Making a Ruckus with Seth Godin (ep.171)

Talk About Talk - Communication Skills Training

Seth Godin, famed author, blogger, and podcaster shares his wisdom on what communication skill we should work on, the issue with authenticity for professionals, and a new definition of personal branding. Let’s make a ruckus!

BOOKS BY SETH GODIN

• This is Strategy – https://amzn.to/4dwi1PS
• Linchpin – https://amzn.to/4fIr7ux
• Tribes – https://amzn.to/3yHo4lI
• The Dip – https://amzn.to/3X4E7n6
• Purple Cow – https://amzn.to/3M3SuBR
• This Is Marketing – https://amzn.to/46PIaXK
• The Song of Significance – https://amzn.to/4ctABHl
• Seth’s all-volunteer community project: The Carbon Almanac – https://amzn.to/3YLSIFk

RESOURCES

• “The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters Personal Brand FastCompany article – https://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you
• Smart Brevity book – https://amzn.to/3pj2Jdj
• Roger Martin “A Plan is not a Strategy” video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuYlGRnC7J8
• Seth’s recommendations:
  • Mystery Show podcast (ep.3) – https://gimletmedia.com/shows/mystery-show
  • A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs – https://500songs.com/
  • The Moment with Brian Koppelman podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-moment-with-brian-koppelman/id814550071
  • Hardcare History podcast with Dan Carlin – https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/
  • Just Kids: An Autobiography by Patty Smith – https://amzn.to/3ApVA0k

CONNECT WITH ANDREA & TALK ABOUT TALK

• Website: TalkAboutTalk.com
• Communication Coaching Newsletter: https://talkabouttalk.com/newsletter
• LinkedIn Andrea: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/
• LinkedIn TalkAboutTalk: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/
• Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube
• Talk About Talk Podcast Archive: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/communication-skills-podcast/

TRANSCRIPT

That, as you can probably guess, from the title of this episode, is Seth Godin. And he’s on a mission, encouraging us all to make a ruckus. To make a generous contribution to the world. To change the world for the better.

Whether it’s in one of his books, in his blog, or in this conversation you’re about to hear, Seth Godin always makes me think about things in new ways. Take, for example, Seth’s answer to the first rapid fire question that I ask every guest: “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” Seth had the most unique answer to this Q that I’ve ever heard :

I never thought of it that way before, did you? You know, most of the smart guests I interview tell me they’re an introvert. So maybe he’s right. We’re evolving to all be introverts. I guess I really am an anomaly. And now I know why cocktail parties without alcohol don’t work very well.

Are you keen to learn more from Seth? Let’s do this!

Welcome to Talk about Talk podcast episode #171 “Making a ruckus with Seth Godin”. In this episode, you’re gonna learn what communication skill Seth thinks we should work on, a new definition of personal branding, and why we all need to choose our genre – amongst other things.

In case we haven’t met, my name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki please just call me Andrea. I’m your executive communication coach. I coach executives like you to improve your communication skills so you can communicate with confidence and clarity, establish credibility, and ultimately achieve your career goals. Sound good? To learn more about me and what I do, head over to talkabouttalk.com and you can read about the coaching and workshops that I run. Plus there are a bunch of free resources for you at the bottom of the takaboutalk.com homepage.

Ok, let’s get into this. I’m sure you want to hear from Seth. Here’s how this episode is going to go. After I introduce Seth, we’ll get right into the interview. Then at the end I’m going to summarize with the three learnings that I want to reinforce based on our conversation. Three things that I hope you’ll take away and that I hope will help you in your quest to make a ruckus.

Seth has been on my radar since I was a brand manager early in my career, and I read his book called “Purple Cow.” That book is just one of the 21 books that have been bestsellers around the world and that have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. You might be familiar with his books Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and of course Purple Cow. His book, “This Is Marketing,” was an instant bestseller around the world. Recently, he organized the all-volunteer community project called The Carbon Almanac. In 2023, he wrote, The Song of Significance, which is already a bestseller, and I strongly recommend it if you are a leader of any kind, or if you seek to become one. I’ll leave links to all of these books in the shownotes. Yes, Seth is prolific.

Seth also creates impact. His blog (which you can find by typing “seth” into Google) is one of the most popular in the world.
His podcast is in the top 1% of all podcasts worldwide. In 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.
It would not be an exaggeration to say Seth changed my life. In 2018, I read a Seth blog, where he invited candidates to join the inaugural cohort of the Podcasting Fellowship. In writing the application for that program, I came up with the title of this podcast. I remember typing “the topic of my podcast will be communication skills. Basically my podcast will be talk about talk.” Wait! I thought. That could also be the name of the podcast. I checked the URL. It wasn’t taken, so I bought it – pronto. Then I legally secured the trademark. Here I am, 6yrs later, interviewing Seth. Yes, this is a moment for me.

But back to Seth. In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth has founded several companies, including Yoyodyne and Squidoo. More than 40,000 people have taken the powerful Akimbo workshops he founded, including the altMBA The Marketing Seminar, and yes, “The Podcasting Fellowship.”

I have to tell you, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Just ask my family. Anyway, one of my favourite episodes of all time is a relatively recent episode of the Tim Ferriss podcast where he interviews Seth. Seth is irreverent, wise, and inspiring. It was when I was listening to Seth provide advice to Tim Ferriss, that I decided to finally ask Seth if I could interview him.

My goal here is to ask Seth new and different questions that I haven’t heard him answer on other podcasts. Things like, “do you think about your personal brand?” and “What do you think is the most important communication skill?”

Here we go!

INTERVIEW

AW: you ready.

Seth:Born, ready.

AW: Nice. Thank you so much, Seth, for joining us here today to talk about making a ruckus.

Seth:Well, thank you for having me and for showing up hundreds of times. This podcasting thing takes a lot, and I appreciate you beating.

AW: Well, as I said, I know that your podcasting fellowship was a catalyst for me in making this happen. So I am very grateful for that. And even before the podcasting fellowship, Seth, I always thought that I had read most of your books in the last couple weeks since you agreed to do this interview. I did a little bit of research, and I found a list of well over 80 books that you have written. and that list did not even include the Carbon Almanac, or this is strategy.

Seth:Well, I didn’t write the Carbon Almanac, but many of the books you’re talking about are from my early career as a book packager. and if you’re doing your job right as a book packager, you’re not writing every word. every book beginning with permission, marketing. I wrote every word. There are also books. Before that I wrote every word. But I don’t have a team anymore. I used to have a team.

AW: Okay, I know. I looked back at your bio, and I saw that you were in the publishing space, and I thought that explains some of it, but still.

Seth:Yeah. It’s a lot.

AW: Seth, you are absolutely prolific. And I have a question for you about this body of work that you’ve created. The question is, how would you characterize or summarize or label what your body of work represents? And let let’s say, your recent body of work. Maybe, since purple cal.

Seth: Well

AW: I hope I’m making a ruckus. That’s very aspirational. A couple of months ago I listened to one of my favorite interviews of you, which was, I think, a walk and talk that you did with Tim Ferris, and I took some notes from that that I wanted to follow up with you on. One of the questions that I wanted to ask you is about again defining something, but you use the term genre. And I was wondering if you could share your take on genre.

Seth:Well, genre gets a bad rap because of generic but they’re not really related. Genre is essential at a bookstore, because the mysteries have to be next to the mysteries and not mix in with the cookbooks. Because if you’re going to buy a mystery, you want a book that’s in the mystery genre. Now, that doesn’t mean all mysteries are the same, but it means they rhyme with each other, and they allow us to make predictions and to sort without wasting all of our time. So we can agree, I hope, that books have a genre but so do charities, so do political causes, so do people we go on dates with, so do restaurants. If you go to an Ethian or Opian restaurant and they serve you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It might be a very good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But you’re not happy because you went to an Ethiopian restaurant and so with lots of people who I work with, who are creatives. They seem to think it’s a badge of honor to have no genre. And to say, this is for everyone. It’s really important. and what I say to them is, if you don’t have a genre you will be ignored.

AW: Beautiful. a lot of my work has evolved from focusing on improving communication skills to helping people identify their unique passions and expertise and superpowers, and I call it their personal brand, or in the context of executives, their professional identity. And one thing that really gets a lot of traction is helping people identify what their archetype is

Seth:Hmm.

AW: People love being diagnosed, and then it’s not that there’s a better or a worse archetype. I think the power is seeing yourself, and then understanding yourself and focusing, and then being the best version of that that you can be. I’m curious if you think about your personal brand, Seth.

Seth:Well, because I’ve been in the marketing business for a long time. I take the word, brand very seriously. Tom Peters wrote the very 1st breakthrough article about personal branding, in FastCompany. Exactly the same day that I wrote the 1st book on personal branding called, Get what you deserve. and.

AW: 1,997.

Seth:Something like that. It’s a long time ago.

AW: And it would. 84

Seth: What’s a brand? A brand is a promise. It’s what we expect from you. So a logo is not a brand. All the stuff you think is important is not a brand, brand is what other people think you’re going to do next. And so the story that I tell is Hyatt and Nike both have Logos. But if Hyatt hotels announced the line of sneakers, we have no idea what it would be like. But if Nike announced that they were going to open a hotel. We all know what it would be like because Nike has a brand and high, it doesn’t. So most people have worked very hard to have a brand of They do what you ask them to most of the time, and you have to pay them. Yeah, that’s it. right that you know you go to see a podiatrist. The podiatrist is going to fix your foot, but that’s it. That’s their brand. It’s not the clothes you wear. It’s how do you act in a way that changes what people expect from you? Right? And a very personal, simple example is, if you were coming to my house for dinner tonight? Would I expect that you would be bringing about online. or would I expect that you would be ridiculously over the top and bring me this and this and this, and this, and I’d be like, wait, wait! What’s going on here? This is too much that could be your brand, then that’d be a good thing. It could just be a thing. And so when we want to not be a commodity, an easily replaceable cog. we have to stand for something. and once you choose to stand for it, it helps to stand for it all the time

AW: Right in all ways. You, you said. It’s not how you dress. Actually, I would say how you dress is one of the ways that you reinforce that brand. Right? Do you agree.

Seth:It depends on whether you’re fashion designer or not. Let’s say I need somebody to build a deck on my back porch. I don’t care what they wear, and they may have a ridiculous article of clothing on. It probably won’t affect what I was looking for when I was hiring someone to build the deck. So what you wear only matters to the extent like these glasses I’m wearing. They’re my logo. They’re not my brand that when someone is reading one of my blog posts or books, they’re not saying, Oh, I can hear the yellow glasses. No, that’s not the case. The logo is just a signifier to, you know. So you know it’s me.

AW: Interesting. I think a logo could be inconsistent with your brand, though right. Of course you can have a logo, you know. this is a great experiment. Think really hard about 2 really? Well done. Logos. Okay, you got them in mind. Gay. Yeah.

Seth: Are they for terrible, terrible products.

AW: No, they’re for excellent products.

Seth:Right. Everyone always picks Logos that they associate with excellent products. The fact is, the Starbucks logo is terrible. Terrible. There’s nothing good. It’s hard to reproduce. People think she’s naked, but maybe she’s not, and her hair is a mess, and what is that, and the Starbucks name is terrible. It has the word bucks in the title for an expensive place. None of it makes sense, but people love the experience. So they’ve now decided they like the logo.And yes, it is possible to slap an average logo on a great brand. But if you think about it. like Patagonia, is one of my favorite brands, the logo. It’s memorable, but it’s not. It doesn’t match their brand. 140

AW: True. true. So your previous comment reminded me of the famous quote from Jeff Bezos, where he says your brand is what other people say and think about, say about you when you’re not in the room. right? It’s really about your identity which may or may not have something to do with the yellow glasses that you’re wearing right like when I think about Seth, I picture you in yellow or orange glasses right? And sharing expertise about how to make a ruckus.

Seth:Well, I would argue that my brand is different than my logo. because most of the time. if people have me show up in the room. They expect me to do 2 things one say something that is both true and surprising at the same time and 2 be pretty kind and there are plenty of people in my line of work who are not kind. and there are plenty of people in my line of work who say things that are not surprising. So I am distinguished from those people by those 2 things.

AW: I love that I love that that’s like the intersection I was just listening to. This is marketing for at least the second time. Maybe the 3rd time. And you talk about what’s what’s on the X axis? What’s on the y axis right? And plotting. And and I even do this actually with my clients when we’re talking about their archetypes, and I used to say, identify the one archetype that represents you. And now it’s like the intersection of 2 can often be at least as powerful. I think that’s a huge insight, I mean, the consultants would be laughing at us right like. Of course it’s a 2 by 2. It’s always a 2 by 2, but.

Seth:And consultants are up, and consultants are always laughing at it.

AW: Yeah, yeah, I guess I guess. So I want to shift into communication a little bit. So my, this podcast talk about talk is really targeted to growth-minded executives who are trying to grow their career. And they have this idea, this epiphany that communication skills, are going to help them get there, right? Based on your observations and conversations? What communication skills do you think are the most important? Maybe it could be that they’re the most lacking. But the most important communication skills that we should be focusing on.

Seth:I think the biggest problem most people have is they don’t actually want to communicate that they so semiotics is the science of flags and signals. If you can watch a movie with the sound turned off and understand what’s going on. It’s a pretty well made movie. I guess the symbols and the signs are expressing themselves. If you get on an airplane and someone who works there is pointing with that 2 finger point in each direction, you know in whatever language they’re talking exactly what they’re doing. You know it by heart. but lots of times we’re hiding. We are talking, talking, talking, talking, but we are hiding because we don’t actually want to be seen, because it’s scary to be seen. We don’t actually want to make a point, because then we’d have to be responsible for it. So that’s why, when you call a big company, and they have all this gobbled ego gobbledygook gobbledy book that they just said to you on the phone instead of just saying, Yeah, it’s broken. right? Because they don’t want to say, Yeah, it’s broken. And so the hardest part for me when I see people who have trouble communicating, I think the hardest part is, people don’t actually want to be heard, so they’re afraid to directly say what they mean.

AW: Wow! Okay, that blows me away. Let me tell you. The typical answer that I hear is Oh, it’s confidence, or Oh, it’s precision. Or Oh, it’s storytelling. One answer to the question that gets a lot of traction also is listening. And I thought, that’s where you were headed at first, st right? We think we’re communicating. But we’re not really communicating because we’re not listening. And you’re saying, no, it is actually about amplifying what you’re saying. But people are. It’s almost like they’re afraid to put their stake in the ground. Yeah. okay, I’m going to do some thinking about that. I was just listening to. A new book called Executive Presence 2.0. Where the author talks about Sylvia Ann Hewitt. She talks about how the 3 ingredients to executive presence are communication skills, gravitas, and showing up. and people that have these things and have exceptional executive presence, are the people who put their stake in the ground and say what they mean, and back it up. They make the tough decisions.

Seth: Yeah, I think it’s very important to realize that there are 8 billion people on Earth. Nobody is for everything. No one is for everyone you need to find your people. So I don’t go to Paul Weber’s anymore. Because Weber sells hamburgers. I haven’t had meat in 40 years. I can’t even smell the place right. And if I said Paul Webber, you gotta stop doing that. Start serving kale milkshakes instead made with oat milk. They should appropriately say, there’s a place 5 miles up Highway 11. You can go, you know. We don’t do that here and a key part of communicating is, I’m speaking to people who speak this language, who wanna go in that direction, who believe this sort of thing? And if you’re not one of those people, you might be in the wrong room

AW: So that relates to another topic that I wanted to ask you about this. I don’t know if it’s tension or integration, maybe between authenticity and consistency. I love how you, Seth, define these terms, and then talk about how they’re the same and different from each other, and how people may confound them. Yeah, I have a whole rant about authenticity, as you know.

Seth: you and I do not know each other well, so I have no idea if you’re having a good day or not. because you’re a professional. If you were showing up authentically, and your cat had just thrown up behind the refrigerator, and there, you know, crank collar just bothered you, and you had athletes, foot, and you were cranky about all those things. I wouldn’t like you more. Because I wanted, I came to the podcast to talk to a professional professionals are consistent. They’re not authentic. We want a consistent doctor. We want a consistent customs and border patrol agent. We want a consistent gas station attendant. We don’t want to have to guess every time we see, because we’re not their friend. we are engaging with them on a transaction. So yeah, I’d like my friends to be authentic with me. I can call my friend Lisa in Italy, and she will tell me her truth But if you’re not my friend, please just be consistent.

AW: So during Covid and after Covid there was this this phrase going around, should we bring our whole selves to work.

Seth:- 228

AW: And I replied to some of these articles and said, I hope we don’t bring our whole selves anywhere. Right? Sounds consistent with what you’re saying so. But back to this authentic, so consistent professionals need to be consistent and authenticity. You’re equating with full transparency. And so we don’t want that is that right?

Seth:Well, even partial transparency, you know we were. We started by talking about brands. Is Nike consistent? Right? That Nike isn’t going to sell you a 3 inch heel. and they’re not gonna sell you something that breaks in a week, because if they did that their brand would fall apart. Maybe they authentically feel like doing that, because they would make some money.

AW: That.

Seth: What what we want is to build something that even if the logo wasn’t on it, people could tell we did it well. The only chance of that is, if it’s consistent. Now, the exception which social media has amplified are divas, rock stars, and people get paid for throwing a tantrum. Those people are supposed to be authentic. But guess what they’re faking it? They’re consistently being fake authentic, right? They’re having tantrums all the time, because, like maybe, Bob Dylan feels like being eloquent and singing in a way that we can understand, but he can’t. because he has to be consistently authentic as a mumbler.

AW: Yeah, I love this. I interviewed an academic from the Us. On the archetypes of female pop stars. And she was talking about this, you know, you go from like the innocent girl, and then you rebel, and you go through these stages. And oh, oh, my goodness! That’s but you need to consistently conform or show up consistently, as that you know, hot mess, or as that diva right.

Seth: Yeah, and that’s what killed Amy Winehouse. right like. And there’s a lot of misogyny. There’s a lot of family trauma. But the fact is that if you make a reputation as a diva who’s living right on the edge, you might not make it to

AW: Yeah. Oh, gosh! It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wow! So be careful what you’re conforming to. What archetype, if you want to use the term archetype, or what persona, or what brand. or what genre.

Seth: Right. And this this rubs people the wrong way because they think it’s fake. But is it fake that a surgeon’s wearing a mask and the rubber gloves, and standing like this in front of you before they do surgery right? The fact is that when you put on the uniform you become the professional, and the word uniform is the word uniform. For our reason.

AW: Yeah. So I’m curious about your take about transparency at work like so I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the work of Amy Edmondson from Harvard Business School, right? And she talks. She talks about psychological safety and creating an environment where it’s safe to take risks, and she encouraged. Leaders are the folks that create the culture so they they can’t. They can’t allocate the adoption of psychological safety. They need to create it themselves. And one way they do that is, by being vulnerable, admitting mistakes, and so on. And the the term authenticity shows up a lot here in in this body of work. So how do you.

Seth:Okay.

AW: And so.

Seth:Let’s let’s break this into pieces a little bit. If you are consistently creating culture in an organization by doing things like admitting mistakes, acknowledging that you’re not infallible. You’re not being authentic doing that. You are being consistent, doing that. You are showing up to do it even when you don’t feel like it. even when you’re like. Oh, I can’t believe they need me to tell that story again. It embarrasses me every but you tell it anyway, right? That is consistent. So if Amy is writing down steps. she’s encouraging people to be consistent. She’s not encouraging, encouraging them to say, whatever the hell pops into their head.

AW: That’s right.

Seth:The key for me about transparency at work is let’s get real or let’s not play which is a simple sentence. That means we’re going to agree on what things are like around here, and we’re going to agree on where we are going. If you don’t want to buy into that, I get it. Here’s a severance package you are welcome to leave. but we’re going to agree that that’s what things are like around here, and then we can be honest with each other about whether we’re accomplishing that. So my friend Danny Meyer owns a bunch of restaurants. He started. Shake shack. If you work for Danny Meyer at one of these restaurants. We don’t have to revisit on a regular basis. Why, people are coming to spend a hundred dollars for dinner. and we don’t have to regulate regularly. Revisit. Why, we fold napkins. I know you don’t fold napkins at home, but we fold napkins here cause we’re putting on a show. And if you’re grumbling about that, if you’re grumbling about the, you know, systemic income inequality that leads it so that people can come by a $200 bottle of wine I get that. That’s totally legit. But the show we put on here that’s at the center of it. So let’s get real. This is what we do. This is a game, and I get to say to you that napkin wasn’t folded properly, and I’m not attacking you, and I’m not making a personal statement. I’m talking about the napkin. and if we can’t agree on what the napkin’s supposed to be, then we can’t work together.

AW: Love it. Okay. I have a boot camp that I’m running after this interview, and I’m going to be talking to folks a lot about consistency. I love this. Okay, I want to shift to a different element of communication, and that is brevity. conciseness.precision. I know you have a very famous short blog, the shortest blog. What was the shortest blog you ever wrote.

Seth:You don’t need more time. You just need to decide.

AW: Yeah, I love that. I love that. In fact, you’ve already made the decision. So just do it right back to Nike. Just do it. So I recently read, brevity. Is that what it’s called? The book by the axios founders? Smart brevity. It’s called.

Seth: Okay.

AW: Yeah, highly highly recommend that. But

Seth: I hope it’s not too long, and I probably will just

AW: It’s they.

Seth: I probably would have just in the book brevity. I’m not sure they needed the word smart. So right there, I cut it in half. But okay, go ahead.

AW: They could have cut it. No, they it’s very meta. They use all the principles that they’re teaching in the book, in the, in the communication of the book itself. So I have this theory that a lot of people think they’re being generous with the volume of information that they’re sharing. I know that I did early on when, 6 years ago, when I started blogging and podcasting, I thought, the more I shared the better. And so I have this new theory that if you really want to be generous, you do the work to sharpen the message, to make it more concise, more brief, so that it’s easier for other people to understand. Does that sit well with you?

Seth: I’m always in favor of people doing the work. But let me challenge the concept of brevity the way many people understand Nordstrom’s founders and employees frequently tell a story A guy who was working at the tie counter at Nordstrom’s men’s ties. and a 75 year old man comes in with 2 snow tires.

AW: I knew you’re gonna say that.

Seth: And he puts the snow tires down on the desk, and he says, I bought these here. I don’t need them. I need a refund. and the person who’s working at the counter reaches into the cash register hands the guy $300 and says, Thank you. And he leaves and part of the punchline is nordstroms doesn’t sell. Snow tires this story, which I’m happy to explain it. But I don’t need to. This story is told because it is way longer than always give people a refund but it works better than saying, always give people a refund. True, because stories stick with people. So brevity actually means as short as possible, but not shorter. I mean, I used to know a kid who’s really young, he said. It’s simple the boy! Cried Wolf, and the villagers didn’t come. that’s it. You can’t tell that story more briefly than that.

AW: Yeah. Okay, okay. okay, I want to ask you about your upcoming book. This is strategy. very cleverly and simply titled consistently with your previous book which I told you I’m rereading right now. This is marketing can you share with? I know it’s coming out in October. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Can you share a little bit about that book?

Seth: There aren’t any books on strategy I’ve ever been able to recommend. because they’re not really about strategy. There are big, thick books for Mbas. There are books for generals. but mostly there are books of tactics. and strategy is a philosophy of becoming. Strategy is deciding what work to do today to get the results we seek tomorrow. Strategy is about systems and games and time and empathy and an elegant strategy is a path that gets better as we go. And most people, small companies, big companies, nonprofits, political campaigns. embassies. do not have an elegant strategy. They’re constantly pushing uphill. They’re constantly insisting that the world align the way they want it to align. and the thing is good. Waves make good surfers. So 1st we got to look for the right wave 1st we’ve got to understand how the world is structured, and then the change we seek to make in that context, not insisting that the whole world rearrange itself because it’s unjust.

AW: So that’s the systems thinking that you were talking about. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So I read a summary. And I thought, it’s if I had to choose the 2 things. The 2 things that this book is about in terms of strategic thinking is systems thinking and longer thinking longer term. I think you? You just said it, you said it’s it’s about, what are we doing today to plan to succeed tomorrow? Something like that.

Seth:So longer term might just be one day. And it might be 100 years okay, that people who listen to podcasts like this, love curves and graphs, the long tail, the crossing, the chasm, the Gartner Hype cycle, and all of them go like this right? But we forget that the axis on the bottom is time. Right? Time is Nature’s way of making sure everything doesn’t happen all at once. And so we do something today. And we have 3 customers. But we get traction. That gets us to 9, and then we get traction. That gets us to 81. But if we start today and don’t get 81. That doesn’t mean we failed. And if we start today and hustle. trying to skip 3 and 9, 81 that we are planting seeds. We are watering, fertilizing. We’re gardeners, and if you go to the wrong soil, or you use the wrong seeds, it’s not going to grow.

AW: So recently, I interviewed Roger Martin, who was. Boss. He was the Dean at Rothman when I was on the faculty there. and he is also a prolific thought leader, and he has the most downloaded video at Harvard Business Review called A Plan is not a strategy, and I was listening carefully when you were talking about your book. You did not use the word plan. but it sounded an awful lot like a plan.

Seth: This is fascinating. I’m gonna have to go find that video. I’ve never seen it. Rogers, a big Rogers, a big brain. So I can’t wait to see it. Yesterday I changed the subtitle of my book. the subtitle used to be creating the conditions for change and that’s what the book’s about, but I don’t think I don’t think that’s and brand for me consistently because it’s a little too hard to understand. So I changed it to make better plans.

AW: Oh. Oh, wow! Oh, I can’t wait to hear what you what you say about this video.

Seth: Well, I need to watch it right away, cause it’s not too late for me to change it back, so we’ll see what.

AW: Amazing. I’m I’m going to send it to you right when we’re done here. I’m also going to put it in the show notes. Okay. So one last thing before we get to the the 3 rapid fire questions that I can’t wait to also ask you is. did you happened to read. Arthur Brooks, one of his recent books, called from strength to strength.

Seth: I did not.

AW: Okay. So let me tell you the one graph in this book that to me is basically the thesis of the book on the X-axis. You have time, and on the Y-axis you have some sort of output that humans have over their lifetime. Right.

Seth: Right and.

AW: And so he talks about how, as ambitious, smart, well-intended folks, we jump on this curve in our career, and it’s about productivity and output and status and getting promoted. And all these things And at some point we hit cognitive decline. And it’s earlier than we all think. It’s in our 40 s. So I’m well past that. And then many of us, especially the ambitious folks. keep fighting for, you know, dominance for productivity, for. These things, and it gets harder and harder, and often to the detriment of our physical health, our relationships, and our life in general right, and what he advocates is that we jump to a second curve. Instead of being productive, the output is sharing our wisdom.

Seth: Interesting.

AW: This. I was like this perfectly described. It was very validating for me, right? Because I used to be a brand manager at Kraft, and I was working really hard. And then I went, and I earned my degrees, and I was on a faculty member, and then I jumped off. I started. Talk about talk, and I’m sharing wisdom, and and I find it incredibly fulfilling all the things that he talked about. And then I thought. I think Seth has been doing this from the beginning

Seth: Well I am not a role model for anything except maybe not eating hamburgers. The sharing wisdom is a broad statement right that I happen to be in a line of work where my words are on a piece of paper, and sometimes people pay money for them. But you know, if I think about the A/C heating contractor down the street, who’s my age? He has apprentices and people coming up in the business. He spends a good chunk of his time teaching those people how to install air conditioning. That’s wisdom as well. So I don’t think that what Arthur is saying is that everybody should become a pundit. No, I don’t think he is, either. I’m not saying you were saying that I’m clarifying for me right that what we have is the chance. You know I spend almost all my time helping nonprofits and people I care about for free figure out what they ought to be doing. and I don’t do that in public cause. That’s not my brand. I do that because that’s my my craft, my work, and I’ve been doing that for a while I couldn’t do it when I was 35, because no one would trust me to do it. And so what’s really happening is it’s not the internal thing of physical or cognitive decline. It’s the asset value of the benefit of the doubt. And as we gain the benefit of the doubt. I think we have leverage to amplify our insight. and even if we lived to 200, it feels to me like it’s a good use of your time long before you have to worry about whatever’s gonna have to do next.

AW: I love that I love that so it’s not just that you’re shifting your idea of what the what’s on the y-axis right? It’s that over time you accumulate more wisdom to share and back to branding. Maybe a reputation for credible wisdom.

Seth: Exactly.

AW: Beautiful. Oh, my goodness! I love that you are going to be so quoted on that, Seth. Are you ready for the 3 rapid fire questions?

Seth: They’re all rapid fire the way my brain works. What do you got.

AW: Yeah. So I just want to. I want to share with the listeners that, like all of the people that I interview for my podcast once I said to Seth, once we book the interview, I’m going to share some of the ideas that I have for questions. We’re definitely going to go off script, and you replied to me and said, I don’t want the questions I love that I love, that you don’t want the questions so1st rapid fire question, official, 1st official rapid fire question is.

Seth: because people get there, and they don’t know what or why to engage right? So when I’m doing my work, I am eagerly showing up for other people the same way. A swimmer is swimming as fast as they can. But that doesn’t mean that in their spare time the swimmers swimming as fast as they can, just for fun. So I regularly. you know I have no one in my office. I have no employees. I can go 12 h without seeing another person quite happily. Huh!

AW: Not me. But that’s okay. That’s okay. All right. Next question. what are your communication, pet peeves, or a pet peeve that you have when other people are communicating, and you wish they would change the way they’re communicating.

Seth: Well, peeves make lousy pets because they’re just. They’re hard to keep but with that said it hurts me when I see someone who is on a useful, righteous path undermining their work by falling into common traps. It could be something as simple as regularly. I will hear people on an interview use ums, and us to stop person from taking the mic back. That’s not a hard problem to fix. It’s 4 days of work. and that’s a trivial one on a bigger scale, much bigger, much more important, much more common scale marketers, particularly people with a personal brand in quotation marks hustle too much. They interrupt too much, they hassle too much. They try to get the word out, I think getting the word out is a ridiculous mantra. It’s not effective, and it it undermines everything you’re trying to do.

AW: I know you talk about that a lot. And this is marketing. Yeah. okay. The last rapid fire question I’m really curious. Given the bookshelf behind you? Is there a book or a podcast not one of yours, and not one of mine, a book or a podcast that you find yourself recommending a lot lately.

Seth: Okay. So the best podcast ever made was mystery show episode 3. She only made. Starley only made 6 episodes. Don’t start with episode, 3. Start with episode 4. Episode 2. But you should listen to mystery. Show episode 3. Mystery. Yeah.

AW: Joe

Seth: Mystery show. It’s in each. In each episode she solved the mystery.

AW: Okay.

Seth: She’s she was terrific. But the problem was, she tried to make one a week, and it needed to be one a year, and if it was one a year there’s no way she could have made it work anyway. I listen to history of rock and roll in 500 songs. I’m up to the current episode, which is 189. And that’s a lifelong project for Andrew. It’s gonna outlive me for sure 99% invisible is nothing but wisdom, wisdom. Wisdom. Roman is a superstar. My friend Brian’s podcast, the moment highly recommend it. I used to listen to Dan Carlin’s history podcast. They’re a miracle. After a while. It’s too much Genghis Khan was too much Genghis Khan for me. So I took a break. Who else we got and then the best audio book ever recorded is just kids by Patty Smith.

AW: Okay. I am going to put links to all of those in the show notes, and I’m going to definitely listen to all of them myself. Is there anything else you want to share? Seth, with the talk about talk listeners, about how they can effectively make a ruckus.

Seth: Big problems, demand small solutions. find one person. find a tiny pocket of a system. find someone who is lonely and begin there. do not wait for the Pope to call you and put you in charge of solving something. Giant. Build things that are small. We gain traction, and then we do it again.

AW: Wow! All right. Thank you so much, Seth. I appreciate you sharing your time and all of your insights with us. I’m very grateful. Thank you so much.

Seth :Thank you for having me keep making this ruckus. It matters.

Did you get that? Don’t wait for the Pope to call you and put you in charge of something. Thank you, Seth. Personally, I’m inspired to take action and make a ruckus.

Now I’m going to quickly summarize with three of the themes or learnings here that I want to reinforce for you.

But first, I want to share a few things he said that I’m not sure I agree with. Im curious what YOU think. The truth is I’m still thinking about these things, which is what I love. As I said at the beginning, Seth always leaves me thinking.

The first thing I’m not sure I agree with is how Seth said that how you dress isn’t your brand, its your logo. Remember when I asked, “how you dress is one of the ways that you reinforce your brand. Do you agree?” His response?

Hmm. I think how you show up, including how you dress, is a significant part of your brand.

The second point where I’m not sure whether I agree was when Seth said “Professionals are consistent, they’re not authentic.” I understand his point about being professional and consistent, but I think things are changing in terms of authenticity. More and more, respected leaders with strong personal brands are sharing parts of their personal life, their humanity, their vulnerabilities, with others at work. They’re encouraging others to also “be themselves” and not conform. Of course, you also must be dependable, accountable, and trustworthy.

Again, I’m curious what YOU think. Is it true that Professionals are consistent, theyre not authentic.”?

So as you can see, like I said, Seth makes me think.

Now, the three themes that I want to reinforce with you from this episode. Here they are.
The first is based on Seth’s answer to my Q: what communication skill should we all work on”? His answer was something I never expected. He said ,“the biggest problem most people have is they don’t actually want to communicate” Wait what”? I thought he would say we are too verbose or that we lack confidence. But no. Seth identifies that many people struggle with communication because they are afraid to be “seen” or to take responsibility for their messages. This fear leads to evasive or unclear communication. I think he’s right on that one. Take a stand, people!
The second theme I want to reinforce is about GENRES. Like books have genres, people should too. He said I work with lots of people who think it’s a badge of honor to have no genre. He talks about the importance of genre in helping people categorize and predict experiences, whether in books, restaurants, or personal branding. Most importantly, he highlighted that if you don’t have a genre, you will be ignored. Again, take a stand!

The third and last theme I want to reinforce is Seth’s definition of personal branding. I’m definitely going to be using this definition in my coaching. Remember Jeff Bezos’ definition: Your brand is what people say about you when youre not in the room. Seth’s got a slightly different take that I think is at least as compelling. “Your Brand is what other people think you’re going to do next.” Aks yourself, what do people think YOURE going to do next? That’s your brand. LOVE IT!

Phew ok – that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, I just cant wait to read Seth’s upcoming book THIS IS STRATEGY. I’m sure he’ll have a new take on strategy that I haven’t considered before.

I leave you with this.
If the action you are taking is generous and would be missed if you didn’t do it, that’s what seth calls making a ruckus. Making a ruckus is not having a tantrum. Making a ruckus is showing up with leverage to change the system for the better.

Let’s all make a ruckus.

Alright. That’s it. That’s everything for this episode. Thanks again to Seth for sharing his thoughts and for encouraging us all to make a ruckus

If you enjoyed this episode, I hope you will refer it to one of your friends, and I also hope you’ll leave a review on Apple, Spotify or YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thank you so much for listening. Now go make a ruckus. And talk soon!

The post Making a Ruckus with Seth Godin (ep.171) appeared first on Talk About Talk.