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How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

Lesson 134 from: The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

Lesson 134 from: The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

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Lesson Info

134. How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

How to Find Your Purpose Through Grief and Loss with Tunde Oyeneyin

48:49
2

What is the Meaning of Life? with Tony Nader

1:17:18
3

Weirdness is the Key to Self Improvement with Marcus Buckingham

1:10:59
4

How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

41:57
5

Talent is Bullsh*t with Steven Pressfield

1:06:26
6

Finding Self When No One Is Looking with Jason Reynolds

59:50
7

Does Cold Water Exposure Really Have Scientific Backing with Dr. Mark Harper

56:15
8

Heal Your Past with Sheleana Aiyana

51:06
9

How An Unconventional Path Got Nabil Ayers To President Of One Of The Most Influential Music Labels

1:04:12
10

All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins

1:08:02
11

Happiness is an Inside Job with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

1:19:58
12

The Power of Regret with Daniel Pink

49:35
13

Data-Driven Life Decisions with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

1:01:26
14

Escape Purgatory of the Mundane With Radical Confidence with Lisa Bilyeu

1:09:58
15

Transform the Quality of Your Life with Tony Robbins

51:37
16

Strengthen Your Intuition & Unlock Your Inner Wisdom with Amber Rae

1:00:13
17

Make Your Message Heard with Victoria Wellman

1:13:34
18

Susan Cain: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

1:09:31
19

Can Food Turn Us Into Geniuses with Max Lugavere

1:21:16
20

Peace Is a Practice with Morgan Harper Nichols

1:14:56
21

Creativity Hates Complacency with Maria Brito

1:10:34
22

A Love Letter to Human Potential with Kate Robinson

54:14
23

How to Build Confidence and Be More Social with Vanessa Van Edwards

1:01:21
24

Trauma Is Wreaking Havoc On Our Lives with Gabby Bernstein

51:59
25

Take The Leap, Start a Business with Payal Kadakia

58:37
26

What Every Creator Should Know About NFTs with Tom Bilyeu

1:05:47
27

40 Seconds To Fame Or Failure with Apolo Ohno

45:52
28

Unlock the Power of Nonverbal Communication with Joe Navarro

1:03:28
29

Living Shouldn't Hurt with Aaron Alexander

1:20:24
30

Ego, Disrupted. How Buddhist Wisdom Meets Western Therapy with Dr. Mark Epstein

1:11:55
31

Words Can Take You Anywhere with Arianna Davis

53:00
32

Master Your Inner Voice with Dr. Ethan Kross

1:06:21
33

Accelerating 10,000 Hours to Mastery with James Altucher

1:09:49
34

Transform Your Mind in 12 Minutes a Day with Dr. Amishi Jha

1:15:57
35

Powerful Habits to Ease Anxiety and Boost Productivity with Mel Robbins

1:15:17
36

The Art of Self-Reinvention with Malcolm Gladwell

1:00:45
37

Creative Acts of Curious People with Sarah Stein Greenberg

1:10:01
38

Self-Discovery, Activism, and Rock & Roll with Stevie Van Zandt

57:56
39

Why Design Matters with Debbie Millman

1:07:04
40

Discover Work that Makes You Come Alive with Jonathan Fields

1:15:34
41

Releasing Trauma and Mastering Your Emotions with Jason Wilson

1:05:35
42

Food Saved Me with Danielle Walker

47:16
43

Changing Our Relationship with Rest with Chelsea Jackson Roberts

49:11
44

Retracing Passion to Build Lasting Career Success with Chris Bosh

54:27
45

Old School Photography + Other Musings with Kai Wong

41:52
46

Escalate and Evolve: A Blueprint for Career and Life with Ben Uyeda

1:08:44
47

The Stories That Hold Us Back with Jon Acuff

1:07:22
48

Poetry, Vulnerability and Finding Your Voice with Jericho Brown

1:13:40
49

What Does it Take to be Backable with Suneel Gupta

1:05:38
50

Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success with Rebecca Minkoff

53:00
51

How To Heal From Your Past with Dr. Nicole LePera

1:13:54
52

That Will Never Work with Marc Randolph

1:12:06
53

The Real Cost of Your Dream Life with Rachel Rodgers

1:02:44
54

Your Network is Your Insurance Policy with Jordan Harbinger

1:24:15
55

Dream First, Details Later with Ellen Bennett

1:14:45
56

We're Never Going Back with Harley Finkelstein

1:01:47
57

How to Shatter Limitations and Achieve Your Dreams with Steven Kotler

1:08:10
58

The Creative Art of Attention with Julia Cameron

1:05:23
59

The Path Back to True Self with Martha Beck

59:45
60

Upgrade Your Brain and Learn Anything Quickly with Jim Kwik

1:21:22
61

The Urgent Need for Stoicism with Ryan Holiday

1:11:30
62

Delicious Food Doesn't Have to be Complicated with Julia Turshen

1:14:35
63

Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention with Erin Meyer

56:27
64

Stop Living On Autopilot with Antonio Neves

1:07:38
65

How to Tackle Fear and Live Boldly with Luvvie Ajayi Jones

59:42
66

Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable with Jamie Kern Lima

1:05:03
67

Hard Work + The Evolution of Self with Priyanka Chopra Jonas

36:36
68

The Power of Idealism with Samantha Power

1:34:35
69

Pushing the Limits with Extreme Explorer Mike Horn

1:22:54
70

Fast This Way with Dave Asprey

1:15:34
71

Uncomfortable Conversations with Emmanuel Acho

45:59
72

Why Conversation Matters with Rich Roll

1:24:17
73

Elevating Humanity Through Business with John Mackey

1:15:14
74

When Preparation Meets Opportunity with Paul Ninson

1:04:14
75

The Art of Practice with Christoph Niemann

1:12:18
76

Matthew McConaughey: Embracing Resistance & Catching Greenlights

1:19:38
77

Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul with Justin Boreta

1:25:32
78

Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results with James Clear

1:20:55
79

Badass Habits and Making Them Stick with Jen Sincero

1:06:12
80

Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

1:09:18
81

Imposter Syndrome, Getting Unstuck and The Practice with Seth Godin

1:13:19
82

The Art of Curiosity and Lifelong Wisdom with Chip Conley

58:47
83

The Lost Art of Breath with James Nestor

1:03:15
84

The Art of Reinvention with Sophia Amoruso

1:03:59
85

Harness Kindness as Your Hidden Super Power with Adrienne Bankert

1:08:26
86

Heal the Soul, Restore the Calm with Stephan Moccio

1:28:19
87

Finding Resilience & Possibility with Guy Raz

1:08:47
88

Truth, Fear, and How to do Better with Luvvie Ajayi Jones

1:18:22
89

The Future is Faster Than You Think with Peter Diamandis

57:56
90

Music, Writing, and Time For Change with Nabil Ayers

1:20:38
91

Freedom to Express Who We Are with Shantell Martin

1:10:34
92

So You Want to Talk about Race with Ijeoma Oluo

1:10:47
93

Photographing History with Pete Souza

1:16:35
94

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone with Lori Gottlieb

58:51
95

Never Settle with Mario Armstrong

1:38:11
96

The Science of Making Work Not Suck with Adam Grant

1:15:36
97

Street Photography + Capturing Truth with Steve John Irby

1:10:54
98

Life, Writing, and Real Talk with Roxane Gay

1:05:57
99

Steve Aoki: Creativity, Community and No Days Off

50:57
100

The Power of Passion and Perseverance with Angela Duckworth

1:08:25
101

Know What Drives You with Michael Gervais

1:05:20
102

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind with Vishen Lakhiani

59:07
103

Risk, Fear, and the Art of Chill with Jimmy Chin

1:13:51
104

Personal Growth and Understanding with Citizen Cope

1:16:21
105

Living Life on Purpose with Jay Shetty

1:20:06
106

Get Out of Your Own Way with Dave Hollis

1:08:10
107

Hope in A Sea of Endless Calamity with Mark Manson

1:15:12
108

How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle

1:10:16
109

Make It Til You Make It with Owen Smith

1:20:50
110

Surf, Survival, and Life on the Road with Ben Moon

1:08:01
111

Create the Change You Seek with Jonah Berger

1:00:22
112

Workplace Revolution with Amy Nelson

1:05:16
113

Rethink Impossible with Colin O'Brady

1:29:31
114

Good Enough is Never Good Enough with Corey Rich

1:25:24
115

Say Yes To What You Want with Chris Burkard

1:22:54
116

Finding Stillness In A Fast Paced World with Ryan Holiday

1:08:00
117

Everything is Figureoutable with Marie Forleo

43:50
118

The Art of Being Yourself with Elizabeth Gilbert

53:41
119

Creativity, Comedy, and Never Settling with Nate Bargatze

1:37:12
120

Personal + Career Reinvention with Jasmine Star

1:01:18
121

Stay Creative, Focused and True to Yourself with Austin Kleon

1:12:25
122

Ramit Sethi 'I Will Teach You To Be Rich' book launch with Chase Jarvis

1:07:17
123

You Don't Need to Be Rich to Live Rich with David Bach

1:09:51
124

Harnessing Your Human Nature for Success with Robert Greene

1:04:28
125

Addiction, Reinvention, and Finding Ultra with Endurance Athlete Rich Roll

1:07:41
126

Disruption, Reinvention, and Reimagining Silicon Valley with Arlan Hamilton

1:12:31
127

The Intersection of Art and Service with Rainn Wilson

1:03:25
128

Your Mind Can Transform Your Life with Tom Bilyeu

1:30:19
129

Do Something Different with Jason Mesnick

1:02:38
130

Less Phone, More Human with Dan Schawbel

1:07:40
131

Startup to $15 Billion: Finding Your Life's Work with Shopify's Harley Finkelstein

1:12:42
132

It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work with Jason Fried

1:49:02
133

Love, Service, and Living Your Truth with Danielle LaPorte

1:11:05
134

How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

1:10:56
135

Happiness Through Gratitude with AJ Jacobs

1:12:54
136

You Are Your Habits with Julien Smith

1:03:40
137

Maximizing Creativity + Navigating the Messy Middle with Scott Belsky

1:09:10
138

The Most Important Conversation About Life… Death with Michael Hebb

1:13:38
139

Redemption and a Thirst for Change with Scott Harrison

54:58
140

Imagination and The Power of Change with Beth Comstock

1:12:29
141

Success, Community, and his cameo in Parks & Recreation with NBA All Star Detlef Schrempf

1:02:02
142

1,000 Paths to Success with Jack Conte

1:07:32
143

Unconventional Ways to Win with Rand Fishkin

1:37:49
144

How to Sell Without Selling Out with Ryan Carson

1:05:45
145

Be the Artist You Want to Work With with Nigel Barker

47:12
146

Your Story Is Your Power with Elle Luna

1:33:53
147

Celebrating Your Weirdness with Thomas Middleditch

1:14:04
148

Persevering Through Failure with Melissa Arnot Reid

1:33:23
149

Go Against the Grain with David Heinemeier Hansson

1:18:07
150

Stamina, Tenacity and Craft with Eugene Mirman

1:17:15
151

Create Work That Lasts with Todd Henry

1:06:50
152

Make Fear Your Friend

08:08
153

Tame Your Distracted Mind with Adam Gazzaley

1:12:08
154

Why Grit, Persistence, and Hard Work Matter with Daymond John

1:05:15
155

How to Launch Your Next Project with Product Hunts with Ryan Hoover

1:11:15
156

Lessons in Business and Life with Richard Branson

45:05
157

Embracing Your Messy Beautiful Life with Glennon Doyle

1:27:29
158

How to Create Work That Lasts with Ryan Holiday

1:20:25
159

5 Seconds to Change Your Life with Mel Robbins

1:14:53
160

Break Through Anxiety and Stress Through Play with Charlie Hoehn

1:08:10
161

The Quest For True Belonging with Brene Brown

1:29:41
162

Real Artists Don't Starve with Jeff Goins

1:19:16
163

Habits for Ultra-Productivity with Jessica Hische

56:18
164

Using Constraints to Fuel Your Best Work Ever with Scott Belsky

1:21:07
165

The Intersection of Art and Business with AirBnB's Joe Gebbia

1:19:56
166

Build a World-Changing Business with Reid Hoffman

1:19:31
167

How Design Drives The World's Best Companies with Robert Brunner

1:05:33
168

Why Creativity Is The Key To Leadership with Sen. Cory Booker

53:06
169

How To Change The Lives Of Millions with Scott Harrison

1:16:14
170

How To Build A Media Juggernaut with Piera Gelardi

1:21:04
171

Transform Your Consciousness with Jason Silva

1:08:02
172

The Formula For Peak Performance with Steven Kotler

1:01:40
173

How What You Buy Can Change The World with Leila Janah

1:04:10
174

Overcoming Fear & Self-Doubt with W. Kamau Bell

47:44
175

The Unfiltered Truth About Entrepreneurship with Adam Braun

1:21:36
176

Build + Sustain A Career Doing What You Love with James Mercer of The Shins

51:58
177

How Design Can Supercharge Your Business with Yves BĂ©har

33:40
178

Conquer Fear & Self-Doubt with Amanda Crew

1:29:39
179

Become A Master Communicator with Vanessa Van Edwards

1:19:52
180

How iJustine Built Her Digital Empire with iJustine

1:08:05
181

How To Be A World-Class Creative Pro with Joe McNally

1:05:19
182

How To Stop Waiting And Start Doing with Roman Mars

43:43
183

Gut, Head + Heart Alignment with Scott Dadich

38:17
184

If Not Now, When? with Debbie Millman

55:31

Lesson Info

How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

everybody. What's up? It's Chase. Welcome to another episode of the Chase Jarvis Live show here on creative life. You all know the show. This is where I sit down with incredible humans. I do everything I can unpack their brains with the goal of hoping you live your dreams and career in Javi and in life. My guest. You'll know him immediately. As I start revealing some of the things about him. He's, I think he's done 18 books, a global bestsellers. Hey, created a couple of startups. He is the creator of Ault MBA. We're here to talk about his new book called This Is Marketing. It's the One and Only the Inimitable Seth Godin in the House. I love you. Thanks, man. Thank you so much Looking for Oh, well, I confess we were talking a little bit before the camera started rolling. Um, we have done another interview a couple years ago. Uh, and it was super engaging for me. I personally have watched it a couple times to take the nuggets out of it that you have put into your books. Um, I just devou...

red this. I got the galley. Thank you for Overnighting it maybe forget Stephanie or someone you know overnighted it and, um, just crushed this thing as I was flying across the country to come sit with you today. This, to me feels different than a lot of your other books. Um, you know, looks like the power's 18 of them, so I won't listen. But, um, I felt like those all took on very specific things about marketing, about audience, about engagement. This, to me is like a Bible. This, to me is like you put it all into one place. So was that intentional in my reading that into it or is that intentional? You packaged it onto To me. This is like, Yeah, I don't think that was the intent is what happened. The intense waas. He started out with something and I spend a lot of time. I don't do any consulting, but I spend time with people who care about helping them achieve where they're trying to go, and it tends to be something that many people would call a marketing problem and to help them I built this online seminar called a marketing Seminar. 6000 people have taken it. And the cool thing as you know from doing the same thing is you can watch what's resonating, what's changing people. Yeah, so it's 50 lessons. It takes 100 days, and I'm taking notes and adjusting it. And then I realize some people aren't gonna devote that kind of time. Yeah, I have something I want to teach them, and that's what led to the book. And as I was writing the book, I realized it's really a book about how we market to ourselves about the story we tell ourselves. But our sufficiency are worth our assertions or contribution. And so I had a lay that whole ground work out, and then on top of it talks about how other human beings here us and see us. So there no pages. It's a Tuesday afternoons are the best time to tweet. And there's nothing that says, Here's how you make s CEO work better because those air tiny, tiny tactics and they don't separate winners from losers. What matters is doing work that matters for people who care, and a lot of the people who are watching this want to do work that matters. But we trip ourselves up because we think that We then have to become an evil marketer and spam the world. And I don't think that's true. Well, you've laid out a very convincing case. Um, and there's lots of places where we could start this conversation. I don't want to just talk about the book. I get some free, but I do want to, like, get right into it because it's having just consumed ITT's very precious and very, very fresh for me. But talk about the smallest audience. So that's why the most controversial idea for the first past, Yeah, you may have heard about lean entrepreneurship, and you should make the minimum viable product MVP's. They call right? And, you know, if you look back to the early courses you launched, you wouldn't launch one of those today. But you need to put it into the world, not because it's lousy, because it wasn't lousy, but because it's primitive. But where primitive means is, I'd solved a small problem for somebody, and I can see how it works. And that has been proven to work over and over again. Well, in marketing, I want to argue that we've all been trained to pitch the largest possible because total addressable market There's all these acronyms talk about how you're supposed to only think big words like scale total addressable market. They drive me crazy. But Zach, both rating points. Gross, right? What if we did the opposite? What if we got specific? What if we said if there were 100 people? I changed 200 people? I taught 1000 people who were my patriots. What if we could do that with it? Be enough. Wouldn't be magic. Wouldn't be a home run. But would it be enough? If the answer is yes, then we become specific and obsessed with that. Because if you can't pull that off, whether you're not an artist, But if you can pull that off, you know what they'll do. They'll tell their friends because it's so extraordinary. Yeah, they have to share, and then it gets bigger and bigger. But we begin by having the guts to be specific, as opposed toe hiding behind infinity. So you said gonna make that enough. Enough for what? Enough to get started enough for life. Enough for like, what's the enough for giving me the exactly the two kinds of enough The first enough is is it enough for me to make my next piece of work? Is it enough to fuel this journey? Because artists convey insatiable, they can want war, cause they think they have something to give. We're not. But then the second enough which I don't talk about in the book books are talking about a lot of my block is what happens to your happiness. What happens to your craft when you define whatever you have has? Enough for now? Because if you can live in sufficiency, yeah, it's way easier to be generous because you're not drowning. Drowning people don't offer life jackets. Other people. Yeah, but the act of offering a life jacket to somebody else that connection that comes from that actually supports aircraft. But we have to tell ourselves a story of sufficiency. Not I'm done. Yeah, but I did that. This happened. Now what? Yes, I think there's something about, um it feels completely this phrase. And it feels completely different than that of of our product. Because you're just you're trying to give people that in that small subset and experience in 11 experience that 10 exactly right, and it feels to me. They're like tours of duty. I don't like military analogies, really, But it's like you get in you. You did a tour of duty. You gave them what they needed at that moment. And then you're learning and it's not. You know, I've always had this debate inside of Creativelive when I looked at help, you know, other founders and friends who are building products. You hear this? M V p. And if you look at a triangle of like the bottom is like it actually does what it's supposed to and in the middle is like it's got some nice polish in the top is like it's extraordinary. Everybody tries to slice through the bottom middle section like it does a little bit of something, which there's no emotion around business. I hate minimum viable products, but that's a long definition of M V P. That's what you are telling you. They're wrong. They're slicing it the wrong way. Direct. Yeah, I remember I saw diagram somewhere, and so the fact that I don't love M v p. Help help me really get into this very quickly. But I think that the audience, the idea of a small audience is. It feels risky to people. That's right. And is it just Is that a thing you have to get over? Or is this a risk that you have to sell inside of your organization? Like, what's How do we think about how we give people who are considering doing this, how we give them tools, this adversity? This is brilliant. You said that in my next book. He's a brilliant question. There's a difference. He feels risky and is risky. The risk is it. Sitting there is a different thing feels and its OK, right? The riskiest thing you can do is make average stuff for average people and pitch it to the masses. The riskiest thing you can do is say we're gonna be the next Banana Republic. All right? This is like, not a lot of chance that's gonna work. The safest thing you could do is say there eight people a table, for if I can go bring magic to table for even though I've got a long shift ahead of me. If I act like it's their Onley chance, those people ever gonna have, because it it to have the experience of a lifetime here right now. That's the safest thing you could do. Not worry about. The people who are haven't even clicked on open table, not worry about The people were thinking about a restaurant to go to table for what's happening at table for, because if you can change the life even this much, they'll come back and no bring their friends. And when you think about the growth of my projects of your project, isn't that what they're about? My like that. The brilliant insight I was telling my wife about great inside of Here is is is live for. The people came for free, Great. And now it's going to cost my How can that make sense? Well, because the people you changed hurt your sales force. Yeah, right. Until does it feel risking you bet. Why does it feel risky? It feels risky because you have to make an assertion because you have to go to people that I made this and if you say to a special person, I made this and they say I hate it. It hurts. Yeah, whereas if you just stand on the street corner and say to everyone I made this, there's so many bystanders, you feel safe. So what I pushing people to do because the Internet feels vast? Yeah, it's not a mass medium. It's a micro medium. It's the smallest medium ever created next to a 1,000,000,000 other small media, so you don't get to be in front of the Internet. When I was at Yahoo, the home page was sold out two years advance because amateur marketers with money say, Let's by the Internet by the home page. But it wasn't working. This takeover isn't stuff. Nothing, because it was way better to be in front of the right person on the right day for the right reason to say this thing Instant, yes. And if you can't build an instant yes, then all the spamming of your friends and family isn't gonna make it any better. So you talkto I loved how you framed it, which is it's It's actually the least risky thing you can do is focus on one table. Um, but you have to believe, like somewhere in the back, your head, you're letting fires other fires burn, you know, because, like you said somewhere, someone's having a problem on open table somewhere. I love the restaurant tonality. By the way. You know, I think a lot of us have been servers at some point in our lives, so we can relate. And, you know, you've got table six, which they're just got sad and you haven't given them the drinks but the willingness to focus on table for the day before they were loved before, but the willingness to focus on them when you put it as you have, it's unequivocally the right thing to Dio. And then the challenge that the next challenge that I see exactly how where you were the resource is Yeah, what next? So I did. I was super excited, and I did a great job with table for now was doing a good job with table for take time. Where does it take love? And that's the distinction. So most of us are super lucky. We don't do physical labor anymore. We don't dig a ditch for living. We don't work in an overheated nuclear power plant fixing gaskets, right? Yeah, we do. Emotional labour and emotional labour's also exhausting, but it's different. So you have seen in the last 12 hours a receptionist or a frontline person coasting through their day. They're not getting paid enough. They're not lead well, they have bad conditions, so they're not exerting emotional labor. The question is in the same amount of time. Could they have made a difference for you? Ah, flight attendant, a waiter, a senior vice president of talent Relations go anywhere on the spectrum. What does it mean to look someone in the eye and say, I'm really glad you're here because that exchange didn't take any longer than your tables over there. Yeah, right. So what? I'm not art. I'm not arguing that we need to make every restaurant the Union Square Cafe. What I'm arguing is that the sense of spread to Tora this Italian word for effort with care, right that I'm here for you. That takes emotional labour just as much emotional labour as making a painting that isn't like everybody else's painting in both cases work. Having to wrestle with that other thing inside if it's called heart if you want die, is why most conversations about marketing t tend to be about tactics, because now I don't have to expose my fear right, and that's not where I'm going. I'm trying to help people see there's more opportunity than ever. But you're not gonna find it by learning tactics. You're gonna find it by marketing to yourself and believing that the world deserves what you have to say. So on a hinge, uh, my next question around the point you just made about seeing. So give us the the connection between seeing and being seen, right? I think it's Ah, uh, it's a really central point of the book. I think it might even be some Yeah, Yeah. Is it? Oh, yeah. You can't be seen until you learn to see so help Help me understand exactly what you mean by that. And e, I think I understand that you don't want it to be to tactical, but what is that? What precipitates when you understand that you can't be seen until you see what precipitates So toddlers have a deservedly bad rap because their selfish narcissists me, me, me all the time. The father never comes up and says, How was your day? Right? Because the toddler just wants to be seen in federal marketers air like toddlers in that they've worked hard to make something, and now me bring it on. I want more clicks. I want more pay fuse. I want better Google traffic, right? The thing is that selfishness cannot stand in a world where we have lots of choices. Because if I can bestow my attention on anybody, why should I bestowed on toddler? I don't need to. Others go over here. Yeah. So what it means to see before being seen is to say that person I seek to serve. What's the story in their head? What's the narrative in their heads? This is great new work called Sander, which means realizing that other people also have a noise in their head. The way you have a noise in your head. And for most of us, that's a revelation. And other people have a noise, and it's not the same is my noise. So once you accept that there's that noise in their head that they don't know what you know, that they don't want what you want, that they don't believe what you believe. You can learn to see them for who they are, where they're going. If you can do that, you know what they're gonna do. See you in return. But we have to go first, and particularly when we're not a Fortune 500 company. When were the sole practitioner? Small folks like you and me and the artists. That's all we got. But it's enough. It's more than enough because everyone is thirsty for that. And in the oft n. B. A. We spend an enormous amount of time teaching people to see to see the world as it is to see that other people have their own narrative. Once you gain that empathy, you conserve better. So that makes a ton of sense to me. And I'm I'm as well, hopefully everyone who's watching and listening there like thinking about how this applies to them. So I'm sitting here doing the same thing, selfishly trying toe create a conversation here but myself is all that's right. Okay, okay, I'm tryingto learning process, and I remember writing a block post some time ago and it was called Stop trying to get everybody to like your work, and it's a think men shared or 20,000 times or something's isn't. And what I realized at some point is that if you are so busy trying to get everybody like your work when the reality is is just do the math for a moment. And how many people do you actually need with? Especially if you're an independent artist? Sola preneurs like that? How many people do you actually need to make your things successful? What I learned from you is is not even successful. How do you like do a tour of duty number one like? What is that number when you realize how small that number waas. It's even worse, though, because if you try to please the person in the back right, you're gonna stop pleasing the people you care about. So I gave a speech in Mexico six months ago, and I am ashamed at what I did. And I'm saying this story aloud so I could tell it to myself. So it's in a convention center. Worst place to give a speech. It's simultaneous translation, worst conditions to give a speech and its 2000 people. And I'm up there doing my work, and I feel like I'm doing it pretty well. And in the third row is a woman on her cell phone. She's not listening to herself. She's talking. She's talking on her cell phone in the third row while I'm up there doing my thing. And I just My mentor is executor taught me not to do this, but I couldn't. I focused all my energy on this woman, and I kept interjecting references to social media and how we can't put it down and hang up the phone. I'm talking louder. I can't fly. Please. I'm on the phone here and I know that I deprived the people in that room who were there for me of my best self. How dare I do that? And it's even worse when there isn't someone on the phone you're just imagining so that when you're sitting there typing or drawing or you're imagining the troll, you're imagining the nonbeliever what they're gonna say. Maybe it's your mother in law, who knows, and then you start averaging it out to make them happy. You start doling it down to make them happy. Wrong through the opposite. How can you make them even more unhappy? How can you make it even less of what they want? So if you're contemporary artists don't make it more like Norman Rockwell because Norman Rockwell RV did Norman Rockwell he's taken Make it more like you and the person the Morley Safer Zehr whoever who hated contemporary not for you don't even come in the building. Yeah, not for your warning sign is not for you. And as soon as you have the freedom and the confidence to do that, your work keeps getting better. It's it takes guts. I think this is, You know, like you have to really let things burn and part of especially for new folk actually came. Say, like and at every every table that I've ever sat at a about a bunch of different levels, That is not the commonly held belief because there's a desire toe, please. Plus, we gave the critics and microphone what they didn't used to have one. Now they do, right? So if I'm gonna I'm gonna reference burn a brown. You know, she keeps a very short list of people about six people in a little teeny piece of paper folded up in her while she brought it out, she showed it to me before, which is a great It's a great way of thinking which this is what I care about these in the people that I care about what they say. If you're not in the arena, you know, in this list, I don't care. And what I took from your book is that if we can take a similar mentality and focus it on how we talk about our products or services and who we are Yep, that we're gonna be infinitely better off happier and more of service to the people we're trying to serve. If you run a nonprofit, you're trying to raise $100,000. Who is the best person is $100, from someone who's never given money to charity, where someone who gives money to charity it's pretty clear? Yeah, right. Okay, among people who give money to charity, do you want to call on people who donate to the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and you know, one other old school charity? Or do you want to go to people who are eagerly on the front lines? Well, depends what kind of charity, right? So you're doing work that matters for people who care, and they demonstrate how much they care through their actions. So find people who are already acting like people who care and make something for them that they can't help. But be glad you made smallest possible audience viable because possible is one can't live on one. So what's the viable? What's the one I can live on that will get me far enough to do it again? And you know, my friend Brian Compliment talks about the question he gets asked the most is, how do we get an agent? Because the mind set is my agent will help me get picked. Yeah, well, the way you get an agent is actually doing work being So that is the agent will call you totally being so busy to the nation will find you. And the way that happens is you make YouTube video. It doesn't work. You make another YouTube video, it spreads a little. You make another YouTube video 500 people watching. Now you're onto something. Your next one maybe will only reach 5000 people, but it will change them. It will change the way they see the way cameras work, whatever it is. Oh, now the phone ring. Because you did something worth seeking out. How do we get people? I'm saying maybe people refers to me, you are someone who might be listening. How do we How do we, um, lean into this concept way under? I under I can understand intellectually that Hey, as soon as I make something for everyone, I've actually made it for nobody. I understand the the math, but actually doing that thing and it's sort of an inward journey. How do we become? How do we make that a habit when is certainly not intuitive? That's not what you've been told. This is This information is not in other books. It's about total addressable market. How do you make a product that scales? Is that you know? I mean and and I know and understand and respect those people who built those huge scale businesses There. Maybe is the Lincolns that they've been on the show? Sure, but So how do you How do you reconcile that? We have to make something small and individual and unique and putting a cigarette Try this trick. This is what I'm looking for It. I tricked you into giving me a trick. Yes. Think about the best teacher you ever. This teacher did not used testing Measure compliance, standardized testing and this teacher was not the best teacher. Everyone never had the best teacher you have. What happens if, instead of thinking about yourself, it's a marketer. You think about yourself is a teacher and you are teaching not everyone but people who are enrolled in the journey where you are going. And I would argue Airbnb and linked in or perfect examples of businesses that did not try to be everything to everyone. They tried to be important to a very small group of people, and those students of theirs who were in the early classes were said, Oh, teach me about this. Teach me what it's like to be an Airbnb member. Teach me what it's like to have these kinds of interactions and Lincoln. And as students, you didn't have to yell at them because they were enrolled in your journey. And as a teacher, you're thinking, Oh, that was a little too fast. Let me go back and do this little bit. Let me find out where that person is holding back. And once you realize that you're a teacher, a generous teacher, not the kind who's yelling people with a generous teacher, everything that I'm talking about suddenly fits into place. I think it kind of shot myself in the foot because as soon as I had asked, you started talking. It was like, Wait a minute. So I had Joe from Airbnb on and he was like, You know what they did is they? Originally it was for they rented their apartment and literally put air mattresses on the floor. It's out by Southwest because they knew that the city would be sold out and they needed to make money to make rent. So talk about small like and then ultimately, what? What tipped was They came. They opened the market in New York and they came here and they individually, the founders and a friend or none, and photographed the insides of Airbnb because they realized that the photographs were very unappealing. Yep, very non scalable. Very. I think they did 20 in a weekend. Exactly. And that was the thing that Joe credits as tipping the business right. Which leads to this next cool idea. Yeah, as you scale. And you have done this masterfully, which is people like us do things like this. That sentence is what marketing is. People like us do things like this establishing the culture. So if you're a supreme a fan, that's you know when to go to the store. You know which one had to wear in which you're not gonna wear anymore. You know what to sell and what not to sell. Right? That if you ride the Staten Island ferry every day to work, You know what people like us do when we commute. The rules are very clear. Where did they come from? They're not the laws of physics. There just the rules in this moment. So people like us contemporary artists who are working in 2020 what do with people like us do? Where do we show? What is our form? People like us do things like this. So who gets to invent those rules? The cool thing is, we do, Yeah. So your there are victim of the tools of your following those rules. Or you are the inventor of those rules. And because of the way I came up as a teacher, as someone who helped run a summer camp inventing cultures, this is what we do. We use expressions like this, not expressions like that. And when I was running my Internet company were 50 of us in one big room, and there was one person who had a bad temper, and I knew that because he had status. If he persisted, it would be okay to have a bad temper in my company. And the culture was Brandon and I took him aside and said, If you lose your temper again in the office, there's no warning. You're just fired And he knew I was serious and he never did it again. He needed to leave the room that he could lose a temporally wanted when he wasn't around us. But people like us. We do things like this. And that's why it's different when you walk through the halls of Ivy and then the walk through the halls of Microsoft. That wasn't an accident. Someone picked. People like us do things like this, and you get to do that with your work. And as you build your column, the tribe to community whatever you want. You're the one who's determined what those are. If you can make assertions and if you could own it and then we get back to the fear for my well you're you. That's why we picked you to go do this. That is like, I think that's a major unlock for a lot of folks. And let's go back to the individual creators, the entrepreneurs, people who want to start something for whom deciding there's this fear. I remember this fear in my own work that that But I want to show a portfolio that has everything in it, because when I'm showing a prospect of by, they're gonna look and say, Oh, issues. You know, not just action sports. He also shoots puppies, right? And because I want I need the money, I need toe, you know? But of course, I quickly realized that this is sort of poison because this is nobody. This is I do everything for every $12 an hour. So let's do the freelancer riff because it's important. Real answers air different than entrepreneurs and most of the people watching Mr Freelancers I'm a freelancer. I like being a freelancer. Nothing wrong with being freely. But stop pretending you're an entrepreneur. Freelancers get paid when they work. They don't build an asset bigger than themselves. Right? So I don't have a building. Okay, great your freelancer. How do you move up is a freelancer. The answer is, Can it work? More hours? You need better clients. Better clients challenging you better work. They respect your good work. They pay you more. They tell other people your good work spreads the word. That's how you move up. Get better clients. So if you go to people and say I will do what you want, what do you need? That's the kind of client you're going to get. But if you go to a client and say I have a point of view on I'm leading, the only clients you'll get are ones who are have a point of view in our leading. Is that who you want to be? So will it be much harder for you to get those clients at the beauty for sure, that's a dip. Yeah, but the ones you get through it and get to the other side, write what you want our people in the world saying, Get me chasing someone says Chase's busy to say When you get me someone like him, that's what you want to have happen, Yes, but first you gotta have that first sentence be true about you. And if you're the winner does sports photography and puppies, no one's gonna ask for you for sure. There's something also about Let's go back to this story. We need to tell ourselves to believe that were good enough, were worthy. I think that's a for And we're going to still stay on freelances. Oh, are independent creators. There's a I'm not worth it. I haven't earned it. I and I had plenty of advantage. I grew up in a safe home. I don't have this this brutal artistic struggle in my history. I don't have anything to say on a point of view. How am I gonna be? You know, how am I gonna break through? And what would you tell someone? Because I believed that of the tent. If there's 10 people listening, I want you right now that 8. of them have that feeling. Yeah. So what do you tell them? Yeah, OK, Me too. That's a good What do you tell them? The first thing that days. You're probably not good and no one is. But you could get better. And if you keep getting better, then sooner or later, you'll be better. And that's the journey. So at the beginning we're going to people who have a problem, and we're going not in our head, but trying to get into their head. What is your problem? Your problem is you have a deadline. Your problem is you have to tell your boss you've got this problem solved. Your problem is you feel insufficient. Your problem is the last three people flick that baba block. But you know what? Your problem isn't Your problem isn't that you can't find a freelancer who is the world's best at blank, because that's actually not part of your narrative at all. That maybe the freelancers narrative is that I'm insufficient incompetent. But that's not what the clients problems. So if you present to the client as this person who will make promises and keep them, who will exert emotional labor to be easy to work with, or difficult to work with it? That's what the clients working right, but you make an assertion about what role you are playing as their teacher in that moment. If that's the story they need to hear, you're doing them a service, and that service is just like the service you look for when you go out for a nice dinner. Were you out for a nice dinner? The chef isn't saying to himself I'm better than David Chang. The chef is to say I'm making a promise. And if you want this dinner for $24 here it is. And if you don't want my point of view about food, there's an Ethiopian restaurant right down the street. But in order to be a productive professional, we have to present to the world that I will make this for you and they keep the promise. And if you want to get better at it tomorrow, please go get better at it tomorrow. But you can't wait until you're perfect before you can present to the world cause you're never going to get that goes back to the non m v p m v p. When I put something out in the world, make it better Make the thing that you do make make in 11 out of a 10 and then make another of course or another thing. So when you set out to write, this was this was this a project that you said. All right, I need to write the definitive thing, and it seems again I open with this. It seems different to me than your other books because it's got it puts its arms around mawr. Big ideas. There's not a lot of tactic, as you said, and I'm gonna try and get get tactical on your, you know, resist. It's all good. But did you set out to write that book where you put your arms around? I mean, the title was like, This is Marketing is very bold, like Okay, it's right here, you know? So I'm not good at making up stories that aren't true. So my true stories is I did that with Linchpin. Linchpin is the best book I've ever written. I can't write a better book, Lynchpin. I spent a year of my life trying to craft a testament on paper that I could not deliver in any other form. And I experienced what that felt like, and I don't know if I could do it again. Maybe I could find a reason to care enough to go through that pain. But in this case, what I'm trying to do as I'm often trying to do is deliver value in a format that's appropriate for the value of trying to deliver. So in the marketing seminar, I said, If I can get 6000 people to come on this journey with me every day for months, I can change them using new teaching technologies, we to open us and it works. But it's arrogant for me to say that's the only way to learn market because a lot of people say I don't that kind of time. I'm not willing to put myself into that position. Well, there's this 500 year old medium that has magical power, and its biggest magical power is that you can hand it to your friends really cheap and that you can all go on the journey at the same time. Your colleagues can all read it at the same time. So I haven't written a full length book and more than five years because the publishing industry has its own issues. And I said to myself, Wait a minute, I have this nail. I have this hammer. What am I? Why am I will be a hypocrite. I'll go back into the book publishing world because I care to serve people who want to read it in this format. And I am fully aware that most people on Earth 99.9 will not read this book because they don't want to read a book because they don't worry about book about this Fine. But for the people who want to go on this journey and bring people around them with them, this was my best effort to do that. And so when I read it as a book and write, it is a book, I'm not under the illusion that this is to kill a Mockingbird. I wish I could like to kill a mockingbird. What I've tried to do instead is share the way I care about people who are doing this work that matters. And I'm really hoping that people who do the other kind of work won't read this book because I don't want them to use some of these approaches. Teoh manipulate people. We have to own the work we do and so giving people took it. And I'm saying, Please do work you're proud of. Is this a Is this an attempt to capture people who wouldn't otherwise take the course. Well, I don't think captures rightward. What happened is served exactly. So I'm trying to teach people that learning I'm slow. But I'm right because you will soon discover that writing a book is a not very smart financial endeavor, right? I'm never going to stand on the quarter and try to sell my books. It doesn't sound worth my time. What I am happy to say to people is, if you're doing work that matters, and I've tried really hard to signal everywhere in this book, that's who it's for. Then I'll tell you everything I know. For 20 bucks, trust is as scarce as attention. Yeah, it is. For those who are listening and watching and just read the name of Ah is the name of Ah, chapter Chapter 18. Explain that so attention used to be strip mined by the big marketers. So if you're over 30 years old, you remember network TV and network TV was a bargain. For 40 years, you always made money on the TV, Edgerrin always and then cable came and then the Internet came and suddenly attention is no longer bargain because there are more people trying to buy it but they're not making any new attention. There are more choices, but they're not beginning to attention. So that raise for attention is characterized last 20 years. That's what Purple Cow is about. Okay, so now we've got that understood. But then trust has been strip mined where someone says, I'm in your email box, you sort of know my brand name or you're in the store. Buyer beware, because I can rip you off once, but I can't rip you off twice. And so what we've done is taught a 1,000,000,000 people not to trust. We thought a 1,000,000,000 people to think everyone's lying. A 1,000,000,000 people toe be hesitant. Yeah, so if you could earn attention through permission through the privilege of having a newsletter or a broadcast like this, are subscribing to someone's YouTube channel. The case, that example exactly on, and you can be trusted. Everything else takes care of itself. Done done. So let's go, then the ravenal of attention a little bit more because that's I think that's what we feel like we're always competing for in this day and age, is it? How do you think about attention? Cause I'm trying to think about a small audience like What's the smallest viable audience? And then attention attention Seems like this big thing that you need to get a lot of people. You people get people. I'm able to get a little bit. But, no, you're setting it up beautifully. If you have a funnel view of the world, you need a 1,000, people to get 10,000 people to get 20 people, right? But if you have the smallest viable audience view of the world, your classroom is 26 people in it. They're eager to be there. If you didn't show up, they'd be angry. 26 people. That's not a funnel. That's classroom. That's magical. So Banksy doesn't have to go to immediate work, right? Banksy doesn't need a funnel. Banksy's Banksy and the people who care about Banksy follow Banksy. He doesn't even want them to follow him sometimes. And that is where you want to go as an artist is that your work matters enough that people will choose to pay attention, right? Jerry Garcia didn't have to do a sponsorship deal with Dove or Axe deodorant, right? He was Jerry Garcia. People lived in a bus to follow him around. Now, please don't say, but I'm not Banksy and I'm not Jerry because their genes air the same as yours. This is not about God given talent. This is about caring enough to change a small group of people, and it doesn't have to be very many know that the initial years when the dead was really becoming the death they grossed a couple 100,000 bucks on the road. It wasn't huge. Amounts of money wasn't huge numbers of people, but the song lives on because in that moment and exchange was made between people want to be in the room and musicians who wanted to be in the room. And what's worth noting is they had only one top 40 record their entire career, even though they were one of the top 10 grossing live bands for decades. And the one record they had almost Wyndham because it brought the wrong people to the show. That's fascinating. To think of it like that brought the wrong people show up. That's when the violence started. Showing up with drugs got out of hand because the people who came for touch of grey were outsiders, and they didn't get the joke. I'm reminded by by that story of a friend of mine. I don't know. He's a New Yorker, Maybe a mutual friend, Brandon Stanton, who created the humans of New York. Yeah, I don't know him, but everyone says he's incredible and what I love about his sort of origin story without going into details. He was a bond trader, failed, lost his job in Chicago, moved here like with the goal of being in control of how he spent his time, not how much money he made. Beautiful instance. It's a beautiful, you know, set up. And then he tells this great story about how is first sort of like and his second like. And it's hard to think Now, if someone who this second they put out a book, it goes to literally the very top of the list. It stays there for several weeks because he's in an audience of 25 or 30 million people who buy anything that he puts out, and it's very hard to think of this. That's what he tells the story of. Here's a photograph of the first photo I ever posted. It has one FC. It had one comment and no likes. Yeah, it's four, which is the visitor commented. Didn't couldn't even be bothered like it. Actually, it's an extra click, and I'm tired, but it's I think it's hard for people toe believe or two. I think intellectually you can understand it. But emotionally it's very hard to believe that going from 0 to 1 is a win. Yeah, and then from 1 to 2 and to 3 and that that's where actually, your if your focus is really on that group because you just don't see how that it's sort of like compound interest. You just What is it if you gave someone, if you if you give someone double the penny and double the penny, starting to make a $1,000,000 Yeah, it takes a month to make a $1,000,000. Or would you rather have some other big number? So is this is your book? Are we trying to just put an end of that? And you feel like that's the steak that you're trying to put in the ground is like, Stop trying to think big. You have to start small. And is that is that the core of this book. Um, I would I think that it it sits in a sort of a trio or quartet of ideas. Okay, that the idea of big is challenging. So what if you talk to someone who admires are and you mentioned Amanda Palmer? They'll say that the music she's created, the footprint she's made, she ran the most successful music Kickstarter in history. What they don't realize is when she was in the dressing dolls, she got kicked off her label because they're only 20,000 people who were following her work and buying her record. And when she did her Kickstarter, the most successful kickstarted history should 20,000. So it's not millions. It's 20,000. Makes you Amanda Palmer. That's all right. So don't sacrifice your work for a big number, because guess what. If I don't get the big number, you'll just have sacrificed your work. And number two is the big number isn't gonna fuel your work. Your work is going to fuel your work and the people you're teaching. But next to that idea, which we haven't talked about yet, is to ideas that sit next to each other. The first ISS status roles, which is super important tryto understand the story. Someone is telling themselves. The short version come from Keith Johnstone and works in Theatre, but it's everywhere who eats lunch first when two animals meet in the jungle. Who's going to eat lunch first? Who's up? Who's down when two characters needed The Godfather who's gonna move up, who's gonna move down? Status roles. They're everywhere. When you get on the bus, who's gonna sit? Who's gonna stand at the art gallery? Why did someone just pay a $1,000,000 from this painting at this at Mary Boone? But the same painting on the street corner couldn't have sold for 100. What did they buy looking for status roles? Once you see them, you can't unsee them and you can play with Are you trying to sell to people who are ruing up trying to sell people who are eager to move down? Surprisingly, there's a market for that. We're trying to sell the people who are just working hard to stay where they are, so you know, when the fall fashion stuff comes out, why do people run to buy fall fashion? They don't have any clothes. Obviously they have closed, but they're trying to maintain their status, and if they don't have the new clothes, their stamps will go down next to that. Is this issue of Are we measuring affiliation? Who are we with who is like us? Where do we stand with them or trying to measure dominance? Who are we above? So professional wrestling is a competition of dominance, and that's all they do is manipulate who's up and who's down status wise. And if you're a fan of hoc or whoever it is on top, that makes you feel good. Affiliation is at the parade who's marching side by side, arm in arm. So one of the challenges we have its creators is temperamentally where affiliate Er's temperamentally we want to be in sync. Oh, everyone's wearing a black tern like I would have better what I mean temperamentally without before we get to our craft. Okay, we think about forward even start. We haven't even started yet. Now we're just looking around right where they were not progressed. There constituted I deep today where I'm part of a crew kind of person. But then when we do our work, we do our work. We have to be willing to break from the system. We have to do something that hasn't been done yet. It's not. People like us do things like this yet. First assistant, I do things like this. And if you want affiliate with me, you're going to do things like this to and that's super hard. That's why if you if you look at 10,010 X talks, of them are the same because it's scary to get up and do what. But 500 of them? Well, I never heard that before, and they used The Empress is an idiot and you delete it. We say. Now I believe you taught me something new. I wanna be people like that And that pioneering spirit, the assertion making. That's all artists. Dude, it's not a craft, you know. It's the art of making an assertion that I didn't know before, and now that I know it, you've changed me, you said earlier. But I'm not Banksy, but I'm not fill in the blank fill in the blank. What about the people who are at home saying Yeah, but like I I'm what dough I have, that's original to say what like What's my corner of? There you have it. I don't think you've tried our that If you If you say I'm I have writer's block I say Show me your bad writing. I want to show me 50, words of bad writing. Then you can tell me you have writer's block. But first do some bad writing because over time your bad lighting will get less bad. If you know the magic of the DSLR is for 300 bucks. Everyone has a state of the art object. But you're a lousy photographer. You know why you're allows it started for Because you don't take enough pictures yet. Show me 10,000 pictures. Put the pictures in the world one of the time. Listen to how they're resonating with people you're seeking to serve. Take more pictures, take more pictures, don't cost anything. Then come back to me and tell me you have no photographic talent. But first do the work. That is gold. If you are listening to this, you need to hit that 32nd backward button. If you're on the podcast right now, you need to play that. I think I once did a photography book was called The Best Cameras, The One that's With You. It was the first book on mobile little photography, and it said in And that's the dirty secret of photography is that you have to take a lot of pictures to get your work and to get to find your work. And that is a thing just did. A great co created something with Apple called Photo Lab where it's this is this program is in all 500 Apple stores worldwide every day, and one of the things that we're trying to cement in there is that the difference between a pro and an amateur that proceeds something and I'll take 10 pictures of it versus you. Just see the Grand Canyon. You walk up to the end again. Can you take a picture? And you wonder why the pro and there's Sir. There's other distinctions, but you wonder why the pro got a better photograph than you did. And it's because the pro hiked down took 10 pictures from down below, took 15 from above to purchase their friends, their Selves and and I just love the concept of work. I think it resonates with people who are actually committed to it. Is there a way that that separates the people who are, um, allowed into the club? Is this the like? People like us? Do things like this is that is doing work, a reasonable divider? Because the people have done it. People who haven't Yeah, there's a budget dividers. One of them is slowly fading, which is the divider of what you look like, where you came from. A totally unreasonable. But it's true in a lot of places, particularly in photography with gender and things like that. Unfortunately, I think that we're going to see that fade. But there is a tiny group of lucky people, a tiny group of people who their first video went viral. A tiny group of people who, from the day they're blogged, went up. They just kept going and going. I wasn't in that group when he came to my writing. I did 100 20 books, is a book packager. Before I became an author, I wasn't in that group with my blawg. 20 people read my blawg every day for months or years before it was 200 bubble buck. But then I got lucky because fast company let me be a columnist. But that luck happened because I had already written 50,000 words 100,000 words before that occurred. So, yeah, I think you can look at people. I look at you and say this guy has been working generously for decades at this. People don't notice. Do us the let do. You have the last zero. Whoa, Look at that shake shack. Right. We'll talk to Danny Meyer, asking how long Shake Shack took right the 10 year overnight success, maybe 20. Yeah, probably 20. Um, all right, I want to read another, uh, chapter title. And that's wrong Price. Okay, I think this is a This is an area. Yeah, I like this. This is an area that I think screws up a lot of even startups like we probably priced product. And if certainly if you're an individual, I told the story about realizing Oh, my gosh, if I charged this much, I literally only need, like, clients years to make a great living. Oh, my gosh. So then it became about Price, and I think people are two things. One afraid of talking about price and experimenting with it and to their just their ignorant about it. They don't know said to me, There's a bunch of wisdom here pricing, and if you could put your arms around that for us about how you talked about the book, Okay, so I'll start in a surprising place. If you're selling to businesses, begin by understanding it's not the person's money. It's their boss's boss's boss's money. So their engagement with money isn't the same as yours if you're imagining how you would feel paying $5000 for four. So that's the wrong question. This person is going to go to their boss with the story, and that story might be. All photographers are the same. I got this one for $500 less. If that's the story you want to give them, be prepared to be the cheapest, but there's a different story you can give them, which is this Trade shows super important to us, and I managed to pay double, so we will never have to worry about whether the photography comes out of right or not, because I got the best person. Well, that story is actually more appealing to them because that story shows their boss. They put the effort it. So if you are the one and only. If you were the specialist at shooting trade show Booth in Tucson, Arizona, there's gonna be waiting list for you if it's true, right, because it's worth paying extra for that. The low price is the hiding place of the average creator that you say, Well, I can't afford to be better because I'm the cheapest. Well, the opposite of that is I'm the best, so I can afford to charge extra for people who want the best, and that is the key. The story they're telling themselves is, if I am paying extra, it must be better on the kind of person who wants better. So therefore, I insist on paying extra, and I don't think it's immoral to bring this emotional labor in this effort. To somebody who wants to tell themselves the story, they like paying extra. In fact, if you get a choice of your minimum viable market, why would you pick people who like paying less? Just pick people like paying more? It sounds so simple, but it's literally like it's the way I talked about it is it's like it is almost exactly the same amount of effort to sell something for $100 as it is for 1000. It's just a different buyer. Yeah, So put that lens on the people who are listening right now. Put that lens on it. Well, if you're going to do the 100 versus our reframe it as you please understand, you're not a greedy megalomaniac. You're gonna If you sell 1/5 as many, you're still gonna make twice as much money. You can do the math hit pause, which means you're gonna get turned down 80% another time, right? 1/5. Fine. So when you get turned down, you What you just heard was not that you're inferior, that you're a bad person. Where you just heard is I'm not the kind of person that likes to spend $ on this. Great. Congratulations. Here's the phone number of someone who likes to sell for 100. Yeah, great. I don't hate you. And you are me. You just want to make I don't sell. If you wander in to a fancy boutique and say hi, I'd like to buy a $9 pair of sneakers. They shouldn't hate on you. They should just say the Payless is six doors down. We don't sell $9 because we sell $900 sneakers, and when you're ready by $900 sneakers will be here. And if you can accept that, then selling $900 sneakers and making them worth 1000 is a fine way to spend your day. That's, I think, a brilliant. That's another thing you have to rewind. Listen to again. And I think that that creators get that wrong over and over and over again. And that's the sort of try and make some for everyone you're making it for No one in the same is true with price. I have found that in small and again what you ultimately, I think realize this took me a while. Is that the see if people that you encounter is not that huge, and there's a lot of cross over and for every person that you are wildly polite and engaged in positive around, but you steer them to somebody else. If they say it is 10 grand, I've got five and you say no problem. I can introduce you to a lot of $5000. Fill in the blank like, but I really want you. And I'm like, Oh, no, sorry. I'm a 10. Right. And let me introduce you to a five and what people get hung up on I want I'd like to hear your comment about this as soon as I finish my little narrative here, which is, But when I get 10 I'll come higher. You just do it for five now. And when I have a spouse is that if you become that person, right, you will. When they get 10 grand, they're going to the person who was 25 then they're gonna offer 10 because that's the kind of person they have categorized use that categorize themselves as the bargain seeker. Yeah, right. So the challenge in that setting, as you've pointed out, is that once you lower your price to that person, you have signalled to them. I'm the kind of supplier that likes to work with people who negotiate and hassle about price. And if that gives you pleasure, call me right. And it also makes them, at some level disappointed because they're thinking I could have gotten him before, right? And if you pick your customers right, if the pricing is a signaling strategy for them, they want you to charge more. And there are plenty of fields where this is true. Contemporary art, photography, public speaking. That's what the way it works is boss, you're gonna be so excited, he said. Yes, not I got a bargain. But they said yes, That's what you're bringing to the table. The challenges, the acting as if and the getting the moment. So one of the ways around it for people, for example, for photography is have two kinds of clients. Clients where you work for free and clients. We work for a lot. So if you do photography for zoos, nonprofits, kids, schools, etcetera, that's filling your portfolio to the edges, you can then look a corporation in the eye and say, I'm $10,000 a day. Yeah, because those are charities. When you start a charity, please call me. And so now I've divided the world into different buckets, and that's totally appropriate. Another way to do it, you know, Shepherd fair. If you want an original Shepard Fairey $80,000 but every month he puts 100 lit those on this thing for 800 you can sell money by a for profit. He doesn't care. That's all good, because he's put this into the world treating different people differently. But if you treat different people differently, you gotta have rules, because otherwise everyone's gonna feel like you're not treating him fairly. It's a really interesting distinction. I like to say work free or full price, but stand in the middle. Yeah, and you know, when someone is asking you to sort of negotiate down, that's when you do. You want to send them to somebody else. I think it is the pricing Psychology is fascinating, and I can talk about it forever. But I want to move on to something that is, I wanted to get to it, but you just gave me the perfect door, and that is, it's not about sort of them hating you because you cost 10 grand or or you didn't negotiate. You want to negotiate? It's separate the creator from the work. You did a beautiful job of some of that up at the end of the book, so that's also a big hang up for the people who are watching, listening and give us a way to think about it that deliver us, please from this generals that we have. You know, if Jerry Seinfeld gives a stand up performance, a club in New York and no one left, it could because he's having a bad night. Where could? Because everyone in the audience from an Italian tour group doesn't speak awarding. He shouldn't beat himself up. If it's the 2nd 1 they just speak a different language. So when you go to somebody and say, This is what I make and they get angry, you or in your head you think they're angry you? That's not really what's happening. What's happening is they have their own noise in their head. They know what they know. They want what they want. They believe what they believe, and you can dance with that and they may be want to be seen by you having those feelings. Or maybe you just want to disengage but has nothing to do with your work. You're the human right? It's not. They're not saying How dare you even breathe the oxygen on the same planet as me What they're saying is it's not for me and they're just not polite enough to say it that way. And you, your own worst boss, are busy beating yourself up for being inferior, as opposed to say, Who does want this? Who does want to dance with what I've made? And then you have to be honest enough to say, You know what? It's not that good. I'm going make something better. That's huge, I think a reframing if you've had that self doubt that I could say I have and I believe we all have at some point there's this reconciliation between when you put something out there in the world and it's crickets. What's your response? Was it not good enough was it was about me. Did I do something that was disingenuous, that I serve it to the wrong that I served Table Force Foods Table six and they got there like I did not order the chicken gets story like all of those things were possibly true, and we have to fix the the internal self talk, which is a problem for a cross section of people that I think we've decided to serve right. I think the good news is you and I will never run out of stuff to talk about it. It's not like we said, We don check, I d. It's just it's there for a long time. You just have to dance with it. You can't make it go away. So what I promised, you know, I would handcuff you to the chair. If I could, I'd promised. Okay, So I want to get some tactics. And I know you don't love talking about him, which is part of the reason I want you to go there. But there are a set of habits that have created the books that you've put out there. There are set of habits that whether their daily habits or work habits or how you think about things, help us. I have never really heard you to talk about like your routines. And I think it's big. I'm gonna fill in the blank for you. But can you give us something like, what does it look like? And I understand that people like these are potentially very esoteric things, but I hope that they help other people understand what's possible that you can actually craft your own thing and you're not beholden to what your phone says The first thing in the morning when you pick it up. But what are some of your personal habits for creating? Uh, here? The ones that I think are universal. We don't need me everything about everybody because they told me nothing about habits of mind that I think are applicable to other. Okay, like the fact that I'm a vegetarian, Probably irrelevant. And I don't think becoming a vegetarian will make you better, Uh, fair. Neil Gaiman said that when he feels stuck, what he needs to do is get bored. Because if he gets bored enough, he invents something to keep himself entertained. That's how we get some stuff. So I've tried very hard to eliminate all the things that I can that make me feel like I'm busy and productive when I'm not actually productive. So I don't go to meetings and I don't have a television. So right there. I have seven or eight hours every day that most people don't have. Then I don't use Facebook and his twitter. That's another hour and 1/2 not to mention the drama that goes with it. so already I start every day with an eight hour head start over almost everybody else. And then what I've chosen to do is pit places or digital spaces that are sacred in the sense that I Onley enter them with the intent of coming out with a trophy with a gift with something to share. So I'm not gonna open this word processor unless I'm there to write a certain kind of right. And for me, with my blawg, I was on Thai pad for 15 years. The timer, the type add user interface made me a better writer because if it opened, I knew why it was there. I knew why I was there. I knew what this was for. And so these practices every few years I invent a uniform for myself that I wear at work. Because if I put on the smart, if I put out of the lab coat, I just got one the other day, The new one I put that on. There is a reason we're here to do stuff in. Surgeons are great at this. They were mask, they were gloves like bank robbers, Except they they don't just, like, say, Yeah, I'm having a coffee. Elk. Alderson Surgery. Now there's this process. It makes you a surgeon. Yeah. So? Well, And salespeople zig famously with some guys bothering him. Finally sat down. And I'm not here to tell you anything as it is like that. Why you wasting my time? If you're here to sell me something, tell me something. Well, say to yourself, I'm here to get better at my craft. I'm here to get better for me. I'm going to shoot 400 pictures of this tulip. I'm not going to stop until there's 400. We do reps in the gym. We should do reps with the camera. And so for me, if someone you know, if an editor comes back to me with a book that I've handed to them with comments, I don't get all defensive, I say Thank you. Can you believe this person cared enough in this moment to say something to you? For you? And as soon as I say thank you, I'm wearing a different hat, right? Whereas Amazon reviews haven't read one in five years, I don't think anyone to read their Amazon reviews or their yelp reviews. I'm never going to write that book again. Why are you giving me feedback on the book? It's done. I'm never gonna write it again. I have never met an author who's better writing because they read their one star reviews. What those one star review say is this book wasn't for me. Thanks for letting us know We don't need to meet anything else. You just announced its Not for you. Okay? Yeah. Thank you. And so if I'm asking for advice from people which I like as better than were that feedback, I'm asking the right people who are going to give me advice in the right spirit, not walking up to a stranger on the corner, interrupting them. And we'll give you this because it's not for them. And they're not trained in how to give me good advice. It's so obvious when you think about it that way. I love it. Sorry, I keep talking. I mean, all of these things to start the practice of someone who calls himself a professional, and we expect it from surgeons. But somehow we expect that writers will just drink a lot, not dressed very well and, you know, complete about writers. But that's not what Isaac Asimov, Tommy Isaac Go 400 books as a published author, and he wrote 400 books by getting up every morning and typing until noon because he was a professional. So generally, when I see people who the reason I don't share, you know what I had for breakfast is because that puts me in a different place, and what I'm trying to argue is I'm in the same place. But I'm trying to do it as a professional, using these tools for a reason. This book is not me. I wrote a book. If you don't like the book, it doesn't mean you don't like me. He didn't like the book, and if I I didn't do that, I could never write another word because the thought that there are tens of thousands of people who will now announce they don't like me. I got up for that. I can't. So you just gave me a thing that I haven't heard from you on any other place, which is like this is a process. You I've been reading your your blog's for years. I've been doing that Now 20 can be with the first people. That platform and certainly one of the last didn't like WordPress by him and a long story. But I moved. Now it's It's Seth. Stop block. What does it mean? Toe, Right? Every day you sit there, how can you not do that? Why wouldn't everyone do that? I don't understand. It's free. You can put in someone else's name on the fact that I no, that tomorrow a bloggers going makes me a better thinker and a better human today because I know I'm going to write something tomorrow that has my name on it that's going to stick around about my view of the world. Why wouldn't everyone want to be able to do that, even if no one read it? I would definitely right, my boss, if no one read it because this chronicling of what did I notice today helps me see the world for free. And I get to feel like I'm producing something, even if I don't get paid for it. Even if I don't have to argue with a publisher editor, it's just here. I thought of this. Use it if you want to. I've never once had a block post win the Internet. I've never had one of my posts go viral and be a hit. Some have more traffic than others, but it looks like this. It's never like that I have Great, because if this happened to me, I would be tempted to try to make it happen again. Top ways to increase Your creative performance. I share my secrets in this exclusive post, right, But I don't want to do that because that's not what the bloggers for you just captured. Probably 10 million blood posts, but, like almost probably word for word, I love it. All right, so the book, This is marketing. You talked about a couple of other classes talked about the longer class. So there's the Alta Me A. Of course, which is my flagship thing at all time Be a that common that 30 day intensive people in 45 countries have taken it so far. We're up to 2600 alumni. It changes people's lives. It's really cool. I'm not in it. There's no video, there's no secret contact. That's not what it is. It's got coaches and video conferences and cohorts of people who become friends for life. So that's our flagship in the sense of, if you're enrolled in that leveling up and you want to commit to it, way have a place for you. And then the marketing seminar, which starts in January 2019 again, is this community discussion board that's on Lee. For the people who find out there's a video of me every two days, seven minutes long or so, and then I give you a challenge. And then the whole group shares their work and comments on their work. So when it's up and running, there's a new post every minute, every three minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, people and it that you can't fall behind because it's always happening and it unfolds over 50 videos over 100 days. But we keep it open for 200 days, and what people come in say, how can I find a tactic to sell more fur coats? And they leave with this whole student teacher mindset of service and maybe a different project. But it's the connections between and among I'm just a little start a fire. It's that that that's the future of education. As far as I'm concerned, free video online is going to stick around with its powerful If you pay for. I think it's gonna involve interactions with other people to get you to be momentarily uncomfortable on your way to being better. Beautiful. Congratulations on the book. This is marketing, Mr Seth Godin. Your legend, uh, super on. It has so far have you on the show. You didn't realize that you're handcuffed and we're gonna talk for another two hours. Were in, turn the cameras on and talk another two hours when I got him here in New York. Ny Huge. Thank you. Um, inspiration to so many. Appreciate you being on the show. Thanks. Very. And for every home you know where to get Seth. Uh, pick this up. It is, Jim. Don't make the record.

Ratings and Reviews

Dream Focus Studio
 

By far the best classes on Creative Live!! Thanks Chase Jarvis for bringing so much greatness to the table for discussion! Just LOVE it!

René Vidal
 

@ChaseJarvis - love chat with Gabby about hope and the "relentless optimism" you share at the end of Creative Calling. Many thanks. -- René Vidal McKendree Tennis

bob
 

Excellent interview with thoughtful questions. Thanks!!

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