"It doesn't sound like you"

One of the nicest things a generous critic can tell you is that a particularly off-key email or comment doesn't sound like you. It's generous because that's precisely the sort of feedback we can use to improve our work. And...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Drip by drip and the thunderclap

Sea levels are rising. It happens every day, and it's been going on for a while. Most people aren't noticing, and won't, until it gets worse. On the other hand, a hurricane or a flood captures everyone's attention and causes...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

When tribal adherence becomes toxic

We see it all the time. Someone gets caught cheating, or breaking a social taboo, or undermining the fabric of our culture in order to get ahead... And the fans of the team rush to his defense. It happens to...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Who are you playing tennis with?

There's a lot of volleying in tennis. They hit the ball, you hit it back. A lot like most of the engagements you have with other people. The thing is, though, you get to decide who to volley with. Perhaps...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

"And then what happens?"

A simple dialog can turn opinions into plans (or perhaps, into less tightly held opinions). We ask, "and then what happens?" Flesh it out. Tell us step by step. The more detail the better. No miracles allowed. And it helps...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Fast, easy, cheap, delicious and healthy (a food bonus)

I don't usually blog about food, but here you go: The next chance you have to visit an Indian grocery, buy yourself a packet of papad (sometimes called papadum, or the phonologic, 'poppers'). They cost about $2 for 10. (my...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

What bureaucracy can't do for you

It lets us off the hook in many ways. It creates systems and momentum and eliminates many decisions for its members. "I'm just doing my job." "That's the way the system works." Most of all, it gives us a structure...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

The why of urgent vs. important

You know you should be focusing on the long-term journey, on building out the facility, signing up new customers or finishing your dissertation. But instead, there's a queue of urgent things, all justifiable, all requiring you and you alone to...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

The smoking lounge

They still have one at the Helsinki airport. No one in the lounge seems particularly happy to be there. Perhaps they enjoyed smoking when they first started, but now, it sure looks like they realize that it's expensive, unhealthy and...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

"Hit the red button"

Everyone on your team should have one. When we hit the button, it instantly alerts the CEO or someone who willingly takes responsibility for what happens next. And then the question: What are the circumstances where an employee should (must)...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Over/with

You connect with someone. But you exert power over someone. You can dance and communicate and engage with a partner. It's a two way street, a partnership. On the other hand, you either exert control over someone, or you are...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Drawing a line in the sand

There are two real problems with this attitude: First, drawing lines. Problems aren't linear, people don't fit into boxes. Lines are not nuanced, flexible or particularly well-informed. A line is a shortcut, a lazy way to deal with a problem...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Squeezing the last minute out of a session

It's too late now. If you're the moderator of a panel and you want to rush through one more question... Or if you're the speaker and you need to race through three more slides... Or if you're a writer or...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Our worldview casts a shadow in the words that resonate

One reason it's difficult to understand each other is that behind the words we use are the worldviews, the emotions and the beliefs we have before we even consider what's being said. Before we get to right and wrong, good...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

The opposite of "more"

It's not "less." If we care enough, the opposite of more is better.        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Interesting problems

Being locked out of your car is not an interesting problem. Call five locksmiths, hire the cheap and fast one, you'll be fine. And getting a script written or a book cover designed isn't that interesting either. There are thousands...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Power and reason

A fish is not like a bicycle, but they're not mutually exclusive. You can have both. Part of our culture admires reason. It celebrates learning. It seeks out logic and coherence and an understanding of the how and the why....        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

"Nothing wrong with having standards"

This is the snarky feedback of someone whose bias is to hustle instead of to stand for something. When you say 'no' to their pitch, they merely smile and congratulate you on the quaint idea that you have standards. Their...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

The pact

At some point, you'll need to make a deal with yourself. What is this career for? What are the boundaries? What are you keeping score of, maximizing, improving? Who do you serve? Once you make this pact, don't break it...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Maybe your customer isn't trying to save money

Perhaps she wants to be heard instead. Or find something better, or unique. Or perhaps customer service, flexibility and speed are more important. It might be that the way you treat your employees, or the side effects you create count...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Making change (in multiples)

It's tempting to seek to change just one person at a time. After all, if you fail, no one will notice. It's also tempting to try to change everyone. But of course, there really is no everyone, not any more....        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

The two vocabularies (because there are two audiences)

Early adopters want to buy a different experience than people who identify as the mass market do. Innovators want something fresh, exciting, new and interesting. The mass market doesn't. They want something that works. It's worth noting here that you're...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Proximity and intimacy

I recently did a talk where the organizer set up the room in the round, with the stage in the middle. He proudly told me that it would create a sense of intimacy because more people would be close to...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Smartening up

When you seek the mass market, there are two paths available: You can dumb down your message and your expectations, and meet your audience where they stand. You can coarsen your lyrics, offer simpler solutions, ask for less effort, demand...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

What's the next step for media (and for us)?

Perhaps the biggest cultural change of my lifetime has been the growing influence and ubiquity of commercial media in our lives. Commercial media companies exist to make a profit, and they've grown that profit faster than just about any industry...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Bring your point of view and your active voice, or let's not meet

The scourge of Powerpoint continues to spread throughout the land. In offices everywhere, people roll out their decks, click through their bullet points and bore all of us to tears. Worst of all, important projects don't get done. All of...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

They're raising the weather tax

We've always been paying it, of course. Insulation, heating systems, drains--we build all of them because we live in places with unpredictable or inhospitable weather. But the weather tax is rising, and it is likely to go up faster still....        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Working for free (but working for yourself)

Freelancers, writers, designers, photographers--there's always an opportunity to work for free. There are countless websites and causes and clients that will happily take your work in exchange for exposure. And in some settings, this makes perfect sense. You might be...       … | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

What posterity has done for us

Sir Boyle Roche famously said, "Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?" Quite a lot, actually. We were born into a culture that took generations...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Losing by winning

In most interactions, you're capable of winning. If you push hard enough, kick someone in the shins, throw a tantrum, cheat a little bit, putting it all at stake, you might very well get your way. But often, this sort...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

"But that's not what I meant"

There's no more urgent reason to write. It keeps you from insisting that people read your mind, understand your gestures and generally guess what you want. If you can learn to share what you hope to communicate, written in a...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

It's almost impossible to sell the future

If you're trying to persuade someone to make an investment, buy some insurance or support a new plan, please consider that human beings are terrible at buying these things. What we're good at is 'now.' Right now. When we buy...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Pole vaulting on Jupiter

Even an Olympic athlete is going to do poorly on Jupiter. The gravity is two and half times greater, which means you're just not going to jump very well. On the other hand, our moon gives you a huge advantage......        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

altMBA update

After more than a year, I can report that the altMBA is working. It's the most effective, purpose-built and transformative learning tool I've ever worked on. Here's our latest alumni spotlight. More than 950 people have completed this month-long workshop,...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

But when will you abandon it?

Not if, but when. You and your team have already given up on carrier pigeons, typewriters and probably, fax machines. And the spreadsheet has totally changed not only your accounting, but much of your decision making. My guess is that...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Missed it by that much

I got to the gate just as they closed the door and the plane began to back away. It was thirty years ago, but I still remember how it felt. I think we’re hard-wired to fear these painful moments of...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Make believe problems

We focus on them and elevate them on our priority list. Sometimes, we invent a fake problem and give it great import and urgency as a way to take our focus and fear away from the thing that's actually a...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Friction and traction

It's fashionable for designers and marketers to want to reduce friction in the way they engage with users. And sometimes, that's smart. If someone knows what they want, get out of their way and help them get it. One-click, done....        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Just the right amount of data

The digital sign at the train station near my home could show me what time it is. It could tell us how many more minutes until the next train. Or it could announce if the train was running on time......        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Shared reality, diverse opinions

We're not having a lot of trouble with the "diverse opinions" part. But they're worthless without shared reality. At a chess tournament, when the newcomer tries to move his rook diagonally, it's not permitted. "Hey, that's just your opinion," is...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Appropriate complexity and risk

The best time to experiment in the kitchen is if you don't have 11 guests coming for dinner in three hours. Or, at the very least, be sure to have some decent frozen pizzas on hand, just in case. We...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

A listening device

Jacqueline Novogratz points out that the market can be an efficient listening device. If you go to a person and offer charity or even a gift, there's not a lot of choice. But if you offer to sell someone something,...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Hoarding doesn't work

There's a contradiction built into our instinct to hoard: the more we do it, the less we get. An idea shared is worth more than one kept hidden. Opportunities passed from one to another create connections which lead to more...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Almost no one

We may dream of the mass market, but the mass market doesn't dream of us. Almost no one visits your restaurant, almost no one buys your bestselling book, almost no one watches the Tonight Show. Rare indeed is a market...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Long-term strategy: Don't be a jerk

In the moment, when you have power, no matter how momentarily, how will you choose to act? Jerk comes from the idea of pulling hard on the reins, suddenly and without care. Horses don't like it and neither, it turns...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

You can look it up

Of course, for millions of years, people couldn't look it up. They couldn't read and they hadn't invented writing yet, so there was nothing to look up. All you knew was what you knew, along with what you could ask...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Rights (and responsibilities)

Human rights might be our species' greatest invention. More than phones or trains or Milky Way bars, our incremental progress toward dignity, opportunity and equality is a miracle. Rights aren't a decision we make when we're in the mood or...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago

Everyone is better than you are...

(at something). Which makes it imperative that you connect and ask for help. At the same time that we encounter this humbling idea, we also need to acknowledge that you are better at something than anyone you meet. Everyone you...        | Continue reading


@sethgodin.typepad.com | 7 years ago