Seth Godin's Blog, page 96

Good taste

When you appeal to the better nature of a specific group, you're doing something with good taste. Just barely ahead of the status quo, in sync but leaning forward.

The key understandings are:

It is never universal. Good taste is tribal, not widespread.

It's momentary. The definition changes over time.

And it's aspirational. When we encounter good taste, it makes us feel as though we can and will be better.

Because it's not universal, being seen as having good taste is not up to you. It's up to the recipient. You can't insist you're right.

Good taste is an incredibly valuable skill, and you can acquire it with practice.

            

Levelling up in 2017

You might have noticed that the gym was a little less crowded this morning.

It's only four days into the new year and most well-intentioned resolutions have already faded.

Of course they have. You can't change an ingrained habit with just a few days of willpower.

We stay where we are, finding a level and a routine and protecting it. Change isn't easy or everyone would do it. Finding more responsibility, making a bigger difference, following a new path--we need help and time to change those patterns.

That's why the altMBA takes thirty days. Every day, several hours per day. That's why we do it in small groups, with cohorts of just twenty people. And why we use live coaches, people who know your name. An online workshop that actually works.

I hope you'll sign up to have us send you some useful information about what we're doing. Every workshop we've run has been completely full, and we're accepting applications now for the spring session.

What will you create next?

            

Is kindness a luxury?

Luxury goods are only consumed when we've got enough. You shouldn't go shopping for a Birkin bag with your last dollar.

It's easy to believe that kindness is like that. We need more reserves, perhaps, before we can expend some of what we've got in this generous way.

You've had a hard day, it's raining out, the world is changing, your boss is mean to you, the checking account is overdrawn, you're on deadline...

But... Does every need have to be filled, every emotion in place before we're capable of being kind?

Do we have to have enough money, enough confidence about the future and enough of everything else we crave before we can find the space to offer someone else a hand?

It turns out that the opposite is true. That kindness is a foundation for the rest. That investing time and resources in extending ourselves shifts the rest of our needs in precisely the right direction, not only putting us closer to satisfying those other needs, but enjoying the journey as well.

Kindness rewards the giver as well.

            

The candy diet

The bestselling novel of 1961 was Allen Drury's Advise and Consent. Millions of people read this 690-page political novel. In 2016, the big sellers were coloring books.

Fifteen years ago, cable channels like TLC (the "L" stood for Learning), Bravo and the History Channel (the "History" stood for History) promised to add texture and information to the blighted TV landscape. Now these networks run shows about marrying people based on how well they kiss.

And of course, newspapers won Pulitzer prizes for telling us things we didn't want to hear. We've responded by not buying newspapers any more.

The decline of thoughtful media has been discussed for a century. This is not new. What is new: A fundamental shift not just in the profit-seeking gatekeepers, but in the culture as a whole.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."*

[*Ironically, this isn't what Einstein actually said. It was this, "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." Alas, I've been seduced into believing that the shorter one now works better.]

Is it possible we've made things simpler than they ought to be, and established non-curiosity as the new standard?

We are certainly guilty of being active participants in a media landscape that breaks Einstein's simplicity law every day. And having gotten away with it so far, we're now considering removing the law from our memory.

The economics seem to be that the only way to make a living is to reach a lot of people and the only way to reach a lot of people is to race to the bottom, seek out quick clicks, make it easy to swallow, reinforce existing beliefs, keep it short, make it sort of fun, or prurient, or urgent, and most of all, dumb it down.

And that's the true danger of anti-intellectualism. While it's foolish to choose to be stupid, it's cultural suicide to decide that insights, theories and truth don't actually matter. If we don't care to learn more, we won't spend time or resources on knowledge.

We can survive if we eat candy for an entire day, but if we put the greenmarkets out of business along the way, all that's left is candy.

Give your kid a tablet, a game, and some chicken fingers for dinner. It's easier than talking to him.

Read the short articles, the ones with pictures, it's simpler than digging deep.

Clickbait works for a reason. Because people click on it.

The thing about clickbait, though, is that it exists to catch prey, not to inform them. It's bait, after all.

The good news: We don't need many people to demand more from the media before the media responds. The Beverly Hillbillies were a popular show, but that didn't stop Star Trek from having a shot at improving the culture.

The media has always bounced between pandering to make a buck and upping the intellectual ante of what they present. Now that this balance has been ceded to an algorithm, we're on the edge of a breakneck race to the bottom, with no brakes and no break in sight.

Vote with your clicks, with your sponsorship, with your bookstore dollars. Vote with your conversations, with your letters to the editor, by changing the channel...

Even if only a few people use precise words, employ thoughtful reasoning and ask difficult questions, it still forces those around them to catch up. It's easy to imagine a slippery slope down, but there's also the cultural ratchet, a positive function in which people race to learn more and understand more so they can keep up with those around them.

Turn the ratchet. We can lead our way back to curiosity, inquiry and discovery if we (just a few for now) measure the right things and refuse the easy option in favor of insisting on better.

            

Crossing the awareness threshold

The blockchain, game theory, float tanks, turmeric, Justin Trudeau, Joi Ito, dal fry, thermite, the Corbomite Maneuver... these are all notions (people, ideas, technologies, foods) that you may or may not be aware of or have engaged with.

There's a path:

Unaware
Aware
Categorized
Have an opinion
Experienced
Have a new opinion
Have shared that opinion and are thus locked in

It's pretty clear that most the world is unaware of you and your work.

Once someone becomes aware of it, they'll probably leave it at that. "Oh." Because we're busy. And afraid of the new, because it often causes us to change our minds, which is frightening and difficult.

But sometimes, the culture or our work gives us no choice but to engage. We begin by putting this new thing into a category, so we know what to do with it, how to store the concept. Often, that's immediately followed by forming an opinion.

It's a huge leap, then, to go from, "Yuck, they make protein bars out of crickets," to, "I am going to try one."

After an experience, it's possible for a new opinion to be formed. But we like to be right, so that first opinion often sticks around.

And finally, seven steps in, it's possible that the word will spread, that awareness will be shared, that we'll tell someone else. And so the awareness barrier is crossed again, and the idea spreads, and opinions are truly locked in.

Some of these stages happen in clumps. Sometimes they take months or years to occur. How much time passed between the day you became aware that hockey was a spectator sport and the first time you went to a game?

We benefit when we're aware of how our idea will work its way through all seven stages, and cognizant that the process is different depending on the category, the culture and the people we're engaging with. Do it on purpose.

            

Wondering—past and future

Wondering about your past, about what might have happened, about bad decisions made and roads not taken... this is a recipe for not much more than regret.

But wondering about your future?

When we wonder about the future, we get a chance to begin again, to set new goals and envision bold plans.

No more chances to do yesterday over, sorry. But infinite chances for tomorrow.

If you could do tomorrow over again, would you?

            

The choice

Attitude is the most important choice any of us will make. We made it yesterday and we get another choice to make it today. And then again tomorrow.

The choice to participate.

To be optimistic.

To intentionally bring out the best in other people.

We make the choice to inquire, to be curious, to challenge the status quo.

To give people the benefit of the doubt.

To find hope instead of fear in the face of uncertainty.

Of course these are attitudes. What else could they be?

And of course, they are a choice. No one does these things to us. We choose them and do the work (and find the benefits) that come with them.

            

After your first job

It's easy to remember our first job, or even our first 7 jobs. Cleaning the grease off the hot dog wheel at the fast food place. Caddying. Mowing lawns. Shlepping.

But how common is it to ask people about the first time they got a computer to do what they needed it to? Our first successful computer program, our first Excel macro, our first Zapier procedure?

Or, how widespread is it to compare our first sales experiences? The first time you sold something on your own? The first doorbell you rang, or the first time you persuaded someone to invest in an asset you were building?

There are millions of years of tradition involved in cleaning the grease off something. Programming and selling, on the other hand, are building blocks for a new kind of future.

            

When your phone uses you

Your smartphone has two jobs.

On one hand, it was hired by you to accomplish certain tasks. In the scheme of things, it's a screaming bargain and a miracle.

But most of the time, your phone works for corporations, assorted acquaintances and large social networks. They've hired it to put you to work for them. You're not the customer, you're the product. Your attention and your anxiety is getting sold, cheap.

When your phone grabs your attention, when it makes you feel inadequate, when it pushes you to catch up, to consume and to fret, it's not working for you, is it?

On demand doesn't mean you do things when the device demands.

            

Moving a conversation forward

That next thing you're going to say, what's it for?

Is it to advance the conversation, to get a client, to make them go away, to find intimacy, to share a truth, to ask for help, to offer help, to pass the time, to learn something, to teach something, to build trust...

Talking about the weather is a stall. Stalling has a function, but it's not the best we can do.

Intention opens the door to forward motion.