Seth Godin's Blog, page 294

Failure, success and neither

The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.

The killer is the category called 'neither'. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you'll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that's easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you're after.

And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us.

Are you rational?

Before you make any more decisions you need to answer that question.

A rational decision is based on testing and data and an understanding of the mechanics underneath the system you're working on. The more you know, the better you decide.

An irrational decision is based on gut instincts, conviction and faith.

No one is rational all the time. In fact, somewhere along the way we made 'irrational' into a bad word, but it shouldn't be.

There are card counters in Las Vegas who are rational about...

Self-help

If you read a book that tries to change you for the better and it fails or doesn't resonate, then it's a self-help book.

If you read a book that actually succeeds in changing you for the better, then the label changes from self-help book to great book.

We don't like books that fail, because they waste our time, they offend us, they speak a different language or they make us feel out of sorts. Self-help books are a bane.

On the other hand, a book that resonates with us, whether it's Catcher in...

Maybe you need new friends

Real world friends are hard to find and hard to change.

But virtual friends?

If your online friends aren't egging you on...

If your online friends don't spread the word about the work you're doing...

If your online friends aren't respectfully challenging your deeply held beliefs...

If your online friends don't demand the best from you...

Then perhaps you need new online friends.

The reality of digital content (lose the cookie, lose the fortune?)

A magazine with a million subscribers might spend more than a million dollars to deliver a single issue to its subscribers. A million dollars spent on postage, printing, subscription sales, fulfillment, ad sales, sub rights and more. I wouldn't be surprised if the freelance budget for the writers and photographers (the real reason people read the magazine) is less than 15% of the cost, perhaps a lot less.

The economics of this business are interesting. Millions spent, millions earned, and...

Publishing books to make money...

is a little like hanging out in a singles bar if you want to get married.

It might work, but there are way better ways to accomplish your goal.

If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you've got. Just don't plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.

The only people who should plan on making money from writing a book are people who made money on their last book. Everyone else should either be in it for passion...

What teachers make

Perhaps the most forwarded poem ever, from a full time poet no less. You can buy his book, too. (Thanks, Rod, for the link). [Video includes a coarse but common gesture, in case you need the alert:].

Linchpin teachers engage in the act of pushing people to have the sort of breakthroughs Taylor talks about. They're scarce, and precious.

Finding your brand essence

I got an email from someone who had hired a consulting firm to help his company find their true brand selves. They failed. He failed. He asked me if I could recommend a better one.

My answer:

The problem isn't the consultant, it's the fact that if you have to search for a brand essence, you're unlikely to find one.
 
Standing for something means giving up a lot of other things, and opening yourself to criticism. Most people in the financial services industry (or any industry, actually) aren't...

Fear of philanthropy (avert your eyes)

Peter Singer is famous for posing a stunningly difficult question,

paraphrased as, "If you are walking by a pond and you see a child

drowning, do you save her? What if it means ruining a very fancy pair of

Italian shoes?" Okay, if we assume the answer is yes, then why not

spend the cost of those shoes to save 20 kids who are starving to death

across town or the world? There's really no difference. Or by, extension, invest in research or development that solves a problem forever.....

What you can learn from a lousy teacher...

If you have a teacher (of any sort) that you cannot please, that you

cannot learn from, that is unwilling to take you where you need to go because he is defending the status quo

and demonstrates your failure on whatever report card he chooses to use, you could

consider yourself a failure. Or you could remind yourself...

Grades are an illusion

Your passion and insight are reality

Your work is worth more than mere congruence to an answer key

Persistence in the face of a skeptical...