I’m a huge Seth Godin fan. My first intersection with Seth was around 2000 when I came across his ‘Bootstrappers Bible‘. It was around the time that he was ‘Unleashing the Ideavirus’, the marketing book that he gave away for free as a pdf. For a cash strapped book fiend like myself this was awesome but at the time I missed the point totally.
With 10 more years on the tires I’m finally getting the point and even more so now that I am taking photographs and writing about that process here. I think that many of us worry about having our work ‘stolen’. For some this is more of a concern than it is for others. I may be a contrarian but it seems that the worst thing that anyone who creates anything to share or sell to the world is not having their work stolen but not having an audience. For no one to care what you’re doing. Why not instead figure out how you can reach the broadest audience possible and do that?
Seth’s new book is called ‘Poke the Box‘ and is a riff on some of the themes and ideas that he has been pushing for the last few years. Namely you have to get your product out of the door. Starting is not enough, you have to finish too. You have to ship!
For many this involves overcoming what Steven Pressfield calls in The War of Art ‘The Resistance’. That overwhelming fear of failure, of being rejected, of humiliation after putting your heart and soul into a project. Seth Godin refers to this a the lizard brain. Our instinctive response to danger or fear. One way of course if listening to what the lizard brain is saying to do and then doing the exact opposite. It requires practice but becomes easier with time.
Seth was interviewed by Dane Sanders this week and the video can be found here. As always, a provacative conversation.
Get ‘Poke the Box’. Read it. Read it again. Figure out how you are going to make a difference and go do it!