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- [00:01]
Seth Godin
The failures, the things I forgot to do, the people I didn't see, who I should have respected, the ways I wasted time and money. If I didn't have those, I wouldn't be who I am. And I'm okay with who I am.
- [00:18]
Debbie Millman
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, Seth Godin talks about the importance of planning for a creative future.
- [00:40]
Seth Godin
We can't get to edit the past, we get to edit the future.
- [00:48]
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- [01:16]
B2B Marketing Dad
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
- [01:30]
LinkedIn Ad
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- [01:46]
Bombas Ad
This is a mini meditation guided by Bombas. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. Cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes. Blisters. And that's because I wear Bombus the softest socks, underwear and T shirts that give one purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombas.com acast and use code acast for 20 off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-S.com acast and use code Acast at checkout.
- [02:16]
Seth Godin
Lemonade sings a pet insurance customer review.
- [02:19]
Interview Guest
My new puppy swallowed a bone. Still a good boy though. And boy was I glad that I had lemonade. I was paid back quickly and efficiently. Everyone was so nice. Get this pet insurance.
- [02:43]
LinkedIn Ad
And get a'@lemonade.com.
- [02:45]
Seth Godin
Pet.
- [02:49]
Debbie Millman
Seth Godin is familiar to longtime listeners of Design Matters since Debbie has interviewed him on several different occasions over the years. Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, a marketer, A blogger, a teacher and a best selling author. His mini books include the Practice Shipping Creative Work and this is Marketing. You can't be seen until you learn to see. His latest is this is Strategy, Make Better Plans. Debbie spoke to him about it in December in front of a live audience at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The interview was arranged by Creative Mornings, the monthly breakfast lecture series for creative communities throughout the world founded by Tina Roff Eisenberg.
- [03:33]
Interview Guest
Welcome, my dear friend.
- [03:35]
Seth Godin
You know, I am so lucky to be able to do this and it just makes me reminds me of why this work is worth doing. But it also makes me better because then I go back to my office and think, how can I possibly repay the generosity of the people in this room and of you and of Tina. It's just such a highlight. Thank you.
- [03:59]
Interview Guest
My absolute honor. The first thing I want to ask you about is what is behind us? What are we looking at?
- [04:06]
Seth Godin
Well, so the idea was we could put something in the background. We don't want it to be distracting, but we want it to possibly be inspiring or metaphorical. It turns out it's against the law to fly a drone in Algonquin park north of Toronto, Canada. And I have this phobia of being arrested in a foreign country, really. But here I am, yeah, I am flying a drone at 6 o'clock in the morning and paddling the canoe at the same time. This is a 70 year old chestnut canoe that my mom gave me and I'm in the middle of a 3,000 square mile park. And I've taught many, many people how to paddle a canoe. But the thing that's the metaphor here is this is double ultra, slowed down, but it's still moving. And it's a lot like our careers. It's a lot like the creative process, which is you never get across the lake all at once. You get across the lake one stroke at a time and it takes a long time, but you make progress. And the other thing that I remind myself all the time is when you paddle a boat, it feels like you're moving the water behind you. But physically that's impossible because if you move that water, it has to move the next water and the next water. It's a million pounds of water. What you're actually doing is using this thing that feels liquid but is actually almost solid to propel you forward. And when we think about the culture around us, everything we do touches the culture, changes the culture a little bit. But mostly it's a lever that allows us to do Our work, there is no first of anything. There's just our next iteration of it, day by day.
- [05:47]
Interview Guest
Yeah, that combinatorial creativity. Yeah, I love that metaphor. And having been in a boat of yours, I can say that there's something really wonderful about sharing the water with someone and sort of feeling the time go by. And we're going to talk a lot about time today. Listeners of my show know that I like to take a long journey into a person's life. This is my fourth interview with you. We talked very much about how you have created your life and become who you are. In my previous interviews with you, 2014 and 2017, in 2020, we talked about your brilliant book, the Practice Shipping Creative Work and how we were managing through Covid. We did that online. It was a zoom conversation. And today I get the great good fortune of a deep dive into your brand new book which you've generously given everyone here today. This is strategy make better plans easy. First question for me, maybe not so easy to answer, but why this book now?
- [07:07]
Seth Godin
A long time ago, if you talked to my grandparents and you said, what are you going to do tomorrow? The answer would be obvious. I'm going to do what I did yesterday. That's my job. And there's still some people that's true for, but not many of us. What we do tomorrow is largely up to us. And there are all these tools, trillion dollars worth of tools that have been built for us. A connection of billions of people. What will you do tomorrow? And if you don't think about that question, you've surrendered, you've given up agency to a system that doesn't have your best interests at heart. And I'm surrounded by people who I care about, who do great work, who put love and heart into it, but they aren't taking the understanding that is available to them of strategy. Strategy is not tactics. Strategy is not what should I do right now to get what I want? It's what do I want and how is the system going to help me get it or keep me from getting it? And is what I want achievable? And as far as I'm concerned, there are no books about strategy. There are books about tactics. There are books about MBAs or whatever. I needed to write something and it's a lot of work to publish a book to bring to people who I care about to say, here's 400 questions, don't answer all of them, but at least ask them and maybe it will help you make the impact you want to make.
- [08:35]
Interview Guest
You start this strategy by stating that most books on strategy are for corporate MBAs or West Point generals. And I kind of love the fact that so much. Well, I don't know that I love it, but I find it quite interesting that so much of the vernacular around strategy is military based. Yeah. Why do you think that these books are catering to that specific demographic?
- [09:05]
Seth Godin
So a scarcity mindset is essential if real estate is what you're playing with. Each acre of land can only be owned by one person at a time. So scarcity drove the way people with power thought for a very long time. But now, as creativity becomes more important, abundance is actually the key. Connection is actually the key that if I have an idea and I share it with everyone here, I don't lose it. They get it, and it benefits all of us. So strategy has to shift from how do I take what's yours? To how do I create the conditions for all of us?
- [09:45]
Interview Guest
I took a class with Milton Glaser almost 20 years ago, and he was the first person that really introduced me to the idea of scarcity versus abundance. And until that point, I realized, without actually knowing consciously, that I was operating out of a mindset of scarcity, that if, if I don't hold on tight to what I have, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to somehow be threatened with abandonment of anything, ideas, finances, love. And he really challenged us to think about the idea that there is really enough to go around in this universe if we share. And the more we hold on to things, the more likely we are to actually crush them.
- [10:34]
Seth Godin
Right.
- [10:34]
Interview Guest
And I thought that was. It was really profound. It's taken me a long time. I understood it intellectually, but to actually feel that was possible.
- [10:43]
Seth Godin
It's much easier to talk about than it is to do. And for fans of your podcast, if you go back to the episode you And I did 10 years ago, you can hear about when Milton Glaser threw me out of his class. Because it's totally related to this.
- [10:56]
Interview Guest
Oh, then tell us.
- [10:57]
Seth Godin
Well, I mean, I wouldn't tell the whole long story, but the short version is Milton decided there wasn't enough room in his class for both of us, and it was his class, so I had to go.
- [11:09]
Interview Guest
It's sort of un Milton like, though I'm surprised every time I hear that. I think, really, he must have been in a bad mood that day. Your book contains a really beautiful narrative ARC and includes 294 strategy maxims. What made you decide to create the book in this way? It's A really unusual way of organizing a book.
- [11:32]
Seth Godin
I'm surprised at how many people. Not you, but how many people were very unsettled by this.
- [11:38]
Interview Guest
Unsettled, yes.
- [11:39]
Seth Godin
But what I discovered is a few things. First of all, I had a lot to cover because I'm trying to articulate a whole philosophy that I couldn't riff on other people's version of, because I was articulating that there are four things involved in strategy. But if I had to do it in order, if I had to talk nothing but systems without talking about games till later, it all fell apart. So how do we learn something new? Like when we're three years old, our mom doesn't sit us down and say, here's asparagus, here's zucchini, and here are all the vegetables in between. We're going to do vegetables today. That's not what happens. Right. You bump into a vegetable, and then later on, a couple of weeks later, there's another vegetable. So this idea that we could layer things, I think that's how people actually learn, and I think that's how we think about the world. So as soon as I gave myself the freedom to tell the story the way I would teach it to someone sitting next to me, the book flowed. And forcing it into a traditional organization didn't help, so I didn't.
- [12:43]
Interview Guest
Do you think that people were unsettled because they want specific instructions and a menu of how to do something?
- [12:50]
Seth Godin
Yeah, I mean, tldr, which people are too busy to understand what it stands for. It stands for Too Long, Didn't Read. We're pushed to say, I'll just read the first three pages and then pretend I read the book. So if the first three pages don't tell you the joke and the answer, you're frustrated. But I couldn't do that this time. Also, the number of people who buy and read a book has gone down by a factor of 10. Not just my books, but all books. And there are more and more books, but. But per book, it's way lower. So if you're going to read the book, here's the book. If you don't want to read the book, read the blog post. Either one is fine with me.
- [13:31]
Interview Guest
So what I want to do, which is very unusual for the way I sort of construct my interviews, I actually want to take some of the 294 maxims and talk a little bit about some of them, particularly the ones that really moved me. So I want to share some of my favorite descriptions of strategy from your book and discuss them at least at the beginning. And so first you state that strategy is not what most people think it is.
- [14:00]
Seth Godin
Right. Most people think if you look, do some Google searching. Here's my strategy to get more Twitter followers. Here's my strategy to do this. No, those are your tactics.
- [14:10]
Interview Guest
Right.
- [14:10]
Seth Godin
Tactics are steps, instructions, bullet points. There was a strategy long before you decided to do that at all. Strategy is a philosophy of becoming. It's what will the me of two years from now be glad I did today. And if the world didn't change, strategy and tactics would be very simple and very similar. But the world changes not just when you do things, but when other people do things. So we cannot predict the future. And so if you think about a surfer, we think someone's a good surfer when they have good waves. And we watch someone struggle and think they're not a good surfer when, in fact, they just didn't pick good waves. So a big part of what we're talking about here is making the decision to be a surfer, making the decision to go to which beach on which month of the year, and then picking which waves to let go by and which waves to surf. Those are things we skip over all the time because we got to go to work. But if you do those parts right, everything else about your work gets easier.
- [15:19]
Interview Guest
I was really struck by how the surfers in the Olympics over the summer were waiting for the waves. And what's interesting about the way that the Olympics manages the surfing competition is that there's a certain amount of time you're given, and then you wait for your waves, and you decide which waves you want to surf. And I learned so much. The barrel of a wave and how people go through the waves. But it's so interesting that this is something you have to choose, right. Once you have the option of. Of participating with the wave.
- [15:56]
Seth Godin
Right.
- [15:57]
Interview Guest
Which was something I'd never thought.
- [15:58]
Seth Godin
Exactly. But one of the sentences in the book is, don't play games you can't win. But if we did a census of everyone here, I'm gonna assert that 20% of you are playing a game you can't win.
- [16:08]
Interview Guest
What does that mean?
- [16:10]
Seth Godin
A game you can't win? So how many people are trying to make a living by having 30 million followers on YouTube? A lot.
- [16:20]
Interview Guest
Really?
- [16:21]
Seth Godin
Yeah. How many people will have 30 million followers on YouTube? Essentially zero to a rounding error. The chances that your work will pay off, if that's what you're chasing, are vanishingly close to zero. If you still want to do it, knowing that, that's cool. You have the freedom to do that. But we've been seduced into thinking that there's a certain kind of practice we should sign up for because we will get a prize at the end. Without analyzing what are the actual odds someone's going to win the lottery, but it's probably not going to be you.
- [16:53]
Interview Guest
And so your recommendation is to not play the lottery.
- [16:57]
Seth Godin
Correct. Playing the lottery is a bad decision. You only get today once to invest. Why not invest it in a place with a strategy that is more likely to help you get where you're seeking to go and help the people you serve get to where they seek to go?
- [17:13]
Interview Guest
You also state that strategy is a flexible plan that guides us as we seek to create a change. It's scary, and it takes time. Why is it scary?
- [17:27]
Seth Godin
Well, part of the reason it's scary is because it takes time. So you don't know until later if that forest is going to have been worth planting. The other reason it's scary is it might work and then you'll be responsible, or it might not work, and then you'll be responsible. And it's so much easier to just do your job because then you're not responsible. And like, the biggest difference between someone who has a job and someone who's a freelancer or an entrepreneur is the person who has a job gets to say, I'm just doing my job. And everybody else had to say, I decided to do this today. And that's the leap that the kind of person who comes to Creative Mornings is either making or wants to make is to be able to say, I made this, not I did it because my boss told me to. I made this. That is such a thrilling way to be a human.
- [18:20]
Interview Guest
In terms of being a human, there's a lot of different ways in which people think they're being a strategic thinker or developing strategic planning. Roger. Roger Martin has pointed out that companies really like strategic thinking. I'm sorry, strategic planning. Correct, Strategic planning. But it has nothing to do with strategy.
- [18:44]
Seth Godin
Right.
- [18:44]
Interview Guest
So can you talk a little bit about that? So Roger's insight, Fascinating.
- [18:47]
Seth Godin
Is brilliant here. Strategic plans mean if we do all the steps, we will get the result. And the reason that corporations like that is they are managers. Managers order people to do all the steps. So therefore, all you need is a strategic plan. Now we do all the steps, we get what we said we were going to get. But that's not what strategy is. Strategy is all of the complicated thinking we have to do before we decide. We come up with the list of the steps. And corporations don't like that because it's muddy and murky and it doesn't come with a guarantee. And it's easy to look after the fact and say, oh yeah, Nvidia was brilliant. Well, yeah, but you weren't. You had everything you needed to do that intel, but you didn't because you didn't think through strategy. You were busy doing your plan.
- [19:42]
Interview Guest
You write that a goal might be part of a strategy, but strategy is not a goal. Why not? And how do you differentiate between the two?
- [19:53]
Seth Godin
Okay, so this would be a good time to talk about the four threads. The four threads are systems, games, empathy, and time. And very few of those threads need to have a goal associated with them. So the one that I keep coming to over and over again is systems followed by time. Systems are these invisible things that everyone takes for granted that are there to reinforce themselves. We have a system anytime humans come together repeatedly to get something done. So a simple cultural system is in the Western world, if you meet someone, you shake their right hand, right? You don't do, you know, the hokey pokey you, or you don't even reach out your left hand, you do your right hand. It's so much easier than having every single time to start over. That makes sense. It's super simple. But another system is the college industrial complex. So from the time you're seven years old, your parents want you to get good grades. Why? So you can get into a famous college. Why? So that they can feel like they do a good job raising you. And it goes deeper. And then you've got people with tenure and you've got football teams, and you've got campuses and tour guides. All of this stuff, a quarter million dollars in debt. Invented because the system built around it from 400 years ago with Harvard. And we can look at the elements of that system and understand it, which we better do before a 17 year old decides to apply. Where are they applying? Why are they applying? See the system, it's all pushing you in a certain direction. Right there is the system of New York freelance creative work. And there's a way we're expected to have our portfolio, and there's a way we're expected to show up. And a checklist of things. There's the system. I talked to a guy yesterday who desperately wants to be picked by a famous art gallery like Gagosian to show his work. Well, that system's only 75 years old. But that system isn't there for him. He. They want him to be there for them, but it's not there for him. So you got to think, oh, what am I doing here? Do I even see the system before you announce you have a goal.
- [22:08]
Interview Guest
I love the fact that you have designated the solar system as the biggest system that exists.
- [22:17]
Seth Godin
It's certainly the easiest one to talk about, right? Because we can argue about Pluto and that whole planet thing, but in general, there are very few solar system deniers that the Earth goes around the sun, and it doesn't go around the sun because it wants to. It goes around the sun because gravity. Gravity is invisible. Gravity is this force that keeps things working the way that they do. So we can all acknowledge that there's this solar system and there's the sun and there's the rotation. Well, exactly the same thing is going on at your company, and exactly the same thing is going on in politics. And the same thing is going on in our food system. Right? The food system has gravitational forces. Why is it that 25 to 30% of all food is wasted? It's not because 5 year olds aren't clearing their plate. It's because there's a system in place that rewards farmers for leaving stuff on the vine or in the truck rather than putting in the effort to do something. And we can keep going down the list. When someone sees the system, they can change it. So most people here don't know who Duncan Hines was. He was a real person, great name. Duncan Hines was a print salesperson. And he used to drive around the northeast of the United States selling printing. This is in the 20s, and there were no health departments then. That's a system I want to ask you about. That he would eat out and the chances that you would get sick as a salesperson on the road without knowing where to eat were pretty good. Because the good restaurants you didn't know about in the diners, you know, you could get food poisoning. So he was pretty cheap. And one year for Christmas, instead of sending people a gift, he made a directory of a bunch of restaurants that you could eat in safely, printed it up and mailed it to people. And people loved the Duncan Hines directory. So the next year he did it again. And then he said, why don't I just do this? So he started making a living selling the first restaurant directory in the United States. And it did well. So well that the restaurants that were listed in it paid him money to have a sign in front of the restaurant saying, duncan Hines says it's safe to eat here. So he was basically the health department for the country and only after that did he get a phone call from some people who said, we see that you're into, say, food. Can we put your name on canned goods? And only after that did we end up with a cake mix. So the store, the arc of the story is Duncan was able to do all of those things and his business is now he's long gone, billions of dollars of value because he saw the system and a defect in the system. McDonald's saw the system that cars were creating and realized the world needed a restaurant chain that would be everywhere. Walt Disney saw the system that was going to move from movies to TV and invented the TV show that. And so you can see when someone shows up and sees the system under stress, they're able to walk in. So what's the biggest system change we're seeing right now? Most of the people in this room is AI. You can say, oh, AI is a threat. It's going to take away the livelihood of people who do illustration like me. And the answer is, yes, it will, but you're not going to stop it. But you are going to see all the things it's going to change and it's going to create all these opportunities because when the system is under stress and changes, it needs people to show up and do something in that spot. And so if I can help people see systems, that will be a useful tool.
- [25:52]
B2B Marketing Dad
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
- [26:07]
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- [26:23]
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- [26:50]
Seth Godin
A real lemony pet insurance review by.
- [26:53]
Madison H.
Madison H. You know, I thought it was a little ridiculous to get pet insurance, but I really didn't want to not take my little kitten to the vet because of money. In the last Eight months. I've taken him in six times because of ear infections and saved literally hundreds of dollars. You may even need to get surgery. And I couldn't consider it without Lemonade's help. I recommend lemonade to all my friends constantly. And now I'm recommending it to you.
- [27:17]
Seth Godin
Check it out@lemonade.com pet this is a.
- [27:22]
Bombas Ad
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- [27:54]
Interview Guest
You've said that you believe that AI is the biggest shift in our culture since electricity. Why that comparison?
- [28:02]
Seth Godin
Okay, so here's an interesting thing about electricity. When they first brought electricity to people's homes, they didn't have electrical outlets. They hadn't been invented yet. They just had the thing you screwed a light bulb into. It's called an Edison mount. And then they invented the first real home appliance, which was the washing machine. And you would unscrew the light bulbs, you'd have to do it during the day and then screw in your washing machine so you could get electricity. And washing machines are notoriously difficult to balance because they're spinning right. And dozens of people died because the washing machine would move itself around and then the thing would get around your neck like that had happened that slowly, but still, people died from washing machine strangulation.
- [28:46]
Interview Guest
Who knew?
- [28:47]
Seth Godin
So there were only two kinds of businesses in those days, businesses that adopted electricity or businesses that were going to go away. And that is the shift that we're seeing now that there's a huge swath of jobs where people are pushed to do average work. And average work is easy for an AI to begin to do, whether that's reading a rudimentary X ray or writing mediocre copy for an ad campaign. We don't need to pay someone to do that and to wait for them, because it can do it instantly and for free, and it will be distributed in lots and lots and lots of places. So the devices, your watch, your toilet, whatever, will tell you things that we couldn't afford to tell you before. And as a result, since we live in an information world and information is now going to be completely transformed, I Think it's that big a shift.
- [29:44]
Interview Guest
You live long enough, you begin to hear some of the same fears over and over again with different content. The fear is the same.
- [29:54]
Seth Godin
Right.
- [29:54]
Interview Guest
But the thing that people are fearing is different.
- [29:57]
Seth Godin
Yep.
- [29:59]
Interview Guest
So I came of age as a designer in the 1980s.
- [30:03]
Seth Godin
Letra set.
- [30:04]
Interview Guest
Oh, I still love Letraset. In any case, I hear some OGs in there, too.
- [30:09]
Seth Godin
And some people say, what the hell's that?
- [30:11]
Interview Guest
Letraset is a type format where you have these sheets of letters and literally you press down one at a time. Back in the 80s, type hot type was very, very expensive. And so I had certain clients where I had to, because the budgets were so small, I had to typeset everything with Letra set. So you really learn a lot about kerning, like very much in the kerning. In the 1980s, you know, we had the famous Apple ad 1984. But computers really didn't start making an impact in the design community until the late 80s, which at the time, a lot of the OG designers of that era were vehemently, vehemently opposed to using the computer. They were certain that we were going to lose jobs. It was going to take all the creativity out of the process, out of the way in which we created. It was going to create soulless work.
- [31:14]
Seth Godin
Yep.
- [31:15]
Interview Guest
Sound familiar? In fact, the computer provided a way for hundreds of thousands of people to get new jobs. When I was a little girl, I wasn't thinking, when I grow up, I want to be a podcaster. I doubt that when most of the people here, if not everyone, thought when they were growing up, I can't wait to get on Instagram. And so I think that. But there's so much in your book that has an undercurrent of what we're afraid to do because we don't have a system and because we don't have a strategy. How would you recommend that people start thinking about overcoming or leaning into or doing something as if they're not afraid or if fear weren't part of the equation. And I'm asking for myself too.
- [32:15]
Seth Godin
It's a lovely question. I want to just highlight one thing. I'm not arguing that everything is going to be fantastic.
- [32:23]
Interview Guest
Oh, I know.
- [32:24]
Seth Godin
And just to use your example of desktop publishing and stuff, there's more bad design in the world than ever before that when you give people all these tools, the average probably goes down. And there's also more great design in the world than there's ever been before because the tools are there. But to answer your question, the key is the smallest viable audience and the smallest useful contribution that it's so tempting to believe the media and think that you're going to be discovered by an agent, that you're going to have a breakthrough, that your startup is going to change everything. That's never what happens. And the question is, can you change five people? Can you be of service to one community? Can you do any work that we would miss if it were gone, that anyone would miss who wasn't related to you? If you can do that just a little, the risks are really low because if it doesn't work, no one will know. And if it does work, you can do it again. And traction is the opportunity here. So when I'm playing with Claude and when I'm playing with various AI tools, I am under no illusion that I am about to have a breakthrough, nor am I believing I'm going to make Picasso level work. But you know who also didn't make Picasso level work? Picasso. Right. He did 10,000 paintings and only a hundred of them were Picasso level work. So what we get to do, not have to do, get to do, is these small private failures for small groups and then we can seduce ourselves into something that looks like bravery. And you know, Herbie Hancock's autobiography is so worth reading. And he opens with a story of he's 20 something, 21, 22 years old, dream come true. Playing for Miles Davis. Miles Davis right after Kind of Blue, the most important famous jazz musician in the history of the world. And Herbie's on stage and it's the quartet and they're in Germany and they're playing. And his job is to end this solo in a way that sets Miles up for the key solo of the show. And the last measure, he blows it. He plays two clunkers. Miles is trapped. It doesn't lead to what Miles needs to play next. And Miles plays a totally different solo. And after the show, Herbie goes backstage ready to be fired. He apologized to Miles and Miles says, look, this is jazz, this is what we do. You didn't set me up for the solo I expected. You set me up for the solo I played. And that's why you're here now. If Herbie had done it again, he probably wouldn't have been able to keep performing. But the point was that the process of doing it, of working, that that's why we're here. And afterwards, you're the Herbie Hancock. But in that moment, that's how you become Herbie Hancock, by realizing it's not fatal to play the wrong note.
- [35:37]
Interview Guest
I think it's really important for people that are looking to understand mastery to look at the work of Picasso, because I recently went to a Picasso museum and I was familiar with the hundred best Picasso paintings, and suddenly I was looking at several hundred Picasso paintings. Now, there was something really interesting about that. First of all, you begin to see that not every painting was Picasso level painting. But what you see that is so fascinating is the process or the system that he went through to get to each stage of his long career. So the hundred great paintings aren't all the same style of painting. So what you begin to see, which I thought was incredibly fascinating, were the breakthrough moments, were the breakthrough paintings that sort of led to this magnificent new way of looking at the world, which was really mind blowing. And it also gave me a little bit of hope, because if Picasso makes a shitty painting, maybe there's some hope for some of the other people in the world, self included, to maybe make a not so bad painting.
- [37:01]
Seth Godin
Yeah, I mean, the problem with the Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits Volume 1 is it makes us think that our work is this curated greatest hits thing. It's not. But after the fact, someone might make a greatest hits album of yours, but you don't make songs for the greatest hits album. You just make the next song, and then sometimes it becomes the greatest hit.
- [37:23]
Interview Guest
There's so many things that I want to talk to you about, and I think we could go for hours, and I'm really concerned about how much I want to talk to you about and how much time we have. What did you say?
- [37:33]
Seth Godin
I'll talk less.
- [37:34]
Interview Guest
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. I'm talking about time. Of the four pillars, time was my favorite. Yeah, I mean, systems really helps me understand frameworks, and it challenges my own ways of thinking about strategy. And I've worked in strategy for 30 years now. But the time section was revelatory. In the late 1880s, H.G. wells started writing about time machines. And I learned from your book that there is no record of anyone ever talking about going back in time before that. Not Aristotle, Plato, not Copernicus, not Newton. I was like, wow.
- [38:23]
Seth Godin
Yeah. He invented time travel. How could that be?
- [38:26]
Interview Guest
Right.
- [38:27]
Seth Godin
Yeah.
- [38:27]
Interview Guest
So in 1750, I'm quoting you here. If you said to someone, if you could go back in time and change one thing, what would you change? They would not understand the question. Yeah, I remember asking you. There was a period of time a couple of years ago, maybe 10 years ago, where everybody was saying, what would you tell your younger self what would you tell your 30 year self? And I asked you that. And I might have asked you that in a podcast interview. And you said nothing. And I asked you why. Maybe you can just tell people what you said.
- [39:00]
Seth Godin
The failures, the things I forgot to do, the people I didn't see who I should have respected, the ways I wasted time and money. If I didn't have those, I wouldn't be who I am. And I'm okay with who I am. So we can't get to edit the past. We get to edit the future. And that's a question that people don't usually want to talk about.
- [39:24]
Interview Guest
Why?
- [39:24]
Seth Godin
Because you're on the hook again? Because you actually can edit the future. And what James Glick's beautiful book about time travel, which is where the HG well story comes from, helped me see. We don't even have vocabulary to talk about time. Like right now is right now. But yesterday was right now. Yesterday. So this idea of right now is this moving thing. So most organizations only focus on right now. I can give you a hundred examples of this. If you, you know, if there's a customer service problem and you know, the, the parking garage next door is full. I pull in, the guy says it's full. And now I have to drive a block out of my way. I said, why don't you have a sign? So we don't have a sign. Because today they don't have a sign and they don't have a method to fix tomorrow because they should put up a sign, we're full. It would save him the hassle. Save everyone else the hassle. When we see that whatever we do now is going to change something for tomorrow, it changes not just tomorrow, but what we're going to do now. But as a creative person or an organization, we usually ignore that. We just focus on the urgency of this moment. That's not mindfulness, it's just the urgency of this moment.
- [40:39]
Interview Guest
So, just reactionary, really.
- [40:41]
Seth Godin
Yeah. And so strategy has to be, what is the me or the customer of five months from now going to say thank you to me today for? Because I'm here today, Five months from now, they're going to be touching what I just did. What am I doing that they're going to be grateful for?
- [40:59]
Interview Guest
We as a culture live so much thinking about the future. When I'm this age, when I get this much money, when I'm thinner, what is the role of time and strategy?
- [41:15]
Seth Godin
Well, when I'm thinner could just be. And then a miracle happens. Right? Or it could be I have a goal. Okay, so let's say I have a goal. You. No one ever lost without surgery, £40 in one day. You lose a little bit at a time. That idea of committing to a little bit at a time makes sense if you're on a diet. It. We don't really understand if it makes sense when we're talking about, am I a good writer, Am I a good illustrator? Do I understand how to compose differently? Because most of us are so desperate to hang on to what little talent we believe we have that we don't want to examine it, and we don't want to add to it, but.
- [41:57]
Interview Guest
Or abandon it.
- [41:58]
Seth Godin
Or abandon it. But if we incrementally explore, as the cowbell sketch goes, the space, we can't help but improve. But so many of the people I know who are on a creative journey are looking backwards or have this goal of a miracle occurring without saying, who do I need to become to be the kind of creative that could make that. And it's not going to happen because the Gagosian Gallery calls me. It's going to happen because I become the kind of creative that they want to call.
- [42:35]
Interview Guest
The role of time in our work, in our culture, in our psyche and consciousness, is fundamentally changing.
- [42:43]
Seth Godin
Yeah.
- [42:44]
Interview Guest
You can go to AI and get information, answers to questions, questions to ask in milliseconds. However, there then becomes an expectation that mastery and success come as quickly. And I was in a situation a little while ago where I was talking to someone about their building, their community, their little tribe, and she was really feeling quite dejected in that she was having trouble building the community in the speed at which she wanted.
- [43:27]
Seth Godin
Yeah.
- [43:28]
Interview Guest
And I said, well, how long have you been doing this? And she said, six weeks. I'm like, try six years. How can we best create a way for people to understand without sounding too much like a Rolling Stone song? That time is really on our side when we want to make change.
- [43:53]
Seth Godin
Oh, so everyone has an origin story, you know, Peter Parker and the Radioactive spider or Superman and Krypton. But the origin story is a story we tell ourselves because lots of things happen to lots of people. But the one we rehearse for ourselves over and over again becomes our origin story. And part. I have a bunch of origin stories, but one of them is my first year in book publishing. So my first book with Chip Conley, the first day for $5,000. He got half, I got half. I thought, well, if I do this every two weeks, I'll be okay.
- [44:29]
Interview Guest
Six weeks maybe.
- [44:31]
Seth Godin
And then I got 800 rejection letters in a row, 800 times. Someone in New York book publishing bought a stamp, put it on an envelope, wrote me a letter, and said, we don't like you. And the thing is that if I had gotten the same rejection letter that many times in a row, I would have been a spammer and a hustler, and I would have been annoying. But that's not what was happening. What was happening is the rejection letters were getting better. They were getting better because they were teaching me something and showing that I was learning something. That as that year went on, I had traction. The traction wasn't the traction of, here's a check, please go write the book. But it was the traction of, I read the whole thing, and this part doesn't really work for us versus no. And that interaction, which was socially acceptable on both sides, I wasn't sending book proposals. People didn't want to get them, and they were responding to me as professionals. That traction is still available to all of us. The difference now is it tends to be seen, we think, by everyone. Not true. And it happens much quicker. So my mom, who passed away way too young, was the first woman on the board of the Albright Knox in Buffalo, a really important art museum. And she wanted to bring members of the community in Buffalo who didn't come to the museum to try the museum. This was before the Antiques Roadshow with the Sotheby's and all that stuff. So I don't know what made her think of it, but she reached out to the people at Sotheby's and said, would you send two appraisers to Buffalo? And we'll do a day where people can bring stuff from their attic, and Sotheby's appraisers will tell them if it's worth anything. And she did a little bit of PR for it. And it was going to be on Saturday. And I remember that Friday she got home from work, and I must have been 13, and she said, I'm a little nervous. What if no one comes? What if I've done this and I'm embarrassed? And then, typical for her, she brightened up, and she said, well, if no one comes, no one will know that no one came.
- [46:47]
Interview Guest
When no one comes, no one will know that no one came.
- [46:51]
Seth Godin
And the next morning, there were 5,000 people waiting in line.
- [46:55]
Interview Guest
So let's talk about that moment for a second. Because if no one comes, no one will know that no one came except you, right?
- [47:05]
Seth Godin
And so you learned one more thing.
- [47:07]
Interview Guest
You've learned one more thing. If you're open to learning one more thing. If you're open to the idea that failure doesn't mean forever.
- [47:18]
Seth Godin
Right.
- [47:18]
Interview Guest
But for a lot of people, and for me, when I was going through what felt what was decades of what I now call failure, experiments in failure and rejection.
- [47:30]
Seth Godin
Yeah. Yeah.
- [47:32]
Interview Guest
It. It becomes something that I. I think a lot of people feel shame about.
- [47:39]
Seth Godin
Yeah.
- [47:40]
Interview Guest
And that shame does a couple of things. First, I think that it makes you feel like nothing is possible. It makes you feel or it. It allows you or causes you to feel powerless.
- [47:58]
Seth Godin
Yep.
- [48:00]
Interview Guest
And it also is something that a lot of people hide.
- [48:04]
Seth Godin
Yes.
- [48:06]
Interview Guest
So, you know, when I was back in the 80s again, I. I was rejected back to back from the Columbia School of Journalism for a master's degree and a master's program in independent art from the Whitney was program that they just launched. I spent a lot of time hoping, hoping that I would get accepted. And when I didn't, rather than share my sorrow, disappointment, heartbreak with anyone that would listen the way I might now, I hid it. I was like, oh, I didn't really know if I wanted to go anyway, how do we. And I think that's just. You know, I used to beat myself up for that. I would. I can't believe that I was so duplicitous. Now I just look back and I think, oh, I was just really sad and didn't want to share that with anybody. And now I feel better about sharing my sadness for good and for bad for my wife.
- [49:06]
Seth Godin
So many good things in this. And your generosity in the way you've talked about shame over the years is so important.
- [49:12]
Interview Guest
I. I mean, I just feel that that is one of the biggest system barriers.
- [49:19]
Seth Godin
Yeah.
- [49:20]
Interview Guest
I mean, shame is a system.
- [49:22]
Seth Godin
Yeah. And it's a dream killer. And it's. It's a life snuffer. And it's not a choice, though sometimes it feels like it. But we can build a system to diminish the feeling. Because if we can build a practice that helps us see that we are playing a game. You were not rejected. Your application was rejected.
- [49:45]
Interview Guest
Right.
- [49:46]
Seth Godin
Those are two totally different things. Things. And so we get back to traction and we get back to who is this for. So if you're busy trying to please your in laws by bringing them back some trophy that proves that you are onto something, you're making a mistake. It's none of their business. We need to leave them out of the circle. Here you are in this room surrounded by people in a similar setting. Before you leave here, should find two or three strangers and Start a circle where you can tell each other the truth because they're the people who can help you see where you are. Building a system that feels too personal. So one of the four things is games. I just want to bring it up briefly. I launched a game two weeks ago called Bongo.
- [50:31]
Interview Guest
I love it. It's really hard.
- [50:34]
Seth Godin
So much fun. It's not hard. That's my point. That's my point. Okay?
- [50:39]
Interview Guest
So I set that up really well.
- [50:40]
Seth Godin
You can find it at bongo fun or plasmo.com if you go to puzzmo.com you can play this game. It's free. It's not hard because there's no right answer. There's just a better answer. And what I have discovered watching people play it is some people say, I put down five words, I didn't do very well. As opposed to saying, I put down five words, how could I move some letters around to make it better? It is a game about traction that, unlike Wordle, there is no right answer. You can just ask a friend, how do I make this better? The same thing is true for an oil painting or a symphony. How can I make this better? Better for who? Better by what standards? Where is the traction? The leap of I got picked, I got in, I got certified. That's a trap. Don't look for the leap. Look for the stepwise game process of I made a move, it didn't work. No one showed up. What move could I make differently tomorrow? This system. This system is looking for this kind of game strategy. Oh, when I do this, I learned that I can do it this way tomorrow. So when we realize the strategy is about playing a game that dances with the system over time now, our work will be more productive.
- [52:01]
Interview Guest
How does a game help us better understand time?
- [52:07]
Seth Godin
Well, no one makes all the moves in a game at once. So your eighth move in a game of chess is different than your first move because the board has changed. The same thing is true with your work as a creative. The same thing is true in your work in social media. If you decided to try to make a meme out of Rick and Rick rolling people, it wouldn't work today because we already have it. Whereas if you had done that earlier, it would have made a difference. So all of this keeps unfolding. We make moves over time, and that means we have to forgive the old moves. Those are sunk costs. It doesn't matter. You have a law degree. You needed that before, you don't need it now. Forgive yourself. You don't have to accept that law degree. From the former, you. You can go do the thing you need to do now. But it all comes down to service, to empathy. Who is this for? They're not going to like it because it's important to me. They're going to like it because it's important to them. So given the world as it is today, with the assets you have today, with the world as you see it today, what moves will you make that over time? You'll be glad you did.
- [53:19]
Interview Guest
That does seem like an apropos time to stop. For now.
- [53:25]
Seth Godin
For now.
- [53:26]
Interview Guest
But I am going to ask one, one last question because it's something I really want to know. After those 800 rejection letters or during the process of the time that it took to get 800 rejection letters, what kept you going? What gave you the sense that it was worth it not to give up?
- [53:57]
Seth Godin
It's a little complicated, but here we go. Okay. I, first of all, continue to encourage people, don't quit your day job. So I had no day job, but I had enough side things that I was able to do that I wasn't indigent. I don't see that you don't get any points. As far as I'm concerned, living in an attic somewhere, you should adjust your standard of living to match your. Your approach so that you can be resilient at it. It was a struggle because I was very close to bankruptcy for 10 years, but close because I got to the point where I had enough resources to try the next thing. But the second thing I did was I invented in my head that if I didn't do this, I would have to be a bank teller because I knew I could get a job as a bank teller. And a bank teller felt like something that I would hate so much that I would. Thus, emotionally, it would feel like such a failure, but also I would be so bad at it that it made it easier to go get rejected again than to do that.
- [55:12]
Interview Guest
Thank you, Seth. It is always such a joy and an honor to talk with you. And I want to thank you so much for being here, for your generosity in sharing your book with the entire audience here, and for being my friend. Thank you, Seth Godin.
- [55:33]
Seth Godin
Thank you, Debbie.
- [55:35]
Debbie Millman
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor in chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.
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- [57:06]
Seth Godin
Puka Bella I'm sure you've noticed some changes.
- [57:09]
Madison H.
Who you talking to?
- [57:10]
Seth Godin
I'm just practicing for when I have to tell the dogs about the twins. You know, because they'll be fine in.
- [57:14]
Interview Guest
The spacious third row seat, but the.
- [57:16]
Madison H.
Twins can sleep peacefully thanks to the rear manual sunshade.
- [57:19]
Seth Godin
And what about the extra cargo space.
- [57:21]
Interview Guest
For strollers and dog beds?
- [57:23]
Seth Godin
I guess you're right.
- [57:23]
Madison H.
Can we go to the hospital now?
- [57:25]
Interview Guest
The contractions are getting closer.
- [57:27]
Seth Godin
The three Row Lexus TX because everyone should feel like the center of the universe Experience Amazing at your Lexus dealer.
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