan to do going forward – but you’re averse to the word, so I’ll phrase it differently while meaning the same thing. What’s next for Seth Godin?
SG
This is next. This is what my mission is for the foreseeable future. There’s no inclination to write something new – I don’t want to go on to the next topic. This is really important. This idea that we have what we need; if we could just overcome the fear and the resistance as Steven Pressfield calls it. And if I can help even a little in spreading that notion it will be time well spent.
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Great interview; I’m a big fan of Godin. I like how he talks about the way we buy- we don’t buy the product, rather we buy how the product will make us feel- very nuanced and essential marketing advice!
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