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Farnoosh Tarabi
So Money Episode 1757 Seth Godin on strategy, fear and finding your path.
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Khourabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
Seth Godin
The only person who's going to change your mind is you. And what I see at big companies, people running for president is a complete lack of strategy because we've been indoctrinated to do our job, to do the tactics, to try harder without saying why am I playing a game I can't win?
Farnoosh Tarabi
Welcome to so Money everybody.
I'm Farnoosh Tarabi.
I have been impatiently waiting to release this episode.
I recorded it a few weeks ago. Couldn't believe that I had the opportunity to reconnect with one of my heroes. It's a tremendous honor to welcome back Seth Godin to SO Money. If you've been listening to this show from the beginning, and I mean the first two months of this show, you probably remember Seth coming on and helping me launch so Money Money. Sharing his insights on what it means to be rich. Opening up about his personal experiences with money. It's an episode that to this day people stop me in the street and at events and they say loved that episode with Seth Godin. I will always remember your conversation. Hope we can top that. For those who may not know Seth, he is a best selling author, entrepreneur and one of the most influential thinkers in marketing and leadership today. He's written over 20 books including Purple Cow, the Dip Linchpin and this is Marketing. His work has shaped the way we think about creating change, building tribes and making an impact in the modern world. Today we're diving into his latest book. It's called this is Make Better Plans. Explores how we can all create more meaningful and effective strategies in our lives, whether it's in our careers, personal development or financial goals. Here is 10 years later, our friend, Seth Godin.
Seth Godin, welcome to so Money. It's always an honor having you on. And I don't know if you remember but last time you were on so Money it was 2015. It actually aired in 2015 but we recorded in 2014. So this is our 10 year anniversary. Let's not let it get, let's not let it get this far before hanging out again. And it continues to be one of, if not the most listened to, popular quoted episodes. Talked about the meaning of richness. You were generous in sharing a lot of your personal financial experiences. Today though, we're going to be talking about strategy. This is the theme that you're focusing on right now. The title of your new book is this is Strategy, Make Better Plans. You've written so much, Seth. I mean your resume is this is your 21st book, right?
Seth Godin
Well, it's hard to tell because I was a book packager for a long time. There was more than 100 in those days.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Oh my gosh. You've written about leadership and marketing. What drew you to the notion of strategy and why now?
Seth Godin
So people come to me for advice. I don't do any coaching or consulting, but friends do and they think they have a marketing problem and they don't. They have a strategy problem. Strategy is completely misunderstood. People think it's for MBAs or for generals and they think it has to do with tactics or forcing somebody to do something they don't want to do. It's none of those things. It is a philosophy of becoming. It is a point of view about the world that you believe you can make a change happen, that you want to make something better, that you want to contribute, grow something, whether it's personal, finances or an organization. But it doesn't matter how fast you're going if you're going in the wrong direction. So our strategy is a compass. It's not a Map. It's not going to tell you all the steps, but it's going to ask you hard questions about what are the directions that make sense and why. And if you can't talk about it, you can't make it better. So the purpose of the book is to help people talk about it and.
Farnoosh Tarabi
In the context of what our audience cares about. When it comes to strategy, that could be anything from eliminating debt, earning more money, generally just creating more financial security for themselves, for their families. On a scale of 1 to 10, Seth, how poor are Americans when it comes to strategizing? You've already talked about how we confuse it and conflate it with operations and marketing. But what is the crux of the problem?
Seth Godin
Let's say we were talking about a chess player and they lost every single game. I think we could agree they're not that good at playing chess. So let's look at the profit of Citibank or any other company that has a charge card division. It's huge. The individual consumer is losing. They are losing the game because they don't understand the strategy of what money is for. You are playing against people who are taking advantage of you, who are selling you something today that you have to pay for tomorrow that scales in the wrong direction. That a lot of personal finance stress comes from wanting two things at the same time. Stress is different than tension. Stress is I want to be here and I don't want to be here. Stress is, I want that thing, but I don't want to pay for it for the next five years. Stress is I want to keep up with my friends, but I want the peace of mind of having savings. There's an enormous amount of stress associated with personal finance. And astonishingly, paradoxically, it happens to afflict people in wealthy countries, that there are plenty of people around the world who make 5, 10, $15 a day who have less money stress than some of the people who are listening to this. And part of the reason is we have been indoctrinated by marketers, by banks, by people who are building a system designed to make us unhappy. And strategy involves seeing that this game is being played and then either choosing to play it or choosing not to play it right. But don't walk into it accidentally.
Farnoosh Tarabi
You brought up game, and that's one of four threads that you illustrate throughout your book. You say there, you know, so it's time. Game, empathy, and systems. You say, to understand how strategy works, you focus on these four threads. You say, they're everywhere we look, but they're also Easy to ignore. I really appreciated the empathy piece of this. I don't see that often cited in books of this nature. And I just want to know more about why you thought it was important and the role of empathy in creating your strategy.
Seth Godin
Okay, so we'll come back to games, but let's talk about empathy. Empathy is not weak, it's not soft. Empathy is effective. So if you're a standup comic and you insist on telling your jokes in Italian and the people in the room only speak English, it's not their fault that they don't think you're funny. It's your fault because you had no empathy for them. You insisted you were right. But they're the customer, it's a market. And they're not buying what you're selling because they don't understand Italian. So the empathy we need is to realize that the other people involved, our boss, our spouse, our kids, the car salesperson, all of these people don't know what we know, don't want what we want, don't see what we see. But if you want them to engage with you, you have to acknowledge that that's okay, right? That you're 15 year old who desperately wants to spend money you don't have to buy an outfit. They're doing it for reasons that they think make perfect sense. Because they don't see the world the way you see the world. They think college is going to pay for itself. Right? So what we get to do is teach people things so that they choose to change their mind. But we cannot insist that people change their mind because they won't.
Farnoosh Tarabi
It's fascinating as you're talking, you know, time game, empathy systems. It clearly illustrates the strategy that we always talk about on the show of like how to make more money, how to convince your employer to pay you more, or how to charge more in your company. You need to appreciate time because timing is important in that strategy. There are better times to ask than others. It is a game. There are chess pieces involved and the empathy piece shows up. I think when we talk about the importance of understanding, not just your needs and perspective, obviously you making more money, that's a win. But what is going to be the win for your employer? Why is this necessarily a good move for your employer? What do they need? And then of course, the systems. Systems. I'd love for you to unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by systems?
Seth Godin
This is so important. Let's talk about the most famous system of all, the solar system. Leaving Pluto out of it. There Are all these planets. And there's the sun. Everyone knows the Earth rotates around the sun. It doesn't do it because it wants to. It does it because of gravity. Gravity is an invisible force that pushes it. The wedding industrial complex is also a system. Your wedding should cost just as much as your best friend's wedding, but a little more. Right. That that system, which got put into place in the 100 years ago in this country, but is thousands of years old in lots of places, is about status, is about culture, is about fitting in. That wedding rings with diamonds in them are a hack invented by De Beers. Diamonds didn't used to be worth much at all. They built a system where the groom feels insufficient if they don't have enough money to buy a big enough ring that's built in. That's the gravity. So if you decide you'd rather put your kid through college than have an engagement ring, you're going to be pushing back against the big cultural system if we name it. It gets much easier to do if we see. True story. A friend of ours, someone I helped think about college and applying to college, got into two colleges. One college was sort of well known and one of the five most expensive undergraduate colleges in the country. The other college was a state school with a scholarship, basically free. Which one should you go to? Right. Well, the real question is do you want to graduate a quarter of a million dollars in debt or do you want to graduate having spent four years doing this thing and now you have a quarter of a million dollars that you didn't spend that you could go use to start a business or buy six BMWs. Right, that's the choice. But the system pushes the kid to say, well, this one's more famous, so that's where I'm going. And it's heartbreaking, but it happens every single day.
Farnoosh Tarabi
As the kid who chose the state school over the prestigious NYU and other expensive universities, I can attest to the heartbreak in the beginning, but the long term payoff. And in that example, Seth, you bring us to the next question that I had, which is that you talk about these conflicting desires that we have in many of these situations as we're trying to formulate strategy. And in this college example is perfect because it's like, okay, do I want affiliation? Do I want status? Do I want freedom from fear? We can't have it all, so how do we steer ourselves? What is the compass telling us in these cases? And why are these three desires? Because there's so many others.
Seth Godin
I don't think There are so many others. I think if you have health and a roof over your hat, family and food. Everyone wants three things. Freedom from the feeling of fear, affiliation, meaning fitting in being part of something, and status. Who eats lunch first, who's moving up, who has that kind of competitive peace of mind. What am I missing?
Farnoosh Tarabi
Joy. Happiness.
Seth Godin
Joy. Happiness and comfort come from affiliation and status. Right? They're like, I can't believe it. I'm with my family, I'm at Coney Island, I get to go on the roller coaster. It's a perfect day, right? Right. Well, yes, but it wasn't the vibration of the cyclone that gave you joy. It was the story you told yourself about the moment. So when we think about something as complicated and as expensive as picking a college affiliation, what am I going to tell my friends? Where are they going to school? Blah, blah, blah. Because notice, no one's thinking about going to school in Dublin if they live in New York. There are plenty of kids in Dublin who are thinking about going to school in Dublin. Well, we have airplanes, but people think about what their peers are thinking about. Status. What sticker is going to be on the back of the car? So part of what we need to do and why people like you, who have been showing up for so many years are so important is you give people permission to say it out loud. That if someone says, I'm going to this college because it was sunny on the day I visited, the tour guide was cute, and I want to go to a school with a football team, okay, fine, but at least say that out loud.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right?
Seth Godin
But don't come up with some complicated emotional thing that isn't true about why you're going there. You're going there because some buttons got pressed on a certain day, right?
Farnoosh Tarabi
You're asking us, Seth, to basically take a look at ourselves, which is really hard to do, and almost detach from all these pressures. This is not a self help book, but I almost feel like maybe we should pair it with like a psychology book or some therapy session.
Seth Godin
Well, all help is self help book, meaning the only person who's going to change your mind is you. And what I see at big companies, people running for president is a complete lack of strategy because we've been indoctrinated to do our job, to do the tactics, to try harder without saying, why am I playing a game I can't win? Right? So years ago I did a personal finance book. I created it, my name wasn't on it. And one of the things the author suggested is you do an inventory about how often you use your living room. Because in those days, the typical middle class family had a living room and never used it. Do you know how much a living room costs? A family that makes $80,000 a year? It costs millions of dollars to have a living room. So go buy a house without a living room. Right. And the it's really hard to do that and we need to understand why is it hard to do that. Status and affiliation. So let's just name them and then make a new plan. Because you can win a different game. Really? Well, you can live like a king or queen if you walk away from something like a living room or I grew up in Buffalo, New York. And you can buy seven houses in Buffalo, New York for what it costs to buy a house in certain neighborhoods of Long Island. Well, if you work from home. We need to have a real hard conversation with yourself about why you chose to live in a place that's going to determine your personal finance for the next 50 years. If you still want to live there, that's great. But at least let's talk about the strategy.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah.
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Farnoosh Tarabi
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Farnoosh Tarabi
Another behavioral trip up, perhaps, is that we try to just follow the Herd, there's this copy paste mentality to strategizing. And if you Google actually the word or the question, what is strategy? A top result, in addition to your book is a 1996 Harvard Business Review article that criticizes what a lot of businesses were doing at the time. And if you remember, 96 was the dawn of sort of Internet expansion and mass adoption. And what the journalist was saying was that right now we think strategy is operational effectiveness, and we think that it's using tools like total quality management and benchmarking. And what is lacking and what is ultimately the pitfall of this strategy is that there's no uniqueness in the strategy. It's just everybody's, you know, it's a race to the bottom. And so I wanted to ask you, how important is uniqueness in your strategy? If you're at a, if you feel like you're at a stall, a stalling place, like you have maybe figured out the game and you're, you've timed it, but you feel like, okay, this feels very similar to what others are doing. Is that a red flag?
Seth Godin
There are very, very few professions and organizations that should have an original, unique strategy. You are way better off. Let's say you're a small business. Find a small business out of town that doesn't compete with you geographically and just copy them and then make that better. You don't get any prizes for inventing a kind of sandwich shop that no one's ever had before. You get prizes for having a sandwich shop that's fun to work at, that makes a profit.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right.
Seth Godin
That if you have a locksmith, you don't want to invent a new way to market locksmiths. You want to find some other locksmith somewhere else in the world and do what they're doing because they already tested it for you. If you're an investor, you don't want to be the person who pioneers a new way to invest in the stock market. Do the math. Realize that, you know, cheap mutual funds are probably the way to go. Go copy that. That's different than what we need to do if we want to build a career, say as a freelancer or somebody who needs to build a practice, in that case, we need to be remarkable, not unique. Remarkable means worth making a remark about. So if your slogan at work when you're going to the boss for a raise is, you can pick anyone and I'm anyone, I do what you tell me to and I don't complain, you're not going to get a raise. That's A race to the bottom to comply more than everybody else. The alternative is to say, the work I do is worth talking about because it benefits you to brag to your boss or to brag to your coworkers that I am part of this thing that we're doing here. That's not unique, but it's remarkable that I'm the one who figured out how to do something better, different, that made my boss look good. That's the path to getting the kind of raise you probably deserve.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I like that.
Remarkable.
You also write about elegance, and I loved that because on this podcast, actually, one of the best pieces of advice that really resonated with me was a while back we had on this Hollywood director Kari Skoglin. She's directed the Handmaid's Tale, the Walking Dead, Americans, and she said, if you have the opportunity, work with elegant people. And similarly, you write in your book that the elegant path is the most useful way forward. Can you share Seth's definition of elegance in relation to strategy and how can we achieve this? I feel like sometimes it's just luck. You don't always get to choose who you get to work with or what you're facing. There are external factors.
Seth Godin
All right, let's leave that part, the luck part out for right now.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Okay.
Seth Godin
If you watch people swim in the Olympics, it's very different than if you watch the person at the local pool who's trying really, really, really hard. The person who's trying really, really hard is splashing a lot, but they're not going very fast. When you watch people swim in the Olympics, they just seem to magically go forward.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah.
Seth Godin
Because they have an elegant stroke. So I had a professor when I was in college, I was an engineer. He got hired by the developers of a 40 story building in Boston. These people had made a mistake when they built the building and all of the drywall, every time they painted it, stains came through and they would have to paint it again. And the inelegant solution is rip out all the drywall, start over. That's going to cost tens of millions of dollars. They went to Henry. Henry said, I will solve your problem for $40,000. So I signed a piece of paper and then he wrote down the name of a chemical and he walked out because he had the experience to know that if they put this chemical on the drywall, the problem was going to go away. His experience and insight led to better technique, which led to saving tens of millions of dollars. A barefoot runner looks like they're not trying very hard. But that's because they practiced for so long to be elegant at understanding the system. What makes a good surfer is they find better waves. That a great surfer on a choppy body of water doesn't look like a great surfer. The art is in finding better ways. So back to your friend, the director. There's always luck. That's not the question. The question is when. It's very difficult. When do you draw a line and do something that's hard now that creates the conditions for better later? Right. So if you're a director and the producer in the studio insists that you cast a mediocre person for the main role because they're sure that that's X, Y, or Z, it's not easy to say, if you put that person in, I'm quitting. But if you say that and you bring in this actor who ends up transforming the entire movie, people say, oh, they were really lucky. No, what they saw was a strategy forward, which is they're not going to get this to make this movie ever again. And here in this moment, they could trade a little bit of their status for a chance to invest in tomorrow.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right. I'm learning that elegance, it comes from experience. It's a gift sometimes of just experience. That swimmer who's swimming really hard but making a mess, maybe one day they will be elegant. And it's thanks to the practice in the pool.
Seth Godin
And lessons.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Mm.
Seth Godin
Lessons matter. He's. I've known this guy for 10 years. He's not a better swimmer than he ever was before. He needs a lesson. I don't have the guts to give it to.
Farnoosh Tarabi
But something. There's this book called Suck at Something, and it's all about, you know, hey, I mean, I'm terrible at tennis, but I love the ritual. I love the outfits. I like being out on the court. And as frustrating as it is for the other player because I can't get the ball over the net, I'm having a great time, and that is worth something.
Seth Godin
So I love hearing that. I want to share a book recommendation, which I almost never get to share.
Farnoosh Tarabi
What is that?
Seth Godin
Timothy Galway wrote a book called the Inner Game of Tennis.
Unnamed Advertiser
Okay.
Seth Godin
It is the single best sports advice book ever written. It's 50 years old. It will change it. I don't even play tennis. Yeah, it changed it. Changed my life. The inner game of tennis.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Game of tennis. Okay, interesting.
Seth Godin
Get back to let me know how it worked.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Thank you. You touched on delaying gratification. This is it. This is the thing, Seth. I mean, they. They've Done the studies. If you can delay gratification, you have a better chance at a lot of, a lot of success in many realms of life. It's the hardest requirement of creating a viable and healthy system. Would you say, do you think this is it? This is like you can conquer this, you can master this, it's okay.
Seth Godin
So I got stuck on the word system, but it is critical. Let's talk about the marshmallow test.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah.
Seth Godin
Do listeners know about this?
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yes.
Seth Godin
Okay. The short version, it's Stanford Kindergarten, nursery school. You got three year olds. This feels really cool. But they did it. And they say to a three year old, here's a marshmallow. I'm leaving the room for 20 minutes. If I come back and you haven't eaten it, I'll give you two marshmallows. That's the deal. Turns out most kids eat the marshmallow, but the kids who wait 20 years later have higher income, higher job satisfaction, lower obesity, went to more famous colleges, better career opportunities. Everyone said, wow, this is very, very important. We need to train kids to not eat the marshmallow. And self restraint is everything. So it always struck me the wrong way and I've written a bunch of times about this. If you grow up in a house where there isn't enough food, you are used to adults not keeping their promises, right? And the right thing is to take the marshmallow because why should you trust this adult who's going to say he's going to come back with two that it's not that we're born with self restraint and grit, it's that we learn it from an environment around us. Turns out in a follow up study, kids in Cameroon do much better than almost any other country. Not because Cameroon is rich, but because Cameroon parenting on subsistence farms, a lot of it is about self control, right? So now you're 40, what are you going to do? You didn't grow up in a two marshmallow household. You can create the conditions to learn to be like that. You can start with easy things. You can figure out where you're going to get the little zing of a treat every day. That doesn't satisfy the system that's manipulating you. Go do that somewhere else. Right? Like have no discipline when it comes to playing one more round of Scrabble on your computer. Fine, that costs nobody anything. But when you're at the credit, when you're at the store with a credit card, that's the moment when we need the credit card to go back in your wallet. That's the marshmallow test right there. You can create conditions, coaches, support groups, none of which cost any money. Where like in that moment you could call up your friend or text her and say, great news, I didn't do. I didn't buy the extra thing. Because right now the system is built that you get an emoji smile back when you say, look at the cute shoes I just bought. We need the opposite to happen. We need scaffolding to reinforce self control.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Does this advice also track when we're talking about systems that are corrupt or broken? And there's large systemic systems, right? So we're talking about the housing market, the economic system. Within that there's racism, there's discrimination. And so just thoughts on that because you know, rerouting that seems almost impossible.
Seth Godin
Okay, so all systems are corrupt and all systems are broken for some people, right? So the system persists because the system is happy to persist. Right? That there are people who want maximum security prisons to be the way they are because they are part of the system and they benefit from that. The status quo rewards them. Systems that stick around are good at sticking around that the challenges in our country in due to colonialism and racism, status challenges of caste, challenges of income inequality, they're not there because the people in charge are evil. They're there because the status quo is good at reinforcing false proxies to keep people in the system making choices. So what we don't get to do is announce that a system is broken and fix it tomorrow. What we can do is build right next to that new systems, but also use the system against itself to cause it to change. Because the system doesn't actually want there to be things like caste, systems of caste and racism. What it wants is status and affiliation. It wants a feeling of safety. It wants to make a profit. Well, the minute they can do that by ensuring that there's clean water in Flint, Michigan, it will instantly. So the jiu jitsu here is to understand where are the nodes in the system, what are they measuring, how are they determining what to say yes to? And then how do we create the conditions for the system to create a different output, one that actually benefits us?
Farnoosh Tarabi
You've given us a lot of great prompts and this is part of the book as well. It's very poetic. There are a lot of metaphors. It's philosophical. But there are also some questions and prompts that you offer readers so that they can start to think more strategically. One of which is what is the fear that I'm eagerly Creating by showing up with my change. This stopped me because I just wrote a book about fear. I'm obsessed with fear. I think it can be used for greatness if we know and have the tools. But do you think that we can use fear to develop a good strategy in our financial lives, in our careers? And how so how can we implement fear wisely?
Seth Godin
Well, you're the expert, so I'm a little hesitant to much, but you should add to what I'm saying. What I'm trying to get at is this. If you want to make a change happen of any kind, you are going to create fear in someone else and probably fear in yourself. We're all afraid. You know, you're moving to a nicer house. You're afraid in that moment, even though you sacrificed to do it. If you go to your boss and ask her for a raise, you are creating fear in her because she's saying to herself, either what if I say no and she quits? Or she's saying to herself, what if I say yes and my boss is mad at me? You created fear by asking that question. So if you're not willing to create fear and tension, nothing's going to change in your life. And if the change you seek to make is important enough, then you can create the fear on purpose. And that doesn't mean you make a threat. It just means you acknowledge this is happening. The same way, if you're running a restaurant, it makes sense to have some of the smells from the kitchen go into the dining room because people will be hungrier before the food comes. Right. So how do you make it so that the conditions are such that when the fear shows up for your boss, the easiest thing in the world for her, to make her feel good is to give you that raise. That's what the project is. That's the game.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I like that. I like that. I agree. When if you're not scared, you're not doing it right. That's the short answer. So to close here, Seth, you know, so last time you were on so Money, it was. It aired in February of 2015, and we talked about money and what it means to be rich. In your words. You said rich is being able to afford choices. You said everyone who's listening to this show is rich to the extent that they have a computer, they have the time to listen to a podcast. And those two things by themselves make us richer than anyone on earth dreamed of being 200 years ago. Does that still sound right to you and have you, in 10 years revisited this sort of notion of wealth and richness. Given that we've had a few events in between, including the pandemic and insurrection elections, other events.
Seth Godin
Sometimes when people quote back things I said, I don't remember saying them. And I disagree. I remember saying this and I agree. What I would add to it as a 64 year old is this America got hung up for a whole bunch of complicated reasons on actual money that could be counted. And I think the other kind of rich is way more important and that is the things that cannot be counted but they can be felt. That you made a contribution, that people would miss you if you were gone, that you love and are loved. And I think that matters a lot more.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Thank you. Thank you, Seth. This was wonderful.
Seth Godin
You're the best. I can't wait. We're not going to wait 10 years, I promise.
Farnoosh Tarabi
No, we're not. We are not. Congratulations. This is strategy.
Thanks so much to Seth Godin for joining us. His book is called this is Strategy. The link is in the show Notes.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.
Leave a review, share it with a friend. It is the best way to support this show. I'll see you back here on Wednesday where we're going to be in conversation with my friend Hannah Cole, who is the founder of Sunlight Tax, but we're having her on to talk about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Hannah and her family live in Asheville, North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene has left a trail of destruction. Hannah's Art Gallery, with over 10 years of work was completely destroyed. Hear how she's supporting her community and what we can do do to show up for everyone who's suffering right now from the impact of these storms.
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Podcast Summary: So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
Episode 1757: How to Reduce Money Stress with Strategic Thinking – Insights from Seth Godin
Release Date: December 4, 2024
Guest: Seth Godin – Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur, and Marketing Thought Leader
Host: Farnoosh Torabi
Farnoosh Torabi celebrates the 10-year anniversary of So Money by reuniting with one of her heroes, Seth Godin. She reminisces about Seth's previous appearance in 2015, where he shared profound insights on wealth and richness, and sets the stage for their current discussion centered around strategy.
Seth Godin emphasizes that strategy is often misunderstood, typically misconstrued as a domain exclusive to MBAs or military generals. According to Seth, strategy is not about tactics or enforcing actions but rather a philosophy of becoming.
Seth Godin [04:15]: "Strategy is completely misunderstood. People think it's for MBAs or for generals and they think it has to do with tactics or forcing somebody to do something they don't want to do. It's none of those things."
He likens strategy to a compass rather than a map, guiding individuals and organizations in the right direction without prescribing every step.
Seth Godin [05:17]: "Our strategy is a compass. It's not a Map. It's not going to tell you all the steps, but it's going to ask you hard questions about what are the directions that make sense and why."
Using the analogy of a chess player losing every game, Seth critiques how individuals often lose in personal finance due to a lack of strategic understanding, manipulated by larger financial institutions.
Seth Godin [06:05]: "An individual consumer is losing. They are losing the game because they don't understand the strategy of what money is for."
He highlights that personal finance stress stems from conflicting desires, such as wanting immediate gratification while also seeking long-term financial security, exacerbated by marketing tactics.
Seth Godin [06:33]: "A lot of personal finance stress comes from wanting two things at the same time."
Seth underscores empathy as a critical, often overlooked component of strategy. Understanding others' perspectives is vital for effective engagement and change.
Seth Godin [08:27]: "Empathy is not weak, it's not soft. Empathy is effective."
He explains how systems, whether natural like the solar system or societal like the wedding industry, influence our strategies and decisions.
Seth Godin [10:42]: "Gravity is an invisible force that pushes it. The wedding industrial complex is also a system."
Seth differentiates between being unique and being remarkable. He advises that rather than striving for uniqueness, individuals and businesses should aim to be remarkable—valuable and noteworthy enough to be talked about.
Seth Godin [23:02]: "You are way better off... if you have a slogan at work... you're not going to get a raise. That's a race to the bottom to comply more than everybody else. The alternative is... remarkable."
Elegance, as defined by Seth, stems from experience and mastery. It's about finding better, more efficient ways to solve problems, leading to significant savings and improvements.
Seth Godin [25:55]: "The person who's trying really, really hard is splashing a lot, but they're not going very fast. When you watch people swim in the Olympics, they just seem to magically go forward because they have an elegant stroke."
Seth critiques the traditional interpretation of the marshmallow test, emphasizing that delayed gratification is largely a learned behavior influenced by one's environment.
Seth Godin [30:18]: "It’s not that we’re born with self restraint and grit, it’s that we learn it from an environment around us."
He advocates creating conditions that reinforce self-control, especially in financial decisions, to combat systemic manipulation.
Addressing larger systemic issues like racism and income inequality, Seth discusses how existing systems persist by rewarding the status quo. He recommends building alongside existing systems and leveraging them to enact change.
Seth Godin [33:26]: "All systems are corrupt and all systems are broken for some people... Systems that stick around are good at sticking around."
Seth explains that fear is an inherent part of initiating change. Instead of avoiding fear, one should acknowledge it and use it strategically to drive desired outcomes.
Seth Godin [35:59]: "If you're not willing to create fear and tension, nothing's going to change in your life."
Reflecting on his previous conversation, Seth expands the concept of richness beyond financial metrics to include intangible aspects like love, contribution, and meaningful relationships.
Seth Godin [38:23]: "The other kind of rich is way more important and that is the things that cannot be counted but they can be felt."
The episode concludes with Farnoosh and Seth expressing their mutual respect and anticipation for future collaborations. Seth's latest book, This is Strategy, is highlighted, and listeners are encouraged to explore his insights further.
Notable Quotes:
Seth Godin [05:37]: "Do you want to graduate a quarter of a million dollars in debt or do you want to graduate having spent four years doing this thing...."
Seth Godin [08:27]: "Empathy is not weak, it's not soft. Empathy is effective."
Seth Godin [23:02]: "Remarkable means worth making a remark about."
Seth Godin [30:18]: "You can create the conditions to learn to be like that."
Seth Godin [35:59]: "If you're not willing to create fear and tension, nothing's going to change in your life."
Key Takeaways:
Redefining Strategy: Strategy is a guiding philosophy, not merely tactical operations. It serves as a compass for personal and financial decisions.
Empathy and Systems: Understanding others' perspectives and the systems at play is crucial for effective strategy formulation.
Remarkability Over Uniqueness: Striving to be remarkable—offering value that stands out—is more beneficial than being uniquely different without substance.
Elegance Through Mastery: Achieving elegance in solutions comes from experience and the ability to streamline processes efficiently.
Delaying Gratification: Building environments that support delayed gratification can significantly enhance financial stability and personal growth.
Leveraging Fear: Acknowledging and strategically using fear can catalyze meaningful change and progress.
Holistic Wealth: True richness encompasses both tangible and intangible assets, including relationships, love, and personal contributions.
Resources Mentioned:
Seth Godin's Book: This is Strategy – A deep dive into creating meaningful and effective strategies in various aspects of life.
Recommended Reading: The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galway – A book praised by Seth for its profound impact on personal development and strategy.
Join the Conversation:
Farnoosh invites listeners to subscribe, leave reviews, and share the episode to support the show. Upcoming episodes will feature discussions on community support and resilience in the face of natural disasters.
This episode offers a rich exploration of strategic thinking in personal finance and beyond, providing listeners with actionable insights to reduce money-related stress and achieve meaningful growth.