Seth Godin: Make Better Plans (and How to Beat AI)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Simplify — Seth Godin: Make Better Plans (and How to Beat AI)

Podcast: Simplify
Hosts: Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler (Kollo Media)
Guest: Seth Godin
Episode Release: January 26, 2026
Main Theme: Demystifying Strategy—What it Really Is, How to Get Better at It, and Why Human Uniqueness Can Outperform AI

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Caitlin Schiller interviews marketing visionary, prolific writer, and renowned teacher Seth Godin about his latest book, This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans. The conversation dives deep into the concept of strategy—what it truly means, why it matters, and how individuals (from freelancers to entrepreneurs) can leverage it to create positive change, price their work, and differentiate themselves in an era of AI and cheap competition. The episode unpacks Godin’s nuanced riffs on themes like games, tension, pricing, trust, and optimism, presenting accessible wisdom for navigating a rapidly evolving world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Strategy—A Philosophy of Becoming

• [05:07] Godin admits: “It’s a terrible idea to call a book This Is Strategy. Because a lot of people don’t know what strategy is and a lot of people are afraid of strategy… Big organizations have replaced the word tactics and tasks with strategy to make it sound more fun. But none of those things are strategy.”
• [06:15] Clarifies: “Strategy is what system are we in? What change are we here to make? Where’s our North Star?... Strategies require tactics, but the tactics change all the time. The strategy shouldn’t change very often.”

2. Viewing Strategy as a Game

• [08:45] Godin introduces the idea that “anytime human beings come together to compete over scarce resources, there’s a game being played.” He explains that understanding the “rules of the game” — which can change (as in the shift from bookstores to Amazon) — is crucial.
• “If you’re showing up in a marketplace of any kind… you’re playing a game, and the question is, after you make your move, what will your competitors do?” [09:31]

3. The Productive Role of Tension

• [11:10] Godin distinguishes tension from stress:
  “Stress is wanting two things you can’t have at the same time… Tension is the feeling of pulling a rubber band back before you let it go. If you don’t do that, the rubber band doesn’t go anywhere.”
• Tension is vital for motivation and action: “If we don’t create any tension, no one’s going to buy from us because they already have what they have.” [12:04]
• Manipulation vs. Influence: “It’s not manipulative if when the person knows what you know, they’re glad they did it.” [14:09]

4. Truth, Status, and Marketing Narratives

• The conversation explores how status and affiliation drive human choices—and how marketing (for better or worse) leverages these drives (Bernays and the story of cigarettes are discussed at [15:05]).
• Godin emphasizes the ethical responsibility inherent in wielding powerful marketing tools:
  “If marketing doesn’t work, why are we spending so much money on it? It works. So that means you have to be responsible for what you’re doing with it.” [17:48]

5. Rethinking Pricing—Generosity, Luxury, and Value

• [18:34] Schiller raises the challenge of pricing as a freelancer. Godin responds:
  “Generous doesn’t mean free… Generous work is more insightful than people expect or more urgent or selfless. Generous work makes a difference. And often it’s OK if that generous work is expensive.”
• Pricing is narrative:
  “Price is a story, price is a signal, and price is a symptom of your strategy.” [17:48]
• On luxury: “Luxury isn’t more utility, it’s intentional waste. Paying more than you needed to is the very definition of [luxury].”
• Key takeaway: The highest-value clients want the best, not the cheapest.
  “Pick your customers, pick your future. If you become a freelancer who works for good clients, they will give you better work, they will pay you more, they will raise your game.” [21:19]

6. AI, Competition, and Human Differentiation

• [26:35] Schiller asks about the threat of AI to creative work. Godin emphasizes:
  “All other things being equal, we always choose the cheaper option. But that’s not the same as having Patricia Barber write your liner notes… The work to be done is to not be equal.”
• “You can find somebody cheaper than me, but you can’t find somebody who can solve this problem the way I’m going to solve it.” [27:38]
• Over time, companies (and people) who race to the top, not the bottom, tend to win: “People with taste and values tend to outperform people who don’t.” [28:15]

7. Strategic Human Assets—The Value of Trust

• [29:33] Godin: “The asset we get to build going forward, not across the universe, but across the small circle of people we need to serve, is trust. Do you make a promise and keep it? That’s all a brand is.”
• “Attention and trust are the things that persist. And if we can offer people status, affiliation, and the freedom from fear by solving interesting problems… we should be fine.” [30:39]

8. Optimism as a Deliberate Strategy

• [30:53] “I think optimism is a strategy. I don’t think that optimism is a weather report… To be optimistic about making something better for someone is the only way I can do that work.”

9. The Takeaway on Strategy: You Have to Talk About It

• [31:37] Schiller: “What is the one key thing you wish people understood better about strategy?”
  Godin: “You got to talk about it. That’s why I made it into a book. If you’re not willing to talk about it, it’s not going to get better.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Seth Godin on Strategy vs. Tactics:
  “Strategies require tactics, but the tactics change all the time. The strategy shouldn’t change very often.” [06:15]

• On Games:
  “Anytime human beings come together to compete over scarce resources, there’s a game being played… The rules of the game can change, and if you don’t see that, your publishing house is going to fold.” [09:31]

• On Tension and Marketing:
  “It’s not manipulative if when the person knows what you know, they’re glad they did it.” [14:09]

• On Pricing for Freelancers:
  “Pick your customers, pick your future… You don’t get that kind of client by being good at working with bad clients.” [21:13]

• On AI and Human Value:
  “The work to be done is to not be equal: to say, you can find somebody cheaper than me, but you can’t find somebody who can solve this problem the way I’m going to solve it.” [27:38]

• On Trust:
  “Do you make a promise and keep it? That’s all a brand is.” [29:33]

• On Optimism:
  “I think optimism is a strategy. I don’t think that optimism is a weather report…” [30:53]

• On Having the Strategy Conversation:
  “You got to talk about it. That’s why I made it into a book.” [31:37]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:07] — Seth Godin explains why “strategy” is misunderstood and how he defines it
• [08:45] — Every strategy is a game; understanding shifting rules
• [11:10] — The importance of tension vs. stress in motivating change
• [14:09] — Manipulation vs. ethical persuasion in marketing
• [18:34] — Pricing, generosity, and the freelance dilemma
• [21:13] — The critical importance of choosing the right clients
• [26:35] — How to survive and thrive as AI becomes more prevalent
• [29:33] — Trust as the most important human asset
• [30:53] — Optimism as a conscious, strategic choice
• [31:37] — The necessity of talking about strategy

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Additional Host Reflections

• [33:06 - 35:47] Caitlin and Ben reflect on the power of being different, not equal, and how that ties into sustaining value in an AI-driven, cheap-is-easy world.
• [35:47 - 36:04] Discussion of losing clients who only want the cheapest outcome and why aligning with the right customers is crucial.
• [36:12 - 37:12] Ben underlines Seth’s definition: If you can’t answer “should I be doing this or not?” with clarity, you don’t have a real strategy.

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Book and Resource Recommendations

• Guest Book:
  This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans by Seth Godin

• Additional Thinker:
  Eugene Healy’s Substack “Considered Chaos” — for cultural and brand strategy commentary ([38:35])

• Classic Strategy Book:
  Good to Great by Jim Collins

  • Focus on the “hedgehog question”:
    • What can we be the best at?
    • What can we be passionate about?
    • What is our economic engine? ([38:53])

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Summary Wrap-Up

This episode offers inspiration and clarity for grappling with strategic thinking—whether you’re running a business, freelancing, or just trying to stay relevant in a world where AI threatens to commoditize everything. Godin challenges listeners to differentiate through humanity, generosity, and trust; to recognize and embrace the “games” at play; and to cultivate optimism and intentional action. If you’re intimidated by the concept of “strategy,” this conversation will help you see it as an ongoing, shared pursuit—one rooted in values, choice, and the will to make things better.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Simplify. I'm Caitlin Schiller.

[B]

I'm Ben Schuman Solar.

[A]

Hi, Ben. Good morning.

[B]

Good morning, Caitlin. We're back again.

[A]

We keep doing this.

[B]

Yeah, we keep recording.

[A]

Yeah, it's great. I'm so glad that we get to keep doing this and I'm really glad to be here with you today because I really like this guest.

[B]

Yeah. We have Seth Godin today. Yes, this is, I think, his second. We did something short with him at

[A]

some point, but I think this might be the third, actually. The third set, yeah.

[B]

So what do you love about him so much that we keep inviting him on and what can we look forward to today?

[A]

Well, I jokingly refer to Seth always as the nicest man on the Internet, because he is. And he unfailingly returns emails, like, usually within four to 10 minutes after I send them. And he is unstintingly generous with his time and his knowledge and his kindness. And I always come away from our conversations feeling like, supported and appreciated and truly inspired. We've never met in real life, but that is what it's like to work with Seth. And it occurs to me now that that's probably a strategy of his, the way that he wants to make people feel every time he works with them. So beyond just being a really nice guy, he has some really smart things to say about marketing, about culture, about work, and why we do the kinds of work that we do.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, when you say he's really generous with his time, he says a brand is basically making a promise and keeping it. And so that's definitely his style. His brand is that he's generous and he follows through. And when you do that, then you're known as that. And that's probably partially why his books keep selling. His blog that's like 20 years old now, keeps going, right?

[A]

30 years.

[B]

30 years.

[A]

And he has over 10,000 posts. And he's been blogging every day for 30 years without missing a day. So when you think consistency, think Seth Godin. But today I wanted to have him on specifically for this book. This is strategy, because the word strategy, as you'll hear me say in the entire interview, kind of makes me sweat a little bit. And I know from experience that if something makes me jittery in this way, I should run toward it, not away. Kind of like the whole thing, you train the muscle that you feel the weakest at. So I definitely need more push ups in my life. But I thought, who better to demystify a potentially nervous making subject or one that I don't feel that strong in than this person who is so kind and generous and good at explaining things quickly and clearly.

[B]

Right. So what should people look out for in the interview?

[A]

Well, this book, I want to say first, is separated into what he calls riffs. They're things that are not quite. I wouldn't call them chapters. They're kind of more like blog posts than anything else. But that's good because they're each conversation pieces, and you and I have sent these back and forth to each other, and it's been so cool because it's really sparked conversation between us. But he and I talk about a lot of things. I just tried to run through as many of these riffs that I found really stand out as possible. But I think the thing that I really love talking about the most was pricing, because I find that as a freelancer, I find that very challenging. And he has these six sort of ways that you can look at pricing. And I love that he says generous work isn't free. And. Yeah, just listen in to see what generous work means in this episode.

[B]

Yeah, great. Well, then let's play the interview, and at the end, we'll share some book recommendations about strategy and talk a little bit more about the interview. And in the meantime, don't forget, we're still pretty new at Independent Simplify, so we appreciate when people follow us on Instagram and also the new newsletter, which

[A]

is hot, hot, hot newsletter.

[B]

All right, here's you and Seth Godin.

[A]

Hi, Seth. Thank you so much for taking the time today.

[C]

What a treat. Good to talk to you again, Caitlin.

[A]

Yes. This is the second time or maybe even the third time in Simplify history. But even though I feel like you were probably a person who needs no big introductions at this point, I'll just say you're a teacher, you're a writer, you're an entrepreneur, and people might know you from your blog posts being circulated. How many blog posts are you at now?

[C]

Just over 10,000.

[A]

Over 10,000. Okay.

[C]

So it's been, without missing a day,

[A]

30 years without missing a day. That is amazing. Incredibly consistent. And you've also written so many books, some of which we've talked about on here before. But today I wanted to talk with you about this is Strategy, Make Better Plans. At first, when I read this title, I was not immediately drawn to it because I hear strategy, and there's something inside of me that shrivels up a little bit because when I hear it, I get intimidated, despite the fact that I've held what, what one could argue are many strategic roles in places I've worked in the past. There's something about it that makes me worried and I received on performance reviews be more strategic back when I was in my twenties. Which of course doesn't really help because what does that mean?

[C]

It's a terrible idea to call a book this is strategy. Because a lot of people don't know what strategy is and a lot of people are afraid of strategy. It feels like something we do to people, not with them or for them. And big organizations have replaced the word tactics and tasks with strategy to make it sound more fun. But none of those things are strategy. Which is why the ornery person in me wanted to reclaim the word for what it's supposed to be, which is a philosophy of becoming.

[A]

Uh huh. Okay. That's a much more airy sort of beautiful definition of strategy than I am, than I am used to hearing. In your book you say that strategy is a thing that you can't quite see and there are a bunch of other metaphors for it. But strategy is, is becoming. But if you want to take it down to a more granular level, is strategy, tactics, what is it composed of?

[C]

Organizations like tactics because the theory is you give people tasks. If you do all the tasks, you get the result and they like results and they like certainty. And so strategies require tactics. But the tactics change all the time. The strategy shouldn't change very often. Strategy is what system are we in? What change are we here to make? Where's our North Star? What will we do? How will we create things in the world so that the change happens the way we hope it will and that more success leads to more success. Whatever we define that success is so we can see long term arcs that are the result of successful strategies. That's different than today's tactic. So Google said 20, 25 years ago, our strategy is to organize the world's information. And there are lots of places you can start on that journey and there are lots of ways you can continue that journey. But that strategy lets you know if you're doing something that you should be doing or not.

[A]

That's a very simple way to think about it, especially the last part of what you said. Is it something we should be doing or not? This book, these riffs that compose this book, it's the most you thing to do. You are a man who can atomize and clearly articulate things really well. And I like that in the introduction you invite readers to not read it all the way through at once to pick and choose to take what they can learn from it, to share it, to have a discussion, to come back later. And that is kind of what I did. But I ended up sending a whole bunch to my creative partner that I. That I make this podcast with. And we. We had conversations about them. So I wanted to pick out a few of those and just go at it in this direction. One of them that I really loved was number 28. And that is there are games in every strategy. So this was illuminating to me because I hear game much like strategy, and I get kind of sweaty because I'm very bad at reading and understanding written instructions. I'm a good reader, but I'm a bad reader of instructions. And I don't naturally hear it's a game and get excited. But I did find this assertion very soothing. And you break down how we can look at the game of it all to our benefit in a longish for you list. And my favorite was, you don't have to enjoy the game for it to be a game. Why is this a powerful stance for you that there are games in every strategy? What does that free up for us?

[C]

Anytime human beings come together to compete over scarce resources, there's a game being played. And Monopoly is a terrible game. Scrabble's a better game. But it's also a game to decide how many sheep you should graze on the common in town. It's a game to figure out how to make sure that the Soviet Union and the United States don't destroy each other with nuclear weapons. These are games. Games have winners and losers. They have rules sometimes stated, sometimes not. And there's limited resources. When there aren't limited resources of time or material, then there's not a game. So if you're showing up in a marketplace of any kind, how do I get my podcast listened to? How do I get people to buy the flutes my company makes? You're playing a game, and the question is, after you make your move, what will your competitors do? The questions are, do you have enough pieces on the board? Can you put more pieces on the board? How do you think about how the resources are adjudicated? If we're, you know, you're a book person. The only way for 400 years to get a book into a bookstore was to get the bookstore to take another book out, because every bookstore is full. By definition, that's a game. And Amazon shows up and says, we have infinite shelves. Suddenly, the rules of the game have been completely upended. And if you don't see that, you're now, in a new game, your publishing house is going to fold.

[A]

Stressful.

[C]

Well, I think it's stressful if you're trying to maintain the status quo. It's a huge opportunity if you're not number one. Because number one is the person who always has the most to lose when the rules of the game change.

[A]

You know, speaking of losing things and fear, because there's usually fear that is attendant upon losing things. There's a new word that I noticed popping up a lot in this book that I don't remember seeing in the bulk of your work that I've read before. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I kept seeing the word tension.

[C]

Mm.

[A]

It's everywhere. Can you talk a little bit about what tension is in the context of strategy?

[C]

It's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Stress is a bad thing. Stress is wanting two things that you can't have at the same time. At the same time, you get stressed at work. Life balance. Because you either want to be at work or you want to be at life. And when you're doing one, you're not doing the other. That's stressful. Tension is the feeling of pulling a rubber band back before you let it go. If you don't do that, the rubber band doesn't go anywhere. Tension is how Taylor Swift sells 18,000 tickets to a stadium in Berlin in one hour because the people who bought the tickets felt like if they didn't buy them right away, they would all be gone. That we create tension every time we knew something new. And when we show up in the marketplace, if we don't create any tension, no one's going to buy from us because they already have what they have.

[A]

Mm. So then is creating this all important tension just choosing from a menu of fears to invoke?

[C]

Well, people want three things. One of the things they want is the release, the relief from fear. And that's hardwired in. That's primary. And so manipulative marketers invent fear so that they can then sell you something to make the fear go away. The other two are status and affiliation. Status is who's up and who's down, who eats lunch first. It doesn't always have to do with money. It has to do with lots of things. It could be who has the firmest handshake, who sits at the table in high school with the quarterback and football team. Right. Status is something. Just think about high school and you understand status. And the one that goes with status is affiliation. Affiliation is people like us do things like this. Who's to my left, who's to my right? Am I fitting in? You don't wear a clown suit to a funeral. Why? Because you would stand out in a way that would be socially damaging. You wouldn't be affiliated. And so if we're going to show up, just showing up creates some sort of tension. If you have a booth at a trade show and you're at the end of an aisle and someone chooses not to walk to the end of the aisle, you've created tension for them because they're wondering, what did they miss? Right. If you say, I have a new podcast, the phrase a new podcast means that I will feel a little bit of tension until I listen to it. Because otherwise I might be leaving a penny or a quarter or a dollar on the ground that I wish I had picked up. So we are willingly inflicting tension on the people we're serving to cause a change to happen.

[A]

Okay. And this doesn't always have to veer into the land of manipulative marketing.

[C]

It's not manipulative if when the person knows what you know, they're glad they did it. So if a doctor says, I see a little schmutz on this X ray, they're creating tension. Now you're focused on what they're saying. And then if they say if you don't quit smoking, you're going to die, they've created a lot of tension. But if you quit smoking, you haven't been manipulated. You're thrilled that someone got you finally to save your life.

[A]

Okay, so if the outcome is good, then it's not manipulative?

[C]

If the outcome is good for the person who took the action, yes.

[A]

That's an important distinguisher there. Yes, I recently learned about Edward Bernays.

[C]

I do indeed.

[A]

Oh my goodness. He's the granddaddy of manipulative marketing, or I think he was the originator of pr. That's what he called himself.

[C]

He definitely did a lot of PR to get people to think he originated pr. He was Sigmund Freud's nephew and he was a AAA bad guy. And he believed that serving the people who were paying him was his only job. And what he's most famous for was killing millions and millions of women around the world by making smoking cigarettes a socially acceptable, high status thing for women to do.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, sorry, that was a complete sidetrack. But it started making me think about Edward Bernays. But I guess it does.

[C]

He was brilliant. He was brilliant at strategy, but he was missing a Moral compass.

[A]

Yes. Really important to have that moral compass. It also made me think about another one of your riffs. Actually. Number 23, all dogs are mixed breed dogs. And you say that the only thing that makes a purebred so valuable is that an association labeled it. So to an extent, really, truth is. Truth is what the consensus deems it is in some ways. And it also reminded me of what you told me about being remarkable a few. Well, not a few, more like seven, eight years ago. All remarkable means is that someone's willing to talk about you. And I think that this is both very empowering and also very kind of scary. It means to some extent that the truth is very fungible. You know, cigarettes could be a great status symbol or they could kill you. And it depends on how loud the message being blasted at you is.

[C]

Yeah, you know, Edward Bernays solved a problem and he didn't force anyone to smoke cigarettes. And the eight, the AKC solved a problem. They didn't force anyone to breed a dog to the point where it's in pain. They chose to do those things. And the reason that women chose to smoke is because it was the cheapest, most available way to claim a little bit of status in that moment. And they wanted the status more than they wanted clean lungs. And where the manipulation comes in is maybe in the 1920s and 30s, people had no clue that cigarettes had side effects. Okay, I'm going to let them off the hook, but as soon as the Surgeon General report comes out, now you're not off the hook anymore. You know, the whole idea that you're just doing your job, I don't buy that because we have a very powerful tool. If marketing doesn't work, why are we spending so much money on it? It works. So that means you have to be responsible for what you're doing with it.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, I'm gonna go. Just go. Go through my, my list of riffs here. I wanted to. There are two more that I definitely want to get to. And I recognize that we don't have a ton of time, but I think my favorite one was your thoughts on pricing. And you say that price is a story, price is a signal, and price is a symptom of your strategy. And this, this riff has basically six ideas about pricing nested inside of it. And I really enjoyed this one because I find pricing very difficult as a freelancer. I always have. Putting a price on my work is something I find very, very stressful. And it was really helpful for me to have a few different ways to think about pricing. And one that really stood out for me was generous doesn't mean free.

[C]

Correct.

[A]

And you say that generous work is more insightful than people expect or more urgent or selfless. Generous work makes a difference. And often it's OK if that generous work is expensive. Could you talk a little bit about what generous work is? You do. I mean, this is sort of a definition of it, but it sort of isn't. It's a little bit nebulous, but I know. I have a good feeling about it. Could you help me condense my good feeling about this?

[C]

Well, your candor about pricing is going to be well heard by people who share the same problem you have, that if we sell a service to somebody, it can feel like a taking, then we might be saying to ourselves, well, if I were in your shoes, I'd never buy this from me. Right. If somebody is fundraising for university and they go call on a billionaire and say, you should Pay, consider donating $4 million to have a dorm named after you. In the back of their head they're saying, this is crazy. If I had a billion dollars, there's no way I'd spend $4 million naming a dorm after me. And this is a lack of empathy. Everyone's got a story in their head, and people don't want what you want. They don't see what you see. They don't believe what you believe. We begin with that. So if I work for a Fortune 500 company and I need to hire a freelance copywriter, do I want to tell my boss I hired someone because they were really cheap? Do I want to tell my boss I hired somebody because they lowered their price for me? Or do I want to say, great news, I was able to hire the best copywriter in the world. How do you know they're the best copywriter in the world? Well, they're really expensive. So it's a service to offer them that. Not to apologize for price, but to offer with that price all of the things that might be expected to go with it, like maybe three extra meetings that you don't think are necessary. But that's a service. We are showing up generously. If I go and need heart surgery, I don't want a heart surgeon who's generous by being cheaper. I want a heart surgeon who's going to put in the extra effort, read all the continuing education documents, and when it's really scary with their arms in my chest and they see something that surprises them, they don't blink. That is generous. That's brave. That's the thing that I paid for. And so you can race to the bottom and say my generous act is to be the cheapest possible alternative. But many of the customers don't want you to do that. They want you to be the best alternative.

[A]

Yeah, I guess. Then it's about finding the right customer who does want the best alternative and wants that from you.

[C]

So the number one strategy for any freelancer is simple. Pick your customers, pick your future. If you become a freelancer who works for good clients, they will give you better work, they will pay you more, they will raise your game. But you don't get that kind of client by being good at working with bad clients.

[A]

Aha. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It also makes me think about another one of the thought thoughts on pricing that's nested in there, which is luxury isn't more utility, it's intentional waste. And I, this is another thing that I, I immediately sort of was drawn toward and I felt was true. But what did you mean by this? By luxury isn't more utility, it's intentional waste.

[C]

Okay, so there are things that have more utility. There are down coats that are warmer in a Berlin winter than other coats. And I'm in favor of utility. But paying more than you needed to is what makes something a luxury good. Paying more than you needed to is the very definition of it. Otherwise we would just call it a high utility good. So for example, if you own a Birkin bag which costs $28,000, it will hold your stuff almost as well as a $9 satchel. It's not a higher utility stuff holding vehicle. It is a symbol and a story. And the story says I can afford to spend $27,000 for a handbag. So if you say to somebody that private jet you just flew, it got here slower than the commercial flight you could have taken, it's lower utility. If they were honest, they would say that's correct. But a private jet offers something that a commercial flight doesn't, which is clearly understood waste that I paid more than I had to.

[A]

What do you think it means then? That there are, or at least I think I'm seeing quite a few companies in the US especially position themselves as affordable luxury, like Quince, for example. I have a few things from Quince and I think there's, there's another site called the. It's either called the Necessary or the Essentials. And it does much the same thing. It offers, quote, you know, luxury goods at a, at an affordable or an accessible price. It Seems like luxury is becoming a really appealing prospect or position for, for consumers. What, what does that say about our times?

[C]

Okay, so humans have always wanted luxury goods because they're a way of demonstrating status.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And luxury goods can be inexpensive. When bottled water arrived in the United States, it was only $6 that just about anybody who is engaged in commerce could afford a $6 bottle of water if they thought it made them look like Jennifer Aniston. And so there's a desire for luxury goods. At the same time, companies that make luxury goods, three of them, just to name them, lvmh, Apple Computer and Hermes, those three are some of the most profitable companies in the history of the world. So marketers are drawn to selling luxury goods. But. And the masses always show up around the edges and luxury brands will sort of degrade their, their imprimatur to grow. So Ralph Lauren, last time I checked, was selling more items at its outlet stores than its real stores. And the stuff they sell in the outlet store is made just to be at the outlet store. It's not the same materials, et cetera. Why are they doing this? Because by treating different people differently, they can create different tiers of luxury. And I think that the strategy of someone claiming affordable luxury is they are saying if your friends aren't the kind of people who are going to know what prompt is. I can't even pronounce it. That's okay. We're going to invent a new kind of luxury brand that's better than the thing you could have bought at Bed Bath. And beyond that, you can claim you paid more than you needed to because it's quote luxury. But it's still cheaper than the super high end luxury. And you don't have to feel bad about it.

[A]

Yeah, I buy that. The third. This is the last one in in number 182 thoughts on Pricing that I want to talk about you. You say that cheaper might not be better. And that to me also linked up with RIF226 and it's called the thing about Cheaper. And you write, all other things being equal, we always choose the cheaper option. And this got me to thinking about the labor market and how AI proliferation is impacting jobs. And it will almost look, I think on the surface, cheaper to businesses to use AI for say, content where they used to use humans. What do humans do in the face of the simple fact that they'll never be as affordable as an army of AI agents?

[C]

Well, you skipped the most important part of the sentence.

[A]

Good.

[C]

Which is all other Things being equal, if you have acted like a human AI in your fiverr upwork copywriting career, please don't be surprised that I found someone even cheaper than you called Claude. Because you, you've insisted that all the things are equal from the first day. You've said, if you're looking for cheap copy, I've got cheap copy. So all other things being equal, you're in trouble. But that's not the same as having the liner notes for your new jazz record written by Patricia Barber, because Patricia Barber is not equal to Claude. Patricia Barber is a jazz legend, and the fact that she was willing to write the liner notes is worth a lot to me. And so the work to be done, and this has been true since ditch diggers were replaced by steam shovels, the work to be done is to not be equal, is to say, you can find somebody cheaper than me, but you can't find somebody who can solve this problem the way I'm going to solve it.

[A]

I like that, and it's very helpful. Having been on the inside of a tech company for a very long time, I worry that in order for this to be true and to work in this way that I hope it can work. What you just outlined, that would mean that the people making the hiring and the hiring choices have to have taste and ethics and values. And I'm not totally sure that's always true.

[C]

I think it's almost never true. But what we have found, and it doesn't mean it's going to last forever, but we. What we have found in the last 200 years is that people with taste and values tend to outperform people who don't. And so there are always going to be companies that can race to the bottom. But over time, we have seen that companies that seek to race to the top sort of win.

[A]

Cool. That is hopeful. And I'll keep it. Okay, Seth, the last riff that I want to talk about here is number 279. It's what sort of hammer should you buy? And you basically explain that for a new homeowner, any hammer with a comfy grip will do the job. But for a mason or somebody who's a pro builder, a top of the line hammer is going to be desirable. And the line that I highlighted from this entry is the goal is to find assets that increase in value over time and are resilient enough to transfer to other projects when the world changes. And I'm wondering, what do you think are some of the most valuable human assets that, that we can cultivate? Strategically, going forward, I just want just trust.

[C]

So here I am on your new podcast. I didn't interrogate you about lots of elements of the podcast. You asked, and I said yes. Why would I do that? Because even though you transferred to a new platform, I trust you. And you earned that trust by doing the work. And too often we say, under the circumstances, I'm doing the best I can. But we are the circumstances. And the asset we get to build going forward, not across the universe, but across the small circle of people we need to serve, is trust. Do you make a promise and keep it? That's all a brand is. And so there's this relentless pressure to scale, this relentless pressure to race to the bottom. But my mission, my message is attention and trust are the things that persist. And if we can offer people status, affiliation, and the freedom from fear by solving interesting problems, by making things better, we should be fine.

[A]

That is. That is rousing and hopeful. And I, you know, that's. That's the way that I felt when I was reading this book, and it's how I feel coming away from talking with you every time. I really appreciate that. How do you stay so optimistic?

[C]

I think optimism is a strategy. I don't think that optimism is a weather report, that the weather report is handled by other people. The question is, what does your posture and point of view do for your ability to do your work? And so I try not to judge a day by the weather, but instead, say, today I get a chance to make something better for someone, and to be optimistic about that is the only way I can do that work.

[A]

That makes a lot of sense. All right, Seth, my last question, which is always my last question, it's if there were there one key thing that you wish people understood better about strategy, what is that one key thing?

[C]

You got to talk about it. That's why I made it into a book. If you're not willing to talk about it, it's not going to get better.

[A]

And it worked. It worked. Like I said, I have been sending these riffs back and forth with Ben for the past few days. And I also want to say that the very last one, I think it's 297. 297 is just a whole series of questions about strategy, questions for thinking about strategy. So if anybody listening feels the way that I sometimes feel when I hear the word strategy and you're a little daunted, it's a really good one. Okay, Seth, thank you. That's it. That's all I got for you today. It was so nice to talk with you. Thank you for this.

[C]

Always a treat. Thank you, Caitlin.

[B]

Welcome to the bookend, where we end with books.

[A]

Indeed we do.

[B]

So I listened to this interview at the gym.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And I made a lot of notes of very, like, specific, actionable, helpful things that we always get out of Seth Godin. But I'm curious, what do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about pricing? Do you want to talk about definitions of strategy? Do you want to talk about tension? What do you want to, like, recap? I told you I made notes is what I just said.

[A]

And I just talked over you. It sounds like you made a lot of notes, and you made different notes than I did. So I want to hear about what you want to talk about regarding those subjects. But for me, what I'm going to take with me from this interview really is the last thing we talked about. When I asked him about AI, and I'm like, will it take over the labor market? How am I going to survive if people will always go for the cheapest? All other things being equal? And he really picked out that. All other things being equal. And he stressed that, you know, the work to be done here then is to not be equal, be different. He says, you can find somebody cheaper than me, but you can't find somebody who can solve this problem the way that I'm gonna solve it. And that boils down to consistency and kind of style, I think, which is a thing that you and I talk about a lot, how important it is to have, like, personal taste and style and, like, be a bereal person.

[B]

You know, I started this company, Cola Media, like, a year ago making audio things. And when I started it, and even now, still, people are like, why would you do that with AI? Like, everyone's going to do this. And I've offered services and had clients that have been like, you know, I can get somebody somewhere else in the world or use a robot to do this for, like, really, like, 90% less. And I was like, okay, like, go for it. Yeah. And it's really. You know, but there are times when I'm like, this is hard. But when he says, why race to the bottom? You know, that's not gonna work. What does work is racing to the top. That is one of the things I wrote down. Another thing, I'm gonna go from this and then branch off into one of the things I wanted to talk about. So, you know, I'm in this, like, entrepreneur solopreneur space now, and everyone's always talking about LinkedIn.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this is a place that really makes me anxious. I don't like being on LinkedIn. I find it stressful to think I have to post there all the time.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

But when people say, I also hate it and I also don't want to post there, but I have to. You have to. I'm like, but the thing is, why would you build a funnel? Why would you build the way to get your customers in a place you don't want to spend time in? So when Seth says, pick your customer, pick your future, it really resonates with me because I'm like, if I don't want a customer in Saskatchewan or whatever, I'm not going to run a bunch of marketing to people in Saskatchewan. And I don't want to spend time there because it's far away from my family, you know, unless I live in Saskatchewan. Maybe I do want to, but, you know, or Miami or Los Angeles or Chicago, whatever, it doesn't matter. London, you know. Exactly. Don't.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Warsaw, like, don't. Don't build your. So I think this connects to pricing. You know, like, if you want to work with people that are just looking for the cheapest product, fantastic, Go for it. Those are your customers, you know, but that's going to be what you have to deliver.

[A]

Yeah, I lost a client that way last year, actually. I quoted them what I thought was a really fair price and they were like, oh, we just want the end part of what you described as the process. And I was like, I'm not sure we can work together if what you want is the result. Without any of the research that will get you there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Should we do books or should we do more?

[A]

There's so much to talk about with this one. But maybe we.

[B]

Let's do books.

[A]

We can do books. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, we can also do extra for Instagram and newsletter and stuff. I guess the one thing I wanted to say about strategy, and maybe this is a good segue to the books, you and I have talked about this because we used to work together more closely and always talk about what actually is strategy. What do we actually. What case do we actually want to make this quarter or this year? And when he said strategy is basically the answer to the question should I be doing this or not? I thought that was great. I thought that was really great. And if you don't have a clear answer to that. We talked about this at our presentation, actually, our Blinkist Live in December, which listeners actually can't find the recording of, but if they want us to come to their company, they can get the better name because we go to companies now. But basically we helped give people this framework of should I be doing this or not? If you don't have a clear answer to that, you need to have some help from leadership. And if leadership doesn't have that, then they need a strategy. A good strategy should be able to provide the answer to that.

[A]

Cool. Then let's do some books.

[B]

Should we do some books? Do you want to start?

[A]

Sure. Actually, I am not going to recommend a book. I'm going to recommend a thinker who also I would love to have on Simplify. And when I say a thinker, I mean this is a person who actually has a tremendous amount of content out in the world. He writes a substack and has a really cool Instagram presence. His substack is called Considered Chaos and it's written by this brand strategist and educator named Eugene Healy. I'd recommend starting with a November post titled Content is the new Pornography. And in this he explores why digital voyeurism, the popularity of like butter churning trad wife content, and watching the lifestyles of rich people on yachts in Tuscany or whatever is not representative actually of what we normies want, but this ache towards something else, which is like stability. And I love his content. It's culturally savvy, but it's also really, really intelligent. And he'll go from Tradwives and Richtok to Ursula K. Le Guin and Lacan and one post and I find him to be this wonderful cultural commentator. And he has what I think is the winning combo of a shrewd eye cast through a very wide lens and the ability to tie it all together and give it meaning. So we'll put the link in the show notes. I think his work is really, really cool. That's Eugene Healy and the substack Considered Chaos.

[B]

Amazing. Okay. The reason why I laughed when you said a thinker is because you made like jazz hands. I don't think everybody, nobody could see that, obviously. But yeah, I mean. Okay, well, I have two kind of strategy classics because I decided I should stick to the classics for this one. So there's the Jim Collins, famous business book author.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Wrote a book in 2011 called Good to Great. This is one of these, like business book standards.

[A]

I remember business book.

[B]

The business book of the business book.

[A]

Indeed.

[B]

Where you can do business. Anyway, this is the book where. Have you ever heard of the term level five leader?

[A]

I have.

[B]

That's where this comes from. But what I wanted to hone in,

[A]

I thought it was from Star Wars.

[B]

But in the book Good to Great, he talks about what he calls the hedgehog question. This is very similar to what Seth said. Right. So the hedgehog question is like, you know how hedgehogs just, like, curl up when they're gonna get eaten? They have, like, one move. That's what they do, and it's highly effective. So they just do their one move, and it works. And that's how they survive. They do the one move. I'm getting attacked. Do my move. Boom. Headshot. Boom. That's my move. So ask yourself, you know, what's my move? Kind of thing. So the three questions are. And it's actually a Venn diagram at Jim Collins website. So three questions. What can we be the best in the world at? What can we be passionate about? What is the key economic indicator that we should concentrate on?

[A]

That is really cool. I like that framework.

[B]

Or you can just think of it as like, you know, how are we gonna make money? What are we good at? What do we like doing?

[A]

Yeah, right. But the hedgehog really brought it home for me. Yeah.

[B]

It's a good. It's a good image. And the middle of that is your strategy. Basically, that's what you should be focused on. That's what you should do. And to answer Seth's question, right, that will help you say, should I be doing this? You know, if a hedgehog's like a fox is coming. Bow and arrow. No. Bad strategy. Don't. Does not have thumbs, I think. Don't shoot a bow and arrow. Like, can't. Doesn't have the dexterity. Don't fight the fox. Do your one thing. And the thing is about this, the reason why it leads to good strategy is it's very simple. You can imagine everyone in the organization kind of getting it right. What are we good at? How are we gonna make money? What do we like doing? But it requires focus and it requires discipline because you do have to say no to stuff, and you do have to be like, this is something I like doing, and that will make us money, but we're not very good at it. Or this is something. We're really good at it, and we love doing it, but it's not gonna make us money.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Yeah, Great.

[A]

Great recommendation.

[B]

Yeah. Hedgehog it up.

[A]

Hedgehog it up. All right, Cool.

[B]

Then take us home.

[A]

All right. Thank you for this lovely episode. Ben Simplify was produced by me, Caitlin Schiller, you, Ben Schuman Stoller, and Adi Constantino. We are here in the Chapters bookshop in Berlin, Germany, in Colo Media Studios. And yeah, until next time.

[B]

See you next time. Checking out. Bye, Caitlin.

[A]

Bye.