The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?

by Seth Godin

Before the revolution, in a world of limited choice, shelf space mattered a great deal. You could buy your way onto the store shelf, or you could be the only one on the ballot, or you could use a connection to get your résumé in front of the hiring guy. In a world of abundant choice, though, none of these tactics is effective. The chooser has too many alternatives, there’s too much clutter, and the scarce resources are attention and trust, not shelf space. This situation is tough for many, because attention and trust must be earned, not acquired.

the people you seek to lead, the people who are helping to define the next thing and the interesting frontier, these people want your humanity, not your discounts.

Holding back is so close to stealing. —Neil Young

The extraordinary thing about our revolution is that it is turning most business into show business.

For the first time in history, most of us have the chance to decide what to do next, what to make, how to deliver it. Most of us won’t take that chance, but it’s there.

The last economy was built on the nonscalable hard work of physical labor. Physical because it involved our muscles or the repetitive work of our intellect. Nonscalable because a little more effort got only a little more pay. Nonscalable because a lot more effort was impossible.

This economy is built on art, the art that is created by emotional labor, by bringing risk and joy and fear and love to the table. Emotional labor scales in that a little more emotional labor is often worth a lot. Connection between people is always the result of emotional labor, not physical labor. The assets of trust and leadership and conversation can come only from the difficult work of creating personal art.

I don’t care how many friends you have on Facebook or how many followers you have on Twitter. Those are not actual friends or truly followers. I care about how much people will miss you if you’re not back here again tomorrow.

This abundance leads to two races. The race to the bottom is the Internet-fueled challenge to lower prices, find cheaper labor, and deliver more for less. The other race is the race to the top, the opportunity to be the one they can’t live without, to become a linchpin (whom we would miss if he didn’t show up). The race to the top focuses on delivering more for more. It embraces the weird passions of those with the resources to make choices, and it rewards originality, remarkability, and art.

Just as the phone network becomes more valuable when more phones are connected (scarcity is the enemy of value in a network), the connection economy becomes more valuable as we scale it. Friends bring us more friends. A reputation brings us a chance to build a better reputation. Access to information encourages us to seek ever more information. The connections in our life multiply and increase in value. Our stuff, on the other hand, merely gets cheaper over time.

At the same time that the connection economy has destroyed the value of the status quo, it has created an opportunity for anyone who chooses to connect. Connection isn’t created by expensive factories or by large workforces, so the barrier to individual advancement is destroyed. It’s not what you’ve got; it’s how brave you’re prepared to be.

Instead of relying on gatekeepers to block the way of those without the right degree, the right parents, or the right connections, the connection economy works horizontally—allowing anyone to stand up and make an offer.

Of course, most of those offers, most of that art, are rejected. The connection economy offers tremendous value to those who connect, but that doesn’t mean connection is guaranteed. It’s valuable because it’s so scarce. Fortunately, the cost of finding out what will connect is lower than you might imagine, and the chance to do it again is easily taken. So start.

The laborer in the world of connection and art embraces the opportunity to do a little bit more, not less. Since emotional labor scales so dramatically, the ability to bring a little more to the table is the chance of a lifetime. “A little more” compounds, because ideas spread. A little more compounds because in a connected economy, word spreads and people flock to the art that means more. You don’t need more activity; you have to dig deeper instead.

Connection belongs to those who “get to” instead of “have to.”

In Japanese, tariki is the name for choosing to be helped, seeking a higher authority to select you, move you forward, and endorse you. Tariki is the helpless kitten. Jiriki, alternatively, is self-selection, self-authorized art. Jiriki is the monkey who saves himself. The industrial economy insisted on tariki. It treated workers like kittens and abhorred anyone who would add innovation or individualism to the system. The connection economy opens the door for jiriki.

他力 (たりき): outside help, salvation 自力 (じりき): self-salvation

You want the authority to create, to be noticed, and to make a difference? You’re waiting for permission to stand up and speak up and ship? Sorry. There’s no authority left. Oprah has left the building. She can’t choose you to be on her show because her show is gone. YouTube wants you to have your own show now, but they’re not going to call you.

Louis C.K. has famously proven that he doesn’t need the tyranny of the booker—he booked himself. Marc Maron didn’t wait to be cast on Saturday Night Live—he started his own podcast and earned a million listeners.

Once you understand that there are problems waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound. The opportunity is not to have your résumé picked from the pile but to lead. When we take responsibility and eagerly give credit, doors open. When we grab a microphone and speak up, we’re a step closer to doing the work we’re able to do. Most of all, when we buckle down, confront the lizard brain, and ship our best work, we’re becoming the artists we are capable of becoming. No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.

Before the revolution: Virtually all musicians aren’t picked by a label and are invisible nonentities. Of those who are picked, 98 percent fail in the marketplace. Of the remaining 2 percent, less than half a percent ever receive a single royalty check as a result of their recorded music. Ever. So we have a world where the odds of being signed are close to zero and the odds of getting a check as a result of your sales, even if you are signed, is even closer to zero.

After the revolution: A musician who sells two (two!) copies of a song on iTunes makes more money than she would have earned from a record label for selling an entire CD for seventeen dollars. There are more musicians making more music being heard by more people and earning more money than ever before. Now, multiply what happened to music by a million. Multiply it by consulting, coaching, and design. Multiply it by manufacturing, speaking, and nonprofits. Multiply it by whatever it is you care enough to do.

frisson

cruft

Who decided that a performance in alternative venues for alternative audiences wasn’t legitimate dance, couldn’t be real art, didn’t create as much joy, wasn’t as real? Who decided that Sarah couldn’t be an impresario and pick herself? The people who pick decided that. When Sarah chooses herself, when she makes her own art on her own terms, two things happen: She unlocks her ability to make an impact, removing all the excuses between her current place and the art she wants to make. And she exposes herself, because now it’s her decision to perform, not the casting director’s. It’s her repertoire that’s being judged, not the dramaturge’s. And most of all, it’s her choice of audience, not the choice of some official, suit-wearing authority figure. The birth of the connection revolution opened the door for this sort of choice making. Now, just a few years into the revolution, it demands choice making.

Have you ever performed a generous, unexpected act? Solved a problem in a new and interesting way? Seen something others didn’t see? Spoken up when something needed to be said? If just one time you’ve made a connection, bridged a gap, or done something about an issue you care about, then yes, you’re an artist. Maybe not all the time, or even most of the time, but yes, you’ve done it and you can do it again. All that’s left is to figure out how to create habits so you can do it more often.

Why So Many Entrepreneurs Have Dyslexia and ADHD Julie Logan at the Cass Business School found that entrepreneurs are three times more likely than the general public to have dyslexia. And many entrepreneurs credit their ADHD with giving them an edge in making their businesses successful. I’m not sure it’s because their mental differences give them a performance edge. It’s not like there’s a secret code that only dyslexics can read. No, I think it’s because their outlier tendencies made it clear to them early on that they would be less likely to be picked. Less likely to be at the top of their class or chosen by the fancy college or recruited by P&G. Precisely because they didn’t fit in, they had little choice but to pick themselves.

Adrienne Rich wrote, “The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door.” Behind that door, though, lies connection and the possibilities that come from having people who want to hear what you have to say, who look forward to having you make what you choose to make. What’s certain about this door is that the frustration you feel about the dying industrial economy is only going to increase, and connection and art offer a path that is, at the very least, more interesting.

Our basic human need to be understood, respected, and missed when we’re gone doesn’t get satisfied easily. As a result, when genuine connection is offered, it’s often taken.

Industrialization Destroys Itself When It Refuses Dignity

When we write a check to charity instead of looking the needy in the eye, we have helped their physical needs but shortchanged their humanity. When we demand that our workers engage in a race to the bottom with any country willing to work faster and more robotically, we take something away from the people we work with. And when we shrug and invoke Ayn Rand or the invisible hand of the market, we are trading our humanity for some extra stuff in the garage or a bigger addition to our house.

The safe place is not the sinecure where we get a good wage from the industrialist. That’s eroding fast. The new safe place requires us to look others in the eye and see them, truly see them.

Boring and safe rarely lead to connection. Connection happens when humanity asserts itself. If there’s no connection, if the links aren’t made, then no art occurred.

People pick up business books (like this one) looking for a map. They pay attention in school because they want certainty: the certainty of a good grade, a good job, a good career. We transformed school from a place of inquiry into a facility optimized for meeting standards. This is something the industrial age taught us—that there are answers and that you need the answers in order to succeed. Memorize enough answers and you’re set.

The connection economy asks you to turn all of that upside down, to not want or need or seek a map. Your instinct to search for a sinecure (that thing that was a safety zone and is now merely a comfort zone) is proof that you’ve been brainwashed.

Whenever you feel the pull toward compliance and obedience, feel it for what it is—a reminder of the way you’ve been trained, not a sensible or rational approach to the opportunity in front of you.

The most rational thing to do is the irrational work of art. Seek out questions, not answers.

The Economy Isn’t Broken; It’s Different

Can we really produce more shiny objects to delight an ever-growing population? Can we give the people who already have endless stuff even more pleasure by giving them even more stuff?

The economy we live in today is very different from the one our parents grew up in. We have a surplus of choice, a surplus of quality, a surplus of entertainments to choose from. We have big-box stores and big-box storage units and big-box debt. But we’re still lonely. And we’re still bored. The connection economy works because it focuses on the lonely and the bored. It works because it embraces the individual, not the mob; the weird, not the normal.

It’s entirely possible to use the productivity of our economy to try to insulate ourselves from the pain of uncertainty. We can demand that our politicians deliver steady work in a factory setting, and we can scream for fair pay in exchange for our mind-numbing labor. We can fight to go back to trading money for numbness. The best part of being human doesn’t seek out numbness. And today, right now, our economy rewards us for being artists, no longer hypnotized, no longer cogs, no longer insulated from one another and ourselves. We have the opportunity to go backward if we choose. We can try to prop up failing industries, legislate and calcify our way into the notion of a day’s work for a day’s pay. Or we can choose a different path, one where we willingly expose ourselves to the apparent insecurity and risk of emotional labor, of creating breakthroughs instead of reliably lowering the price of the banal.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

We evolved to desire safety. We seek out security. We want a hiding place, a dependable future, something we can count on. And yet. And yet the itch comes back. The itch to provoke or risk or stand up. The itch to test, to prod, and to stand out. For some the itch is nothing but a slight buzz, something causing discomfort in an otherwise bland day. For others the itch becomes so overwhelming that it overtakes them, dominating their day and putting their souls on the line.

Biko,

Ionesco

Zander.

Who Will Teach Bravery? There’s not much controversy about teaching reading or spelling or math. It’s assumed that we ought to have systems in place to establish cultural norms and behavior and a passing knowledge of current events. But who is worried about creating a new generation of brave artists? Brave because artists take leaps, brave because artists fail—the willingness to fail and then do it again is the cost of doing art, and for some, it becomes part of the reason to do art. Are we avoiding this vital work because it’s difficult to teach or, more likely, because the industrialists who run our system would rather we were docile?

We can teach people to make commitments, to overcome fear, to deal transparently, to initiate, and to plan a course. We can teach people to desire lifelong learning, to express themselves, and to innovate. And just as important, it’s vital that we acknowledge that we can unteach bravery and creativity and initiative. And that we have been doing just that.

School has become an industrialized system, working on a huge scale, that has significant by-products, including the destruction of many of the attitudes and emotions we’d like to build our culture around. In order to efficiently jam as much testable data into each generation of kids, we push to make those children compliant, competitive zombies.

Conceptual art is a new idea, about fifty years old. Of course, at their heart, all plays and poems and organizations are nothing but conceptual art. The concept is the point, not just the craft. Conceptual art, though, moves far beyond paintbrushes or chisels or what we used to consider talent. Painting has become a tiny sideshow now that the future of the entire economy is an art project. By separating craft from art, we gain a deeper understanding of what art means to us; at the same time we make it clear that those without fine motor skills can still choose to be artists.

Art, it seems, is something that is made by an artist. And an artist is someone who does something for the first time, something human, something that touches another.