the people who are watching this and you
and I in many of the things that we
endeavour to do were just not that good
at it
the brilliant insight that changes
everything for people is realizing that
responsibility is never given it’s taken
and if you choose to take responsibility
all these doors open up there are now
more weird people than normal people
because what it means to be weird is
that you care if you’re in a market
you’re looking around you’re on the
need motivation watch a top 10 would
believe nation what’s up at 7 my one
word is believe and I believe in you I
believe you have an amazing gift inside
you that I wanna see exploded onto the
world so let’s get your motivation to
attend and get you believing in you grab
a snack and chew in today’s lessons from
a man who went from starting a book
packaging business from his studio
apartment and using his life savings to
launch it to building a business that
sold to Yahoo for 30 million dollars and
writing 18 best-selling books he’s Seth
Godin and here’s my take on his top ten
alright let’s kick things off with rule
number one my personal favorite put in
the hours the truth is I love truth that
most of the people who are watching this
and you and I in many of the things that
we endeavour to do we’re just not that
good at it and it’s a mistake to fool
yourself into thinking you’re as good at
songwriting is Bob Dylan and you’re as
good at rapping as Macklemore and you’re
as good so I get emails all the time
please don’t send me email yet too much
email but I get an email from people who
said I can’t make a thing of this look
at this work I do it’s awesome why can’t
I why aren’t I more popular well number
one we haven’t understood what it’s for
and why you want to be more popular but
number two because you’re not that good
and you could be good but you haven’t
put in the 10,000 hours of the thousand
hours or the blood and the sweat and the
tears to actually be good at it so if
you go back to my blog post from 10
years ago more than half of them are way
below average it took a long time to
blog like me right but a lot of people
blog 6 times and they say why don’t I
have a million followers and so what I’m
getting at here is we are living in the
most crowded creative universe in
history there aren’t three TV networks
this a billion there aren’t you know 10
record labels there’s a billion so
you’re not entitled to any attention
you’re not entitled to any leverage but
if you dig ever deeper in the stuff that
truly matters you may earn some
attention
rule number two take responsibility
second one is that you’ve been lied to
for a really long time that school is a
scam that teaches people to be compliant
that tells you to only listen to things
that are on the test encourages you to
do the minimum amount because whatever
you get away was the rest of the times
yours that’s what we teach you in school
we invented that so that you would get a
factory job and do what you were told
because factories needed it so that’s
why they invented school and the
brilliant insight that changes
everything for people is realizing that
responsibility is never given it’s taken
and then if you choose to take
responsibility all these doors open up
and that you get a totally different
life in exchange because striving for
authority hoping if someone will give
you a license to tell other people what
to do that’s pretty rare but if you’re
willing to take responsibility then no
one can get in your way
rule number three just get on the damn
horse how do I find my passion or my
purpose or my calling and you’ve said
I’m not sure that anyone has a calling
did you speak to that a lot thank you
for teeing this up this whole calling
passion thing is complete nonsense it’s
as Steve Pressfield would call it the
resistance yes that van Gogh if he had
been born 20 years later or 20 years
earlier he wouldn’t have done what he
did it’s not like he some angel came
down when he was born and said you’re
gonna become an impressionistic painter
he wanted to do a thing but didn’t know
what the thing was and if Steve Jobs had
been born 20 years earlier he would have
done a different thing this isn’t about
waiting for there’s a right answer
because there is no right answer what
there are are challenges we can sign up
for and emotions we can experience there
are kinds of engagements we can seek out
and ones that we don’t want to if you
are the kind of person that neat only
feels good when all the chips are in red
86 well then you need to go find that
kind of activity if you’re the kind of
person that would rather have a small
circle of people who are committed to
you for a long time find what any
variation of those activities but if
you’re waiting for the perfect horse on
that carousel to come around you missed
three four or five seven cycles while
you were waiting all the horses are just
as good it’s the same carousel just get
on the damn horn rule number four make
change happen anything worth doing is
worth doing because you change
someone else that if we don’t make a
change happen what did we do right so
that change could be lots of things if
we’re going to talk about brands
harley-davidson is a multi-billion
dollar brand why because they changed
disrespected Outsiders into revered
insiders and for the people who have had
that transformation happened to them
harley-davidson is priceless that’s the
change and we’ll do anything but right
Apple computer we could replace
everything Apple makes with something
else except that Apple changes people
into people who have good taste about
digital goods that’s their Ark that’s
the change they make they keep trying to
escalate what it means to have good
taste so this change is sometimes
amplified if your idea spreads it’s
sometimes amplified if you create the
dynamic of the fax machine the purple
cow but you don’t have to do it that way
let’s say you’re a playwright and your
goal is to change the people who come to
your play into people who are able to
think more deeply say about gay rights
so the Laramie project succeeded because
if you went to that play you were
transformed changed but meet by words
and someone meeting them that was all it
was but it worked it made a change
happen now the byproduct is you and I
have heard of the play the word spread
but the word spread isn’t the point
that’s just a tactic that amplifies the
point the point is can you make a change
happen rule number five be willing to
fail you’re probably gonna fail yeah the
stuff you do is probably gonna suck
you’re probably gonna get in trouble
yeah probably not gonna work are you
okay with that
as if you’re not okay with that well
then that’s why you’re having trouble
getting your ideas that’s it that’s why
you’re having trouble integrating other
people into the team that’s why you’re
having trouble doing X Y & Z because you
aren’t okay with it not working
so you’re waiting for the thing that’s
sure to work but the thing that’s sure
to work isn’t gonna happen yeah and if
it is someone’s gonna do it instead of
you so all that’s left are the things
that are probably not gonna work yeah
the thing is when you were four you told
a joke that was funny and when you were
eight you did a drawing that was
interesting yeah when you were 14 you
had a conversation with someone that was
truly human you’re capable of it that’s
not the question everyone who’s watching
this has written one intelligent
sentence I’ve just written more than one
but it’s a matter of quantity not
ability yeah so where does the quantity
come from the quantity comes from being
willing to be wrong being willing to be
made fun of being willing to be
embarrassed being willing to fail it
never gets easier it never gets fun ever
okay fine and gravity also sucks if we
didn’t have gravity we could fly yeah so
there’s gravity but we don’t whine about
gravity we just acknowledge that there’s
gravity and we walk anyway yeah well I
think the same thing is true about the
art that we make the difference that we
make the a customer comes in every day
and the fifth day they come in that
looks like they’ve been crying it is not
your job to say to them is everything
okay and give them a hug but if you did
that what would happen right it might
not work
they might get really angry with you
none of your business
but it also might change their life you
could sign up for that or not and that’s
what freedom looks like and that’s why
freedom is so scary because freedom
doesn’t come with a dummies book and
freedom doesn’t come with a permit and
freedom doesn’t come with an excuse you
have to own it and it probably isn’t
gonna work you know I’ve written 7,000
blog posts and half of them were below
average I just didn’t know which ones
were below average until after I wrote
it rule number six blog even if no one
read it I would blog every day I think
everyone should do so and here’s the
reason if you know that tomorrow you
have to say something about something
you noticed about something that might
help someone else about an opinion you
have that might stand the test of time
you will form those opinions you will
notice those things you will invent that
idea and if day after day week after
week you leave this trail behind of
thoughtful examination of your world you
can’t help but get better at whatever it
is you seek to do and if as a byproduct
other people read it and trust you more
that’s a jackpot right then my goal is
not to have more readers my goal is not
to sell more books my goal is to be
trust it in a way that I can make the
change that I seek to have happen in the
world return on trust how do you gain
permission to talk to people in a way
they want to be talked to you don’t do
that with SEO and with gaming social
media strategies you do that by showing
up in a way that you’d want someone to
show up for you and I still don’t
understand why people don’t do this rule
number seven act like an on commodity
most of the people who were teaching
right now who are listening to this
thing would not hire themselves that if
you had to pick someone in the world to
do it the thing that you do you’d find
someone better than you so we’ve changed
the stakes and we have to be really
clear about that it used to be if you
went to Rhode Island School of Design
and you got through it you had this huge
head start on people that starts are
gone yes so when you think about it you
know when when someone says I’m a
freelancer and my primary asset is my
relationship with my clients well if I
went and asked your clients which of all
the freelancers you worked with is off
the charts with the relationship would
they actually pick you this person right
that when someone says I’m able to use
light in color to create photographs
that create an indelible image in
people’s heads well if I talk to the
people who’ve seen it are you really off
the charts so what I’m saying is yes
this institution is crumbling but that
puts a huge onus on people to be honest
with themselves about the craft that
you’re not going to get away with the
craft being what it used to be just
because we could find you and you know I
gave a talk two weeks ago to the people
who make all the imprinted items in the
country like pens and the water bottles
things like the huge industry there’s 50
thousand a hundred thousand people who
do this for a living
ninety percent of them have a big thick
catalog they’ll have the same catalog
and the same price list and you go to
them and they say yeah I have these
water bottles which one do you want that
used to be a really important value add
because there was no internet but now
there’s the internet sort by price I’ll
take this water bottle I’m done ten
percent of the people actually engage
with you help you find a thing you never
would have thought of the
ever the thing that’s off the charts are
taking huge emotional risks as they do
their work the other 90% are sitting
there thinking and they are in the 10%
they’re not they just have a catalogue
so sometimes people throw things at me
when I’m on stage because my argument is
I didn’t wish for the world to change
but it did
now that the world has changed don’t get
frustrated because people are doing
exactly what you do shopping around
sorting by price buying commodities
because that’s what we do when we’re
given the choice so if you want to be
treated as an on commodity act like an
on commodity no one is a commodity if
they don’t want to be rule number eight
be different I don’t think I’m not
different than most people I just had a
few really lucky moments that I took
advantage of and when I was in college
one of those moments hit and I got to
co-found a little business that ended up
becoming a snack bar and a ticket bureau
and a bagel delivery service and a
birthday cake service and a lot of you
service and a travel agency and every
week we started something new we was
semi related to the college so we got to
use their payroll system and in exchange
we didn’t get to keep any of the money
right so it was great because I get to
explore all this stuff without the
stress of saying what if it doesn’t work
right I already didn’t have anything
right and a couple weeks into it I
started to look at things say you mean I
could just go and start a new things and
no one could tell me not to yeah and my
roommates didn’t understand that and the
people on my hall didn’t understand that
and my teacher and as soon as that
happened I stopped trying to get good
grades in school because no one’s ever
gonna look at my grades anyway I started
taking as many courses that they could
cuts the same price to take six instead
of four so go ahead and it just adopted
this new posture which is how do I do
things for the people on trying to serve
how do I make interesting things happen
because it’s not a race or contest
it’s a journey yeah you know and I live
in New York now and one of the saddest
things was to watch the tourists go to
Olive Garden why would you go to New
York City and then heat it the Olive
Garden what is that about right and what
it’s about is because you like the
regular kind you don’t want to be
surprised because
want to do the safe thing well if that’s
what you want then don’t be a tourist
stay home and I think the same thing is
true about work like if you want a job
where someone’s gonna tell you what to
do
then go work for a different fast-food
place go work for a place you know where
they’re just gonna give you a manual
yeah but if you want a gig where you can
put on a show and be a different kind of
human being because you can yeah
there aren’t many companies like dr.
pros that have figured out how to let
someone do that rule number nine treat
different people differently treat
different people differently you’ve seen
this curve before it’s called the bell
curve or the normal distribution if you
took a stats class you know that it’s
called the normal distribution because
the people in the center eighty-eight
percent or so are normal and the people
on the edges are weird and that what
you’re supposed to do is ignore the
weird people because there aren’t that
many of them make normal stuff for
normal people and it worked great for a
hundred years but here’s what’s
happening thanks to the internet the
curve is melting drip by drip day by day
when you give people a choice they take
a choice there are now more weird people
than normal people because what it means
to be weird is that you care if you’re
in a market you’re looking around you’re
on the edges you didn’t buy the normal
thing so look at all these brands
billion dollar brands all of them every
one of them was built for weird people
none of them was aimed at the center of
the market when they came out that what
we have the opportunity to do is choose
to build stuff that some people care
about so many of you work for companies
that have the motto you can choose
anyone and wear anyone and that’s not
gonna fly anymore because we have to
understand the different people here
differently different people see things
differently you can’t have everyone
don’t try to have everyone but you can
have someone if you are willing to
embrace them a rule number 10 the last
one before some very special bonus clips
seize the moment there’s the external
thing in the internal thing the external
thing is this is our revolution we live
in this moment of time when anyone with
a hundred bucks can connect to a billion
and a half people around the world
anytime they want to we live in this
place where we each have more leverage
and a bigger platform than any human on
earth
her head before us and internally if not
this moment when right that if we’re not
gonna speak up now are things gonna be
easier or better a year from now we wait
for things to calm down we wait for it
to be the right moment but this is the
right moment that we we look back a year
in our life five years ago and we rarely
say I’m disappointed that I spoke up I’m
disappointed that I did my art I’m
disappointed that I connected to
somebody we don’t what we regret is not
doing that so here we are in this moment
of high leverage and all we can do is
watch cat videos and whine about our
now I’ve got three very special seth
godin bonus clips around how to dance
with fear seek out things that you were
wrong about and be in constant
reinvention but before that commitment
of the daytime you just watched an
amazing video you got inspired you learn
something what are you going to commit
to right now to change somehow in your
life or your business
write it down the comments below I’m
really curious to see what you guys have
to say thank you so much for watching I
believe in you I hope you continue to
believe in yourself and whatever you’re
one where it is much love I’ll see you
genius is an ancient term for the voice
in our head that is capable of doing
something for the first time it’s
capable of being generous it’s capable
of being original and our job is to let
the genius out you aren’t a genius we
are all carrying genius now the
challenge with letting the genius out is
it might not work and that expression it
might not work is super hard to say out
loud I say it out loud all the time
because the fear cannot be defeated the
fear will not go away the fear is
hardwired into us for a good reason
literally DNA survival yeah and the
thing is we’re just mistaken because you
had a reason to be afraid during the
Spanish Inquisition and you have a
reason to be afraid of a baseball bats
flying into the stands so your amygdala
is activated your lizard brain goes into
defensive mode but if you have to give a
presentation at work or speak to your
kid’s third-grade class you’re afraid
why what’s gonna happen exactly nothing
so we have all this false fear now you
can paralyze yourself trying to make it
go away you can read everything and
study everything and be sure you’re
right that’s exhausting yeah the other
thing you can do is you can dance with
it and if you dance with the fear and
say oh it’s a compass it’s giving me a
hint that I’m on to something and I’m
doing something that might not work so
here’s where the magic of our age kicks
in the cost of being a photographer
today compared to what it cost Ansel
Adams to be a photographer the cost of
being a published writer today cost in
time and effort and risk compared to
what it took
Ernest Hemingway to be a writer there’s
no comparison so what we get to do is
keep playing and if you get to keep
playing you know imagine I grew up in
Buffalo where the bowling leagues right
and one of the drivers of bowling is you
got to pay buy the game so I only got
three games I got to be careful with my
rolls well what would happen if you had
unlimited bowling who had unlimited
bowling you could practice different
shots you could practice different
approaches don’t worry about it we’re
not keeping score that’s where we live
now
unlimited bowling
and so we got to decide are we just
constantly trying to get it just right
down the center which is boring and
isn’t gonna get us anywhere or do we
have the guts to say you know this might
not work but I’m gonna persistently and
consistently and generously bring it
forward so here’s the guy riding and
it’s working it’s working he’s pioneered
a new method and everyone understands
that he’s a genius and he’s only got one
guy left a path and he’s committed to
this new method
he’s revolutionized the way bike racing
is going to work and then someone copies
him and then once that happens you gotta
invent something else you can’t go back
to normal there is no normal we have to
quiet that voice in our head the one
that says an alligator is going to eat
us or that a shark is gonna land on our
house we have to get all over the story
of Icarus and realize that this is what
we just signed up for we signed up to be
in constant reinvention because that’s
the byproduct of the connection economy
I think that I adopted a practice of
intentionally seeking out things I was
wrong about and I learned this the hard
way it cost me over a hundred billion
dollars which is a lot of money that’s a
lot of money so I was on the internet
before there was a World Wide Web and
when the web came along I said this is
stupid it’s just like prodigy which most
people here don’t even know what that
was that was before AOL and was an
online service just like prodigy said
it’s slower and there’s no business
model he’ll never work and so for months
my internet company didn’t have a
website didn’t buy up all the cool
domains business.com went for seven
million dollars we could have bought it
for ten and ten dollars and we didn’t do
any of the things that would have helped
us a lot because I believed it didn’t
make sense so I have adopted this
practice of on a regular basis finding a
topic that I’m sure about and describing
out loud to a trusted person why I’m
wrong
taking the other side arguing in detail
what could happen that would make me
wrong and what is his helping me with is
not becoming wishy-washy and never
making decision but every once in a
while feeling that feeling it almost
makes a noise when you do it of the
brain flipping to a different way of
looking at the world and that flipping
is essential if we live in revolutionary
times and I think we do now so in an
example I have spent time with people in
the record business and when you talk to
someone 10 or 15 years ago the record
business about how it was all going to
end and it did end like two years ago
they would just yell at you and argue
with you or throw you out of the office
I’ve been thrown I have some great
offices but every once in a while you’ll
see someone say back to you your words
as if they believe them and every once
in a while they’ll go yeah and then you
can just hear the noise and that person
now can just clear the table because all
their competitors don’t believe it and
they do and that is a really useful
practice in small and in debate if you
have to think of one word that’s most
important to you or that sums you Apple
that would be like a little beacon they
believe nation if you want to know what
the most important one word is for Tony
Robbins Gary Vaynerchuk Oprah Winfrey
will.i.am and Howard Schultz I have a
very special secret video for you check
the description for details [Music]