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  • Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

  • and life you love.

  • And today you are in for such a treat because my guest is one of the most insightful and

  • honest and prolific teachers of our time.

  • Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the

  • world, and a maker of ruckuses.

  • He’s been on the internet since 1976, invented permission based email, founded two significant

  • net companies, and defines his working life by the many projects he’s launched, the

  • failures he has learned from, and the people he’s taught.

  • His latest is the altMBA, an intense workshop that helps people level up in a way that truly

  • lasts.

  • Find out more about the course at altMBA.com.

  • You can learn more about Seth and his blog by typing Seth into Google.

  • Seth, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

  • I want to say before we get into the interview, thank you for your body of work over the years.

  • You have made such a tremendous impact on me personally, on my team, on so many people

  • that I know, and I think you and I both share a tremendous love of books and I want you

  • to know that any time I ever find myself feeling like a little stuck or in self doubt or just

  • any stage of going, like, “Ugh.”

  • I reach into my bookshelf and undoubtedly yours is one of the books that comes out to

  • get me back on track.

  • That’s so nice of you to say.

  • It’s the truth.

  • And I want you to

  • Thank you.

  • That means the world to me.

  • I want you to hear it.

  • Now, you said something in your most recent book that I thought was brilliant.

  • In Your Turn, you think that were wasting the chance of a lifetime.

  • So what do you mean by that and what can we do to stop?

  • To not do it?

  • There’s the external thing and the internal thing.

  • The external thing is this is our revolution.

  • We live in this moment of time when anyone with a hundred bucks can connect to a billion

  • and a half people around the world any time they want to.

  • We live in this place where we each have more leverage and a bigger platform than any human

  • on earth ever had before us.

  • And internally, if not this moment, when?

  • Right?

  • That if were not gonna speak up now are things gonna be easier or better a year from

  • now?

  • We wait for things to calm down, we wait for it to be the right moment, but this is the

  • right moment.

  • That wewe look back a year in our life, 5 years ago, and we rarely say I’m disappointed

  • that I spoke up.

  • I’m disappointed that I did my art.

  • I’m disappointed that I connected to somebody.

  • We don't.

  • What we regret is not doing that.

  • So here we are in this moment of high leverage and all we can do is watch cat videos and

  • whine about our boss and I just

  • I think we can do better than that.

  • I agree.

  • And one thing that I appreciate about you, you know, we got to spend some time together

  • on Necker Island and I also wanted to say this.

  • You know, having admired your work for so long and who you are, youre one of those

  • people who’s like a hundred times better in real life than you are even in your work,

  • and your work is freaking extraordinary.

  • And one of the things that I remember most about spending time with you there was how

  • challenging you were in the best sense of that word.

  • Like, “Marie, you should sit at the front of the table.

  • Marie, you should do that.”

  • And I was like, “What’s…?

  • Oh my God, Seth Godin is telling me what to do,” and I loved every second of it because

  • it was done in such a spirit of, “Hey, it’s your turn.

  • Go ahead.

  • Go do it, girl.”

  • And I love that.

  • And that’s why I love that book Your Turn.

  • Well, one thing I want to just insert as an aside because I’m told 5 or 10 of your fans

  • will be watching this?

  • Is in real life, youre exactly as you appear on TV.

  • Like, it’s not an act that this generous, connected person is actually a generous, connected

  • person.

  • Thank you.

  • So I thought people might want to know that because they didn't get the chance to meet

  • you the way I did.

  • Thank you.

  • So a question that we get often here is from people who are struggling to figure out what

  • should I do with my life?

  • How do I find my passion or my purpose or my calling?

  • And youve said I’m not sure that anyone has a calling.

  • Can you speak to that?

  • Thank you for teeing this up.

  • This whole calling, passion thing is complete nonsense.

  • It’s… as Steven Pressfield would call it, the resistance.

  • Yes.

  • That van Gogh, if he had been born 20 years later or 20 years earlier, he wouldn’t have

  • done what he did.

  • It’s not like he... some angel came down when he was born and said, “Youre going

  • to become an impressionistic painter.”

  • He wanted to do a thing but he didn't know what the thing was.

  • And if Steve Jobs had been born 20 years earlier, he would have done a different thing.

  • This isn’t about waiting for the right answer.

  • Because there is no right answer.

  • What there are are challenges we can sign up for and emotions we can experience.

  • There are kinds of engagements we can seek out and ones that we don't want to.

  • If you're the kind of person that only feels good when all the chips are in red 86, well

  • then you need to go find that kind of activity.

  • If you're the kind of person that would rather have a small circle of people who are committed

  • to you for a long time, find any variation of those activities.

  • But if youre waiting for the perfect horse on that carousel to come around, youve

  • missed 3, 4, 5, 7 cycles while youre  waiting.

  • All the horses are just as good.

  • It’s the same carousel.

  • Just get on the damn horse.

  • I love that.

  • I… when I first started my career and I was starting to do life coaching and I was

  • starting to get into dance and fitness, I remember feeling when I was in front of a

  • fitness classroom and teaching, you know, people doing bicep curls or we were doing

  • hip-hop dance.

  • There’s a lot of that same feeling that I get even doing what I do now.

  • Like, connecting with people.

  • Even, honestly, bartending and making people drinks and talking to them about their meals

  • and, like, asking them who they are and getting to know them and their dreams.

  • There was so many threads that I havenow can see in hindsight where it was me being

  • me.

  • And who knows what’s gonna happen in another 20 or 30 years or

  • And this is where the grass is greener thing gets us into so much trouble.

  • Because, you know, you have a sensational life, but so do some fitness instructors and

  • so do some bartenders.

  • Yes.

  • Your life doesn't get more sensational when you have more followers on Twitter.

  • That’s not what you ought to be keeping score of.

  • It’s does this interaction leave behind a trail that I’m proud of?

  • And does having the interaction make me glad that I did it and want to do it again?

  • And, you know, so I know people who run nonprofits and some of them are big and some of them

  • are small and theyre getting equal amounts of satisfaction because bigger isn’t the

  • point.

  • More isn’t the point.

  • Yes.

  • And when we, you know, are there bad ideas?

  • There are tons of bad ideas.

  • I’m not saying all ideas are equally good.

  • What I’m saying is finding a thing that works is sufficient and that’s the challenge.

  • So entrepreneurs, for example.

  • Too many entrepreneurs think that there’s a prize for originality.

  • There’s no prize for originality at all.

  • You should steal a different person’s idea.

  • You should bring something that worked in Detroit to Cleveland because you don't have

  • to worry about apologizing and saying, “Well, yeah, I went to a muffin store in Detroit

  • that works so I brought it to Cleveland.”

  • So what?

  • What matters is now there’s someone in Cleveland who’s engaging with you, buying something

  • from you that gives both of you pleasure.

  • And there are so many places where we need more of something.

  • No one’s asking you to be that person who invents something that never existed before.

  • What were asking you to do is choose to matter in a way that aligns with who you want

  • to be.

  • Yeah.

  • And I think it’s also important to talk about this idea how you do things matters.

  • You know, thinking about the bartending days.

  • We were having lunch before, all the people on the crew, were just recalling folks,

  • like there was a valet person who I met in Venice in California.

  • This guy was amazing and he brought such light to what he did and lit upand I’m still

  • talking about him and this is years later.

  • But the level of excellence and joy.

  • And someone else was talking about these two pizza guys, like the banter they would do

  • makes you want to go into the pizza store again and again.

  • It wasn’t even the best pizza, but you just had this quality of interaction and I think

  • so many people miss that looking for the holy grail of a perfect purpose.

  • Right.

  • And what theyre actually looking for is a way to hide by saying I’m looking for

  • the perfect purpose.

  • I went to business school with a guy who said he was waiting for the right moment to start

  • his entrepreneurial venture.

  • That was 27 years ago.

  • Wow.

  • Right?

  • That I started so many bad ones along the way, but sooner or later youre going to

  • stumble into one that you're glad you did.

  • Yeah.

  • So you run one of the most popular blogs in the world.

  • We all love it.

  • You publish every day and youve said it’s one of the top 5 career decisions youve

  • ever made.

  • Why?

  • Even if no one read it, I would blog every day.

  • I think everyone should do so.

  • And here’s the reason.

  • If you know that tomorrow you have to say something about something you noticed, about

  • something that might help someone else, about an opinion you have that might stand the test

  • of time, you will form those opinions, you will notice those things, you will invent

  • that idea.

  • And if day after day week after week you leave this trail behind of thoughtful examination

  • of your world, you can’t help but get better at whatever it is you seek to do.

  • And if as a byproduct other people read it and trust you more, that’s a jackpot.

  • Right?

  • My goal is not to have more readers.

  • My goal is not to sell more books.

  • My goal is to be trusted in a way that I can make the change that I seek to have happen

  • in the world.

  • Return on trust.

  • How do you gain permission to talk to people in a way that they want to be talked to?

  • You don't do that with SEO and with gaming social media strategies.

  • You do that by showing up in a way that you’d want someone to show up for you.

  • And I still don't understand why people don't do this.

  • I thinknot that I’ll get the answer right, but I wanted to ask this on behalf

  • of I know so many people who will be like, “Marie, please ask him this.”

  • What I know from my interaction with our audience is sometimes people feel so afraid of being

  • judged or theyre going to run out of ideas.

  • Yeah, they should.

  • Yeah.

  • Those are all the things.

  • Being judged sucks.

  • Right?

  • So write it under somebody else’s name.

  • Right?

  • Thatcall yourself anything you want.

  • Talan Stone writing this blog.

  • No one knows on the internet if youre a dog.

  • You just post every day and you can’t possibly get in trouble because it’s not you.

  • And after youve done it for 6 weeks, you know what youre gonna do?

  • Youre gonna put your name on it because youre so proud of what youre creating.

  • Are you gonna run out of ideas?

  • Well, here’s my thought on this.

  • I write like I talk.

  • And nobody I know gets talkers block.

  • Nobody.

  • No one wakes up and goesunable to speak.

  • So if you write like you talk, don't worry.

  • Because you haven’t run out of things to say yet, so you won't run out of things to

  • blog.

  • Do you ever in your own mind, because youve been doing this how many years now have you

  • been blogging, roughly?

  • Well, before it was called a blog I would say the first email newsletter went out in

  • 1990.

  • I love that.

  • So 26 years or so.

  • That is so awesome.

  • I remember when I first started doing email marketing it was like 1999, 2000 and it was

  • woah and, like, PDFs, ebooks, that was like mind blowing.

  • It was so cool.

  • Isn’t that great?

  • So few people saw what you saw.

  • That, you know, they went ahead and they bought stock in bookstores and they went ahead and

  • thought, “This just has to keep going in the direction it’s going.”

  • In hindsight, once you put words and then video onto the internet, it has to change

  • everything.

  • Our culture was based on scarce TV channels, scarce spectrum, scarce bookshelf space, and

  • we blew up all 3 of those.

  • And of course it’s changing.

  • Right?

  • All the way up to presidential politics.

  • It changes everything when you take the scarcity away.

  • And the amazing thing is it’s happening in all of our lifetimes.

  • Usually a change like this, Gutenberg comes out with this thing, Gutenberg’s thing didn't

  • change most of the world for decades.

  • Right?

  • It enabled Martin Luther and ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

  • But it takes a long time.

  • This happens like that.

  • Yeah.

  • I’m always thinking in my mind, like what is 2030 or 2035 gonna look like?

  • I get fascinated with, like, the Ray Kurzweil and all that stuff and I can go deep down

  • that rabbit hole.

  • But it is, it’s a really exciting time.

  • So curious, if that was one of the top 5 career decisions, is there any others?

  • Well, I think that I adopted a practice of intentionally seeking out things I was wrong

  • about.

  • And I learned this the hard way, it cost me over a hundred billion dollars, which is a

  • lot of money.

  • That’s a lot of money.

  • So I was on the internet before there was a world wide web and when the web came along

  • I said this is stupid.

  • It’s just like Prodigy, which most people here don't even know what that was.

  • That was before AOL, it was an online service.

  • Just like Prodigy except it’s slower and there’s no business model.

  • Itll never work.

  • And so for months my internet company didn't have a website, didn't buy up all the cool

  • domains.

  • Business.com went for 7 million dollars, we could have bought it for 10…

  • 10 dollars.

  • And we didn't do any of the things that wouldve helped us a lot because I believed it didn't

  • make sense.

  • So I have adopted this practice of on a regular basis finding a topic that I’m sure about

  • and describing out loud to a trusted person why I’m wrong.

  • Taking the other side.

  • Arguing in detail what could happen that would make me wrong.

  • And what it is helping me with is not becoming wishy washy and never making a decision, but

  • every once in a while feeling that feeling, and it almost makes a noise when you do it

  • of the brain flipping to a different way of looking at the world.

  • And that flipping is essential if we live in revolutionary times, and I think we do

  • now.

  • So an example, I have spent time with people in the record business.

  • And when you talk to someone 10 or 15 years ago in the record business about how it was

  • all gonna end and it did end, like 2 years ago.

  • They would just yell at you and argue with you and throw you out of the office.

  • I’d been thrown out of some great offices.

  • But every once in awhile youll see someone say back to you your words as if they believe

  • them.

  • And every once in awhile theyll go, “Yeah,” and then you can just hear the noise.

  • And that person now can just clear the table because all their competitors don't believe

  • it and they do and that is a really useful practice in small and in the big.

  • So do you find yourself doing that regularly when youre considering taking on a project

  • or looking at what you want to do next?

  • You know, I am not a good role model for how to take on the next project.

  • I spend way too much time in the pre-committal stage.

  • What do you mean?

  • Well, so I wrote a book called The Dip, which is all about why quitting is a useful tactic,

  • but that you should never quit when it gets hard.

  • Don't quit your gym in February if you joined in January.

  • If youre gonna do that, don't even join.

  • Right?

  • But quit before you start or quit once youve realized it’s a dead end.

  • But quitting in the key moment is the wrong idea.

  • Well, quitting before you start means outline the plan, act as if, describe what could happen,

  • and then youre either in, in which case youre in to the end, or youre not.

  • And in that moment, it’s really easy to just let it sit.

  • And sometimes I let it sit too long because I’m afraid because I don't want to commit

  • 3, 5, 7 years of my life to building a thing.

  • Right?

  • And sometimes I lit it sit because I don't see it clearly enough.

  • And sometimes I let it sit because, in fact, it was a bad idea.

  • Right?

  • And other people are better at pulling the trigger and saying go.

  • I used to be better at it, but as the stakes have risen and as the amount of time I have

  • to spend a decade on a project goes down, I’m more hesitant to commit, and that’s

  • not necessarily a good practice.

  • I need to get back into that spirit of how do I pick among three and really commit?

  • And go for it.

  • Let’s talk productivity, since were kind of going right around there, and your ability

  • to devote time to things that matter.

  • So there are times for me, like, for example, we were talking off camera before we sat on

  • set about how, like, earlier this particular year for me was crushing.

  • Like, there

  • I just got buried.

  • There was B-School, we launched a new website, I was doing this Oprah talk, and I remember

  • I heard the Oprah talk was great.

  • Thank you.

  • I’ll send you a link.

  • But my email was out of

  • I felt horrible because I care about people and it was just like this long, you know,

  • I’m like, “Oh, God, somebody help me.”

  • And I’m curious to hear from you over the years, even if it’s current or before, how

  • you manage?

  • Because youre such a thoughtful person, you create so much, and as our world continues

  • to get more connected and there’s more kind of avenues in.

  • I know youre not on Twitter and you keep comments off, so that’s one thing.

  • But even email, how do you manage to not get buried by it?

  • And even broader in all your projects, you know, making sure that you have the time for

  • your creative thinking but also for Helene and for the kids.

  • Alright, so there’s boxes within boxes within boxes, so let me try to decode it a little

  • bit.

  • The first thing I’ll say is that productivity is an economic measure of how much you output

  • for the amount of time and resources you put in.

  • Some people have figured out how to be naturally more productive than others per minute, and

  • the way you do that is by having an instinct to ship, not an instinct to polish, to be

  • perfect, to justify youre not shipping.

  • That most people hesitate to ship not because it’s not ready but because theyre afraid.

  • So I did a poster about a year ago called buzzer management.

  • Well put a link to it below.

  • That’s how you win at Jeopardy.

  • The people who win at Jeopardy aren’t better than the people who lose at Jeopardy except

  • in one thing, they press the buzzer before anybody else.

  • And the only way to press the buzzer before everyone else is to press the buzzer before

  • youre sure you know the answer.

  • So as your brain is thinking maybe I can get itnow you press the buzzer.

  • And in that last moment youre going to come up with something.

  • Right?

  • So you agreed to do your Oprah talk.

  • Was it done the day you agreed to do it?

  • Oh, hell no.

  • But you pressed the buzzer.

  • I did.

  • Right?

  • You pressed the buzzer, which is going to requireso do I have a blog post coming

  • out tomorrow?

  • I do.

  • I actually pressed the buzzer 10 years ago.

  • So I know that’s gonna happen.

  • So I’m apparently super productive because I’m good at buzzer management.

  • I’m good at saying I have this much time and there will be a thing when I’m done.

  • Most people hesitate to do that because theyre afraid.

  • So that’s the first thing I’ll say.

  • Secondly is once youve been busy pressing the buzzer, now you have to say to yourself,

  • What am I not going to do in order to be able to do that?”

  • So this is about making promises and keeping them.

  • So I’m not going to say to somebody please go ahead, engage with me in this level and

  • I will get back to you, because maybe I can’t.

  • I don't go to meetings.

  • I don't watch television.

  • So right there I save 7 hours that most people waste every single day.

  • That 7 hours gives me a lot of space to do things that make me seem insanely productive.

  • Right?

  • Because I’m not doing these other things.

  • Other people really should go to meetings.

  • Other people really should watch TV.

  • That will make them productive in the way they seek to be productive.

  • I'm just saying you pick.

  • So Twitter was easy for me because I said to myself, if I’m going to do Twitter I

  • should commit to it.

  • There’s a dip.

  • And if I commit I should figure out how to be really good at it.

  • If I’m gonna be really good at it, I’m going to have to give up something else.

  • So what do I want to be less good at that I’m good at now so I could be good at Twitter?

  • And I looked at what I thought would be the upsides of that and I said, “I don't wanna

  • give up anything I’m good at to be good at Twitter.”

  • Done.

  • And I never have reconsidered it since because I don't need to.

  • And there are other areas where I have said, you know what?

  • I’m going to give up this part of my thing to do that thing instead.

  • But we have to acknowledge we have finite resources, finite time, finite connection.

  • How will we use them to produce outcomes that were proud of?

  • And the worst thing to do, in the words of Zig Ziglar, are to be a wandering generality.

  • What you need to be is a meaningful specific.

  • That means you have to claim it, you have to put yourself on the spot, you have to make

  • a promise and say I do this.

  • You can count on me.

  • That’s what youre gonna get from me.

  • I love it.

  • Ok, any email tips from you?

  • Because that

  • The most important email tip.

  • Tell me.

  • Do not send Seth Godin email.

  • Yeah.

  • I mean, you know that

  • Just don't send me email.

  • Don’t.

  • That’s the most important tip.

  • I love it.

  • Like, let’s just leave it right there.

  • That’s perfect.

  • There you go.

  • Disappointments and setbacks.

  • So they come up with work, they come up with business, they come up with our life.

  • And I feel like one of the themes that I’ve seen throughout your work over the years is

  • having people be really comfortable with failures and setbacks and all the twists and turns.

  • Can you talk a little bit about that journey?

  • We have a lot of people in our audience who are just starting out.

  • I feel like there’s so much fear about if they fail or if things are going to flop and

  • you always have such a great point of view on it.

  • I used to think that Monopoly was a good board game and I, in fact, invented Godin Monopoly,

  • which you can find the rules for online.

  • But I thought it was good.

  • At one point, my kids and I were so good at it we could play it in the car without the

  • board.

  • We just knew where all the properties were and we would roll the dice in our head and

  • do the whole thing.

  • Wow.

  • Monopoly is not a good board game.

  • I’ve come to that conclusion.

  • But there’s a good lesson here and the lesson is this: unless youre 4 years old if you

  • lose at Monopoly I think you realize it’s not personal.

  • Right?

  • It was a game.

  • You didn't get the rolls you needed, maybe you made a couple of strategy mistakes, but

  • you can play again tomorrow.

  • It's not about you.

  • Don't have a tantrum.

  • Don't turn the board over and don't beat yourself up.

  • It’s just a game.

  • So what if we take that mindset, which is very adult and very mature and works for us,

  • and apply it to what happens if your book proposal doesn't get sold or apply it to what

  • happens if no one responds to the comment you posted under this thing.

  • In all of these things.

  • You didn't get a promotion.

  • Well, that’s a little bit like landing on Park Place when someone else has an apartment

  • there.

  • Sorry, but it’s not necessarily about you.

  • We are playing this game with 1.5234 billion other people, moving pieces around, contributing,

  • investing, sometimes landing on other properties, figuring out what to roll next.

  • Right?

  • If you can look at it that way, the question is will you be better at the game or will

  • you be worse at the game?

  • And what we know is, you will be better at the game.

  • You will be better at the game because you can approach it with joy and you can approach

  • it without being locked up in intense fear.

  • Right?

  • And so isn’t that the goal, to be better at the game?

  • Yes.

  • So we can be mindful, we can be present, we can breathe and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

  • And that answer, that’s interesting, is so much better than, “Oh my God, I’m never

  • getting it and then that’s gonna happen and that’s gonna happen and that’s gonna

  • happen and then I’m gonna be dead.”

  • Because we all fear being dead, but we don't have to fear being dead every time the phone

  • rings.

  • Every time we get the little tweet sound, it actually isn’t fatal.

  • So don't act like it’s fatal.

  • I love it.

  • You have a recent post called The Momentum Myth and so I want to talk books and launches

  • and consistency for a moment.

  • I loved the graphic, well put it up here, the cumulative sales from your recent book

  • It’s Your Turn.

  • And you wrote, “Fast starts are never as important as a cultural hook, consistently

  • showing up, and committing to a process.”

  • So many folks that I get a chance to interact with, I feel like theyre like I want it

  • now and I’m like you have no idea how long it takes.

  • So I was wondering if you could speak to

  • So let’s talk about the worst name ever for an internet company: Kickstarter.

  • It should be called KickFinisher.

  • Because people, like, come up with some cool idea, they put it on Kickstarter, and they

  • hassle every single person they know to get whatever promo they can.

  • It’s urgent, it’s urgent, it’s urgent.

  • That’s not how it works.

  • You actually start 4 years, 6 years beforehand.

  • You build a network.

  • You pay it forward into the community.

  • You are trusted, you are liked.

  • And then the Kickstarter is easy because you just whisper to people, “Oh, yeah.

  • You know me and the thing I do?

  • It’s ready.”

  • That’s the end.

  • It wasn’t the big launch, it’s the big finish because it’s the end.

  • So the Kickstarter I did for Icarus and the others, we hit our goal in 180 minutes because

  • I took 10 years actually before I pressed the button, not 10 minutes.

  • Right?

  • Yes.

  • And so this approach that we have in social media of, and we learned it from NPR.

  • Right?

  • So NPR, were listening on drivetime and they come out and basically they say if you

  • don't pull over and send us 50 dollars now were going off the air in 7 minutes.

  • Like it’s an emergency.

  • That’s the only way they know how to raise money from us on the air.

  • So we think that’s what we have to do with when we launch anything.

  • When we have a new tweet or when we write a new book.

  • Emergency!

  • Emergency!

  • Everyone go get it right now.

  • But when we look at the people we admire, the Brene Browns and the Gretchen Rubins and

  • people like you, that’s not how they did it.

  • None of them.

  • None of them did it this way.

  • So it turns out the long way is the shortcut.

  • Seth, you have such a fantastic phrase around raising kids called raising free-range kids.

  • Can you tell us about what that means?

  • So I did a free ebook that turned into a TED talk, TEDX talk, called Stop Stealing Dreams.

  • And the idea is we fail to ask a key question as taxpayers, as parents, as educators, and

  • the question is what is school for?

  • We keep running this multibillion dollar operation, trillion dollar operation, but we don't ask

  • what it’s for.

  • I know what it used to be for.

  • What it used to be for was to train obedient factory workers.

  • We didn't have enough, so we built this system on purpose to train kids to sit for 9 hours,

  • to do what they were told, to learn how to use a number 2 pencil, and on and on and on.

  • And it worked.

  • We got plenty of factory workers who were compliant, who would put up with all sorts

  • of nonsense in a dark room for 8 hours for a paycheck once a week.

  • We also taught people how to consume, because that was the other big problem.

  • In 1920 the average kid owned 2 pairs of pants and one pair of shoes.

  • Right?

  • You don't know a human being who owns 2 pairs of pants and one pair of shoes anymore because

  • we needed to train people to fill their closets with stuff, and we did that at school.

  • So what is school for now, right?

  • Is school to cocoon our kids and to keep them ultra safe and to make sure nothing bad ever

  • happens to them and to train them to go to the placement office when it’s time to look

  • for a job and to go to a famous college and go a quarter of a million dollars in debt?

  • And blah blah blah.

  • I’m ranting.

  • Well, I think we agree it’s not for that.

  • Right.

  • So what is it for?

  • I think it’s for two things: teach people to lead and teach them to solve interesting

  • problems.

  • And the way you do that is by teaching kids to fail at solving interesting problems because

  • that’s the only way you ever get good at solving interesting problems.

  • That this idea of failing.

  • Failing and getting lost on the subway and finding your way home, failing when you put

  • up a blog post.

  • And if youre 12 I hope it’s under another name, but putting it up there and no one likes

  • it.

  • Failing to get your Wikipedia edits approved.

  • Once we get into this habit of realizing it’s not fatal, then we get back to that whole

  • Monopoly with, like, we are adults trying to undo the damage that all that well meaning

  • training did.

  • Well, let’s change the well meaning training, shall we?

  • And instead say what it means to be a free-range kid is coming home with straight A’s is

  • fine, I’ll accept that, but what I’d rather have you do is come home and tell me something

  • amazing that you learned in the spirit of doing something good for someone else.

  • Come home and tell me some really dramatic failure that occurred as you are trying to

  • solve an interesting problem.

  • Don't come home and say I did the chemistry lab and it came out perfect.

  • Come home and say I did the chemistry lab and something exploded.

  • Because now youve learned something that doesn't work and realized that that exploration

  • pays off over and over and over.

  • Love it.

  • One other thing you said before we wrap up is one of the only metrics you care about

  • when you're considering work youre doing is will people miss you if youre gone.

  • Can you talk about how we can use this metric or perhaps other questions like that as we

  • continue to grow into our careers and into our bodies of work to help us keep on track

  • with doing work that matters?

  • Well, so let’s start with email and work our way into the more serious stuff.

  • What’s definition of permission marketing?

  • The definition of permission marketing is if you didn't send that email tomorrow, that

  • blast, I hate that word

  • Me too.

  • ...would people call and complain?

  • Where is it?

  • They would if you didn't send it.

  • The would if I didn't send it.

  • What would happen if Banana Republic didn't send it?

  • No one would call.

  • No one would say, “Wait a minute.

  • Where’s my 8th savings coupon of the week?”

  • So that’s not permission.

  • Permission is the privilege of being looked forward to and being missed if you were gone.

  • And we can work all our way up there in terms of are we showing up with the generosity and

  • the presence that people begin to count on us, that they look forward to us being there?

  • So the studio is right upstairs from the City Bakery, which has been there for 25 years.

  • If Mari stopped having the salad bar tomorrow, there’d be an outcry.

  • Right?

  • There’s 18 places within 3 blocks of here to get a salad.

  • Those places could get rid of the salad bar, no one would mind.

  • But his place, it matters to some people.

  • And the key part of the equation is not just matters, but some people.

  • None of us will ever matter to everyone.

  • Fascinating, I was in a health food store last night and there was a song from Wings

  • on the radio.

  • And I said to the 28 year old cash register clerk, I said, “You know who’s singing?”

  • She said no, but I’ve heard the song a thousand times.

  • I said, “I’ll give you a hint, it was one of the Beatles.”

  • And sheand I said, “You know who the Beatles are, right?”

  • And she said, yes.

  • I said, “Can you name them?”

  • And she couldn’t.

  • And, in fact, most people who are 28 can’t say John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

  • Thatthe most famous musical group of all time doesn't last forever with everyone.

  • Our goal isn’t to touch everyone, our goal is to touch someone, to change someone.

  • Just one person.

  • If you get good at that, then do 5, then do 100.

  • But stop worrying about everyone.

  • Everyone doesn't matter.

  • Seth Godin, you are amazing.

  • Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

  • It was wonderful.

  • Thanks.

  • Now Seth and I would love to hear from you.

  • What’s the biggest insight that youre taking away from this episode?

  • Now, as always, insight without action is worthless.

  • So also tell us what’s the single most important action you can take from that insight to put

  • it into practice in your business.

  • Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com,

  • so go there and leave a comment now.

  • Once youre there, be sure to subscribe and become an MF Insider.

  • Youll get instant access to a powerful training I created called How to Get Anything

  • You Want, and youll also get exclusive content and special giveaways and insider

  • updates that I don't share anywhere else.

  • Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special

  • gift that only you have.

  • Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.

  • Ready to find your voice and sell with heart?

  • Well show you how.

  • Get started now with our free writing class at TheCopyCure.com.

  • Side effects include enlarged profits.

  • I write like I talk.

  • And nobody I know gets talkers block.

  • Nobody.

  • No one wakes up and goesunable to speak.

  • So if you write like you talk, don't worry.

  • Because you haven’t run out of things to say yet, so you won’t run out of things

  • to blog.

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

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