Seth Godin's Blog, page 63

Outsiders

You can't have insiders unless you have outsiders.

And you can't have winners unless you have losers.

That doesn't mean that you're required to create insiders and winners. All it means is that when people begin to measure themselves only in comparison to others ("How did I rank?") then you need to accept the impact of those choices.

It's entirely possible to be happy and engaged and productive without creating this dynamic. But in a culture based on scarcity, it's often easier to award or deduct points and to keep a scoreboard instead.

            

Meaningful work

Of course, it came with chocolate.

There's no doubt that we're doing more running around than ever before. More cutting of corners, counting of pennies, reading of reviews. More focus on making a profit, less on making a difference.

But why?

Once you have enough, isn't better the point?

Better doesn't mean more. Better means generous, sustainable, worthy. Better means connection and quality and opportunity, too.

This lesson is easily learned from chocolate. Not merely because there's a limited amount you can eat at a time (so why not eat something better), but because the creation of chocolate gives us a startling insight into justice, fairness and what it means to do work that matters.

The numbers associated with chocolate are huge. Tons of cacao, millions of bars, billions in revenue. But one number is astonishingly small: the amount the typical farmer makes in income. For many, it's only $3 a day. The people who are creating the raw material for the magic we consume daily are among some of the poorest and least respected workers in the world.

My friend Shawn has written a groundbreaking book that might just change everything for you. Not merely the way you eat chocolate, but the way you do your work.

It publishes today at Amazon and 800CEORead as well. Shawn has used his life (from defense attorney to creator of some of the most amazing chocolate in the world) as a way to think about the work we do all day. How do we do it, why do we do it, what do we measure...

A must read. It will help you see the world differently.

PS Emily and Maya and their team at Uncommon Cacao are putting some of these insights to work in a brave and powerful new way. As soon as someone says, "there's no other way," count on someone who cares to find another way.

Also, mostly unrelated, two fun novels for the fall: The Punch Escrow and After On. Rollicking tech pop-culture thrill rides.

            

Full vs. enough

One of the lessons of Thanksgiving is that we eat too much. We eat until we're full, experiencing the sensation of too much.

It's easy to confuse our desire for that that feeling with the feeling of 'enough'. Enough doesn't feel like full, but that's okay.

Too often, we've been persuaded by marketers and other maximizers that the only satisfying state is 'full.' Not just in what we've eaten, but in what we own, control or receive.

In fact, full doesn't last and full isn't desirable. No thanks, I've got enough. It's better that way.

[The US Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Today's a good day to revisit the (now) classic Thanksgiving Reader. It's free to print, free to share and a nice part of the celebration for families everywhere.]

            

Been done before

What percentage of the work you do each day is work where the process (the 'right answer') is known? Jobs where you replicate a process instead of inventing one...

The place where we can create the most value is when we do a job where exploration and a new solution is what's needed. Not rote, but exploration. Which means we're doing something that's not been done before, something that might not work. 

This isn't something to avoid, it's the work we need to seek out.

            

Speakerphone voice

When the speakerphone is on in the conference room, do you talk differently? 

It's pretty common.

We breathe from a different spot, hold our chest differently, constrict our throats and generally try to shout our words across the ocean.

The people listening on the speaker are used to it. The people in the room with you, less so.

Human beings don't have a long cultural history with microphones. We don't instinctively understand that they actually work. So we shout instead. And shouting changes how we're believed, trusted and ultimately heard.

Learning to use a microphone is a great skill. When you speak normally, it turns out that the microphone has plenty of volts, watts and amps on hand to move your voice all the way to Latvia if you want it to. And then your words will actually be heard.

            

Everyone else is irrational

Everyone else makes bad decisions, is shortsighted, prejudiced, subject to whims, temper tantrums, outbursts and short-term thinking.

Once you see it that way, it's easier to remember...

that we're everyone too.

            

Cancelled

All those meetings you have tomorrow--they were just cancelled. The boss wants you to do something productive instead.

What would you do with the time? What would you initiate?

If it's better than those meetings were going to be, why not cancel them?

            

Winning a yoga race

It makes no sense, of course.  

The question this prompts is: Are there places you feel like you're falling behind where there's actually no race?

            

Disastorino

Elections are the only place where marketers try to get fewer people to buy what's being sold.

In many elections in the US, fewer than half the population votes. Which means, of course, that in most elections, not only doesn't the winner get a majority, the winner wasn't even chosen by a majority of the majority. We make it worse with gerrymandering and arcane vote counting.

It turns out that depressing voter turnout is a shortcut for the selfish political marketer. It's easier to get your opponent's supporters to become disgusted enough to stay home than it is to actually encourage people to proactively vote for you.

When non-electoral marketers try to learn from political examples, we get confused by all of this. The fact that it's a one-shot event, that a bare majority is the goal (most marketing doesn't have to win a majority, it merely needs to matter to enough people) and that decreasing turnout is a valid strategy all add up to make politics a special case.

Blue Bottle Coffee doesn't succeed against Starbucks by getting people to not drink coffee at all. Nor do they need to sell more than half the coffee sold. All that a non-political marketer needs to do is find enough raving fans. If politicians learned this lesson, I think we'd all be better off.

It's not an accident we're disgusted. Politicians spend billions of marketing dollars to create the belief that voting is something that's better to avoid.

They teach us that it's not a responsibility we want to take.

They make it feel like a hassle.

They don't invest in making it a chance to build community and connection.

In short, it's more like giving blood and less like going to a Super Bowl party.

Too often the incumbents are liked by a minority, respected by an even smaller group and particularly bad at the job. And if many of the registered voters turned out, each would lose in a heartbeat. 

The solution is simple, fast and cheap. Show up and vote. Every time.

Once politicians realize that we're immune to their cynical tricks, they'll stop using them.

Show up and vote. It'll make a difference.

            

This is post 7,000

[actually, it's more than that, but the previous incarnations of this blog are lost to the fogs of time]

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PS There are two easily found collections of some of my best posts. They are Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck and Small Is The New Big.

And there are also two complete collections, each weighing more than 17 pounds.

One is out of print and a collector's item, the other has just 600 copies left. That's the end of the run--worth gifting...

Unboxing stories are here. To celebrate #7000, the last copies are on sale until they're all gone.

Thanks for being part of this journey.