Seth Godin's Blog, page 83

Choosing your fuel

The work is difficult. Overcoming obstacles, facing rejection, exploring the unknown--many of us need a narrative to fuel our forward motion, something to keep us insisting on the next cycle, on better results, on doing work that matters even more.

The fuel you choose, though, determines how you will spend your days. You will spend far more time marinating in your fuel than you will actually doing breakthrough work. Richard Feynman was famously motivated by the joy of figuring things out. His scientific journey (which earned him a Nobel Prize) also provided him with truly wonderful days.

Here is a partial list, in alphabetical order, of narratives light and dark that can serve as fuel to push us to do work that others might walk away from:

Avoidance of shame (do this work or you'll be seen as a fraud/loser/outcast)
Becoming a better version of yourself
Big dreams (because you can see it/feel it/taste it)
Catastrophe (or the world as we know it will end)
Competition (someone is gaining on you)
Compliance (the boss/contract says I have to, and even better, there's a deadline)
Connection (because others will join in)
Creative itch (the voice inside of you wants to be expressed)
Dissatisfaction (because it's not good enough as it is)
Engineer (because there's a problem to be solved)
Fame (imagining life is better on the other side)
Generosity (because it's a chance to contribute)
It's a living (pay the writer)
Peer pressure (the reunion is coming up)
Possibility (because we can, and it'll be neat to see how it works in the world)
Professionalism (because it's what we do)
Revenge (you'll show the naysayers)
Selection (to get in, win the prize, be chosen)
Unhappiness (because the only glimmer of happiness comes from the next win, after all, we're not good enough as is)

They all work. Some of them leave you wrecked, some create an environment of possibility and connection and joy. Up to you. 

            

Just words

How about, just bullets, just diseases, just starvation?

The whole "sticks and stones" canard is really dangerous. When a stone gives you a bruise, it's entirely possible you will completely heal. But when a torrent of words undermine your view of what's possible, you might never recover.

Words matter. They can open doors, light a way and make a difference.

            

Say one thing at a time

I know, you might not get the microphone back for a while.

And I know, you want to make sure everyone understands precisely what went into your thinking. Not to mention your desire to make sure that everyone who hears you hears something that they'd like to hear.

But if you try to say three things, we will hear nothing. Because most of the time, we're hardly listening.

Ads, instructions, industrial design—they all work better when they try to say one thing at a time.

            

Three ways to add value

Tasks, decisions, and initiation...

Doing, choosing, and starting...

Each of the three adds value, but one is more prized than the others.

Tasks are set up for you. Incoming. You use skill and effort to knock em down one at a time and move to the next one.

Decisions often overlap with tasks. There are alternatives, and you use knowledge and judgment to pick the best one.

And initiation is what happens when you start something out of nothing, break the pattern, launch the new thing and take a leap.

When we think about humans who have made change happen, institutions who have made a difference, cultural shifts that have mattered, we must begin with initiation.

What value-add did you spend yesterday engaged in? How about tomorrow? 

            

Emotional labor

That's the labor most of us do now. The work of doing what we don't necessarily feel like doing, the work of being a professional, the work of engaging with others in a way that leads to the best long-term outcome.

The emotional labor of listening when we'd rather yell.

The emotional labor of working with someone instead of firing them.

The emotional labor of seeking out facts and insights that we don't (yet) agree with.

The emotional labor of being prepared.

Of course it's difficult. That's precisely why it's valuable. Sometimes, knowing that it's our job—the way we create value—helps us pause a second and decide to do the difficult work.

Almost no one gets hired to eat a slice of chocolate cake.

            

What Henry Ford understood about wages

Every time Ford increased the productivity of car production (in one three-year period, he lowered labor costs by 66% per car), he also raised wages.

Not merely because it's the right thing to do.

He did it because well-paid workers had more to spend. On houses, on clothes, and of course, on cars.

There's a positive ratchet here.

You can't shrink your way to greatness.

When you enable your workers (and your customers) to do more, connect more, produce more and get paid more, you create a positive system. The goal isn't to clear the table, the goal is to set the table.

            

The waitlist for the altMBA

Our twelfth session of the altMBA workshop is upcoming. We're only going to do it two more times in 2017, and if this is something you're thinking of doing one day, I hope you'll let us know.

You can sign up for our list here. You'll find out what we're up to and get first dibs on our application dates.

Our list of alumni keeps growing. More than 1,200 strong, it includes freelancers, a law professor, a scientist at the CDC, nonprofit executives, real estate agents, and startup founders. We have a high school principal in San Diego, a translator in Paris, and marketers at Microsoft, Warby Parker, Lululemon, Apple, Google and Zynga.

Our people are ruckus makers, contributors and leaders who have chosen to level up. I'm thrilled that they are taking the lessons of this 30-day intensive and using them to make change happen. I hope you can join us soon.

            

Stinginess in the connection economy

When six people are trying to split a pizza, some stinginess appears. After all, more for one person is less for the other five.

But in interactions that lead to connection, to shared knowledge, to possibility, it's pretty clear that there isn't a zero-sum game being played. In fact, the more enthusiasm and optimism people bring to the interaction, the more there is for everyone else.

You don't need to save up the goodwill and encouragement you offer to others. It will be automatically replenished, and it pays dividends along the way.

            

Groucho runs deep

Groucho Marx famously said, "I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me." Thanks to our connection economy, the membership rolls are now wide open, but the problem isn't declining.

There are so many communities that want you. So many opportunities to connect, to learn, to leap.

Some communities have skills and want to share them with you. And other ones need you to teach.

In the face of these opportunities, it's easy to say, "everyone's too smart for me," or worse, "I'm too advanced and I can't learn anything here."

The full Groucho is believing that you don't deserve to learn and you're not entitled to teach.

Of course, that's merely a form of hiding. Because connection leads to learning and learning leads to change and change is frightening. Easier, it seems, to push the opportunities away, say your Groucho Marx line and go back to doing what you were doing.

If you weren't afraid of change, what could you learn?

And if you weren't afraid of rejection, what would you teach?

Each of us is becoming, becoming something better or something worse. And we become what we teach and what we learn.

            

The middle of everywhere

If the railroad didn't make it to your town, or if the highway didn't have an exit, or if you were somehow off the beaten path, we wrote you off. Your town was in the middle of nowhere.

Now, of course, if wireless signal can reach you, you're now in the middle of everywhere, aren't you?