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Podcast

#792- Seth Godin on Playing the Right Game and Strategy as a Superpower

The Tim Ferriss Show

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  • Misunderstanding Strategy
    • Many listeners seek a job without a boss and desire to build something.
    • Breakthrough books are often misinterpreted as tactical guides rather than strategic philosophies. Transcript: Seth Godin You know best, but it seems to me that many of your listeners actually want a job without a boss, seek to build something, and they need to be woken up about that. And number two, people who misunderstand your breakthrough books think they’re about tactics, and they follow the steps instead of realizing they’re about strategy, and then find A resilient way forward. And strategy, this philosophy, is something you’ve been doing your entire career, but never called it that. Tim Ferriss Well, let’s start there. So strategy, like success or God, if we want to really get out there, are words that a lot of people use, but oftentimes they’re in their minds referring to different things. So when you use the word strategy, what does that mean to you? I think it’s a philosophy of becoming. Seth Godin I don’t think it’s a set of tactics. I don’t think it’s about winning in the short run. I think it’s about being very clear about the change we seek to make and who we seek to change, understanding the systems and the games around us, and then committing to the long-term Process of getting to where we’re going, meaning our tactics will change all the time, but our strategy does not. And most people, because we’ve been indoctrinated to have a job, want tactics instead. And I could do much better if I was peddling tactics, but I’m not. I’m never going to write a story, a book called This Is God. The Tactic Monger, Volume 1. Exactly. So if I’m not going to write This Is God or This Is Tactics, at least I could write this as strategy. (Time 0:06:47)
  • Core Ingredients of Strategy
    • Identify systems, time, games, and empathy to develop effective strategies.
    • These elements are crucial for understanding and navigating the complexities of any endeavor. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Not the tactics, what are the core ingredients of enacting a strategy like that? Seth Godin There’s all sorts of surprising ways that we can challenge ourselves once we start down this path. But to start down the path, there are four things we’re looking for. We’re looking for systems. We’re looking for time. We’re looking for games. And finally, empathy. And all four of them are really unexplored and mysterious. But once you see all four of them, strategy is much easier to take care of itself. So I’m happy to take them one by one or give examples, but those four keep interweaving over and over again. And that unfolds for us what a strategy can be. (Time 0:11:32)
  • Invisible Systems
    • Systems, like gravity, influence behavior and are often invisible until stressed.
    • The wedding industrial complex exemplifies how systems dictate norms and expectations. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Great. Let’s go through the four. And maybe if it’s not too cumbersome, if there’s an example that’s easy to give, that’s great too. However you want to land it. Seth Godin Systems are invisible and they hide themselves because they don’t want people to see who’s operating things. They invent culture to defend themselves. The most famous one is the solar system. There’s this invisible gravity. The earth doesn’t go around the sun because it wants to. It goes around the sun because gravity makes that its easiest path. If you grew up in the United States to middle-class parents, you’ll be under pressure from the time you’re five years old to get good grades. Why do I need to get good grades? So you can get into a famous college, but you’re not supposed to call it a famous college. You’re supposed to call it a good college. And that system with tuition and tenure and student debt and football teams and cheerleaders and college tours and the sticker on the back of a car and the SATs, all of it is just taken For granted as normal. And so Danella Meadows has done brilliant writing before she passed away way too early about all the dynamics of systems, systems in our world, systems that we want to build. So when we see a system under stress, then we can see the system, that we can see the climate when temperatures start to rise. But before the temperature started to rise, when the climate was normal, no one paid attention to it because the system, the thing that keeps it going, was sort of invisible. So if you’re going to start any enterprise, a little plumbing business, a giant internet company, if you’re going to run for office, you should be able to see and name the elements of The system. Where is their gravity? What is seen as normal? And there’s pushback if you don’t do it. And so I’ll finish the rant by asking a simple question. How much should a wedding cost? Tim Ferriss I’m especially unqualified to answer this. Seth Godin No, it’s super simple. The answer is exactly what your best friend spent, but a little more. And that’s why a wedding in New York City costs more than $100,000. Not because you need monogrammed matchbooks to have a good wedding. You need them to be part of the wedding industrial complex, to show your status to the people who’ve been invited, because that’s what the thing is for. So we have to see systems, and then either we work for the system, or the system works for us. We (Time 0:12:21)
  • Systems in Small Businesses
    • Consider how systems affect small businesses.
    • Customers’ needs within organizational systems extend beyond technical solutions; they seek narratives and risk mitigation. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Can linger on this one for a bit, because next one is time, so I feel like we should take our time. Plus it’s long form. So could you give an example on a smaller scale of a, you mentioned plumbing doesn’t need to be plumbing, but a solopreneur or a very, very small startup, two to four employees and how They might start to ask questions around systems to identify the systems that are at work. Because for instance, in my life, I’m good at identifying what is normal, like what are the unquestioned assumptions. I’m good at that, but that seems like I’m holding the tail of the elephant like one of the blind men in the parable. It’s like, I’ve got a piece of it, but it’s not the whole elephant, clearly. Seth Godin I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. The whole tango thing. I mean, you have been doing this for a very long time. Or the nursery thing behind me. So let’s say you’re going to build a small business that supports medium-sized businesses with their Google workspace. Okay. So you’re a couple nerds, and you’re going to be the person who helps people set up their Google Drive and across the organization, reasonably secure for a company with 100 employees, Right? Mm-hmm. Because you’re in there, in the factory, seeing how things are made, it’s very tempting to imagine that everyone you’re serving wants what you want and that you think your customer Is the person who’s buying stuff from you and what they need is a tech solution. None of these things are true. The system of a company with 100 people, it’s probably not the CEO’s job to set this thing up. So it’s someone else’s job. There’s a system, a hierarchy of jobs. What does that person want? It’s not their money. So lowering your price to get new customers is not going to help you get new customers. That in fact, what that person wants is a story to tell their boss, a story of why did I pick these people? And even better, a story of if it fails, why they are not going to be in trouble. So when we show up at an organization to tell our story to that system, we have to do it understanding how do they buy everything else? What do they measure? What would happen to us if we were bigger than the other people bidding or smaller than the other people bidding? All of these things go into how the system works the same way the admissions office at the famous college doesn’t always pick the people with the highest SAT scores because there’s this Complicated mechanism at play that is historical to feed and maintain the system. So in the case of this Google workspace thing, let’s say you decide to close on Thanksgiving day and you’ve just got a message on your voicemail, we’ll close on Thanksgiving day, leave A message, we’ll call you back tomorrow. That seems normal, unless what got you into the system was an unbreakable promise that you will never get in trouble because we will always answer the phone. That decision, that tactical decision has to be driven by what you seek to stand for, but that’s only going to happen if you see the system of what this company, your client does, and what Stories do they tell themselves. And Hollywood is a system, and the senior prom is a system. And there are all these factors that go into all of them, subtle signals that people are sending to each other. And if you’re going to make a living taking money from people to solve their problems, it has to be to help them dance with the system that they’re part of. All (Time 0:15:05)
  • Strategic Time
    • Time is a crucial element in strategy, requiring a long-term perspective.
    • Consider the future implications of each step and define what failure and quitting mean in that context. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Right. Shall we bookmark that and come to time, games, or empathy? Which would you like to tackle next? Seth Godin Time is really interesting. James Glick wrote a brilliant book about the history of time travel. Now, of course, there are no actual time machines, but we know who invented the time machine. And it was actually H.G. Wells. Before H.G. Wells wrote his book, nobody in the world talked about time machines. The concept that you and I take for granted, like if you go back in time or if you go forward, no one ever said that, ever. And time, we’re all very familiar with it and no one can define it. And we know what now is. And the now of a week ago isn’t now anymore. It’s back then. And it feels different. So if you want to build a company with a thousand employees in it, if you want to go public, if you want to be somebody with a lot of zeros in your bank account, that is not going to happen in The next three seconds. There’s something that’s going to happen between now and then. And each one of the steps as we look through time is not today. So when we want to have a forest, we don’t get a forest, we start planting trees, because 20 years from now we’ll have a forest. And when you’re growing up in Long Island, or when you’re growing up training for the Olympics, you know you’re not going to be doing the Olympics when you’re 50. So what exactly are the purpose of these steps? And what does it mean to fail? Does it mean that you failed right this moment in service of getting where you want to go later? Or does it mean you failed forever? What does it mean to quit? Does quitting now mean you failed forever? Or does it just open the door to succeeding later? And so we have this opportunity to see time the way our competition doesn’t. So in 2001, I was at a conference, and we were in this small group setting. There were eight people, and they said, go around the circle and say who you are. And the guy to my left said, my name’s Stephen, I’m a judge. It turned out he was Stephen Breyer. He was on the Supreme Court. And the person next to him said, my name’s Sergei, and I have this new search engine. And someone said, so Sergei, what’s your marketing strategy? And he said, well, here’s the deal. We think Google’s going to get better every day. So we don’t want people to use Google for the first time right away. We want them to use it it for the first time later so it’s better by the time they get there. So we’re not doing any promotion whatsoever because the Google of now only exists to get us to the Google of tomorrow. And when we’re at the Google you’re ready for, that’s when you’ll come use it. And at the same time, Yahoo was busy trying to defend a plunging stock price in the moment, as opposed to saying, what are we going to be in 10 years? I remember (Time 0:19:00)
  • Understanding Games
    • Games exist in various situations with multiple actors and scarce resources.
    • Understand game dynamics, analyze moves, and embrace the possibility of failure when innovating. Transcript: Tim Ferriss I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to come back to conditions at some point. Games. I like the sound of this. I like games. Some games, I suppose. Depends on which one I choose and if I choose it consciously. But what does games mean? Seth Godin So again, back to the indoctrination. So we grew up with Candyland and Parcheesi and Monopoly. Those are board games and they’re okay, but that’s not the kind of games I’m talking about. Any situation where there are multiple people and variable outputs with scarcity, there’s a game. So it is a game to decide when two lanes merge, which car is going to go first. And it is a game to decide when you’re working for Jack Welch and the bottom 10% of the people lose their job, which people are going to lose their job. And it is a game to exchange money for a hot dog at the baseball game because that exchange happens in a way where two players come together for mutual benefit. So we should not deny that games exist. We should learn how games work. And when we make a move in a game that doesn’t seem to work, we should not say we are a bad person. We should say, I made a move that did not work. Those are totally different things. And so the only way you’ve been able to achieve all the things you’ve achieved between the archery and the dancing and everything in between is you make more moves than most people. And you measure them and you don’t do the ones that don’t work again. But it is impossible to innovate if it has to work. (Time 0:23:05)
  • Empathy and Target Audience
    • Empathy in strategy means deeply understanding your target audience’s desires.
    • Focus on the smallest viable audience and delight them, even referring others to competitors. Transcript: Tim Ferriss So what does this mean? Seth Godin Well, you just gave it away. I’d like to think of myself as an empathetic person implies that there’s a moral component to what we’re talking about. And at some level, of course there is, but that not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is this. Everything we build and everything we make only works in a voluntary exchange if someone else wants it more than they want the money or time they have to trade for it. Meaning someone’s not going to buy the thing you’re selling at a craft fair because you worked really hard to make it. They’re going to buy it because they want it. And all empathy is, is being very clear about who it’s for and why they want it. And we get so busy and so exhausted making something, we forget. We hustle people and hassle people to buy from us because it’s important to us. Tim Ferriss Sounds like some of my blog posts. Seth Godin Yes. The No Book, you didn’t need to publish the No Book if your goal was for you to read it, because you already read it. You are publishing it so other people will read it. So your description of the book is not, please buy this because I worked really hard to write it. It’s, I have a thing here that when I describe it, if I create the conditions for information exchange to happen, you will bang down the door to get it. You will be angry if you can’t get a copy. Now, that implies that it cannot be for everyone, no matter what we make, because you cannot be empathic to everyone. Unless you’re selling, I don’t know, oxygen on a planet that doesn’t have any, there’s nothing that everyone wants the same way. So where all of this must begin and end is with the minimum, the smallest viable audience. Who are the people, just them, that when they hear about this, they’re going to say, that’s exactly what I was looking for. That’s all you need. You pick that group, you delight them, and you forgive everybody else. And here’s proof that you’re not doing it. If someone comes to you and you are not regularly sending folks to your competitors or people who are thought of as your competitors, you are not serious about this, about picking the Audience who it’s for and forgiving everybody else. When someone shows up at the Ferrari dealership and says, I got six kids, how am I going to get them to school? You don’t try to persuade them to get an Inenzo. You send them down the street to the Volvo dealership. That was one (Time 0:27:42)
  • Kindling and Logs
    • Start small and scale gradually.
    • Don’t attempt large-scale projects without sufficient resources. Transcript: Tim Ferriss You are the traffic. And then the third is don’t try to burn big logs. If you only have a little bit of kindling. Perfect. Let’s do all three. Seth Godin We’ll start with the last one. If you’ve ever gone camping, you know what I mean by the, you know, you have enough kindling. Tim Ferriss I was freezing my ass off in a rural archery range yesterday and realized they had a nice wood-burning stove, but all the logs were as big around as my torso. And I thought, well, that’s going to be a really tough fire to start. Exactly. Seth Godin Unless you had an enormous amount of kindling and then it would go up in no time. Too often, because of the media, entrepreneurs think if they don’t start something that sounds giant, they’re failures. Too often, we give entrepreneurs credit for raising a lot of money from venture capital. That’s probably not the right path for you. The money you’re raising from investors is kindling, and the logs you’re starting are the markets you’re trying to get to. So if you want to build a dialysis chain in 40 cities where people can go get reliable kidney treatment, you can’t start that with a $100,000 loan. You just can’t. But a $100,000 loan is more than enough to get yourself doing very, very well with a hot dog cart somewhere, right? So we first got to make a smart decision based on time, based on the systems we’re confronting. Do we have enough kindling? Do I have enough reputation to even take this on? The one about systems is this. Systems aren’t people. They are collections of people. And they act in ways that maybe the people who started the system and maybe the people who work in the system wouldn’t choose, but that’s the system they’ve got. So if you think about the healthcare system in the United States, it’s not a healthcare system. It’s a treatment system because everyone in the system gets rewarded for giving treatments, not for making you healthy. And so it’s quite likely that once you start working with the medical industrial complex, you’ll get more and more tests and more and more probing and more and more bills because that’s What the system does. And every time someone moves out of where the system ended up, the system exerts a feedback loop to push them back into the spot where they belong. And so if we look at how we ended up with college educations that cost almost $300,000, it’s because the combination of accreditation and ranking and tenure and parent status and placement Offices all support it going in only one direction. And if you show up, say, look at me, I’m really smart. I went overseas and in two years, I learned X, Y, and Z. The system’s going to push back and say, yeah, but we require this kind of degree from this kind of accredited thing. The NCAA is a system that started with people playing football in the backyard, and now they’re taking private jets to stadiums with 100,000 people in them because the system kept churning In one direction. And you might not like the output, but you probably can’t change the system by yourself. What you might be able to do is, back to your second thing, you’re not sitting in traffic, you are traffic. (Time 0:33:40)
  • Entrepreneurial Kindling
    • Entrepreneurs often feel pressured to start something huge due to media influence.
    • Raising a lot of money from venture capital might not be the right path for everyone.
    • The money raised from investors is kindling, and the markets are the logs being started.
    • A small loan can be enough to start something small and successful, like a hot dog cart.
    • Base decisions on time and systems, and assess if there is enough reputation to take something on. Transcript: Seth Godin Had an enormous amount of kindling and then it would go up in no time. Too often, because of the media, entrepreneurs think if they don’t start something that sounds giant, they’re failures. Too often, we give entrepreneurs credit for raising a lot of money from venture capital. That’s probably not the right path for you. The money you’re raising from investors is kindling, and the logs you’re starting are the markets you’re trying to get to. So if you want to build a dialysis chain in 40 cities where people can go get reliable kidney treatment, you can’t start that with a $100,000 loan. You just can’t. But a $100,000 loan is more than enough to get yourself doing very, very well with a hot dog cart somewhere, right? (Time 0:34:10)
  • Systems and Network Effects
    • Recognize that participating in a system influences its dynamics.
    • Changing a system effectively often involves finding alternative entry points and leveraging network effects. Transcript: Seth Godin When you participate in a system, you’re either going to make that system more successful and get a prize, or you could try to fight that system, but you’re going to need a lot of kindling To do so. Because being in the system actually changes the system one way or the other. So the challenge that we have is, you know, Google didn’t show up and say, we’re going to have meetings with all the ad agencies in the world and change the way advertising works. Instead, they walked away completely from that world, multi-billion dollar world of ad spend, and instead built a tiny little engine for direct marketers where someone would buy The word Chanel and they’d buy it for a nickel. And then what would happen is a brand manager from Chanel would Google themselves, don’t do it too much, you can go blind, but they would Google themselves and they would see someone Had bought their name for a nickel. So they’d pay 10 cents to take it back, and the auction was on. So Google changed the system, but they didn’t change it with a frontal assault. They changed it by moving away from the system, finding people who weren’t part of the system, and then the system chased them. Tim Ferriss And I wanted to mention also just a footnote to the kindling comment, which is some people listening might say, oh man, well, it takes money to make money. And I would just say there are many ways to get that kindling. You can do joint ventures, you could do licensing, you could do non-dilutive financing, which is a fancy way of saying, for instance, two startups that I’ve been chatting with have Raised money from the government. They’re really good at doing that from DARPA and so on. And they get a nice big fat check. It’s delivered within six weeks and it does not affect, actually enhances with lots of leverage their ability to raise money in the future. So there are very off menu approaches to gathering your kinpling. Seth Godin Yeah. And there’s also the choice you make, you know, if you want to be in the movies, you could invest years of your life and pay an enormous number of dues and wait for Hollywood to pick you. Or you could sharpen your writing skills and make a two-minute YouTube video. And that YouTube video could then find you an audience. And Alana Glazer went on to be in a popular Comedy Central thing, and then a movie star. But she didn’t go in the front door because she didn’t have enough kindling to go in the front door. Instead, she found her audience and then multiplied it. (Time 0:37:09)
  • Side Doors and Stepwise Growth
    • Avoid assuming “getting the word out” is the hard part.
    • Building a product people love and share is crucial; shortcuts often lead to failure. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Could be for entering a well-established sector. It could be for anything at all. Seth Godin In fact, that’s almost always what happens. And the mistake people make is if you find yourself saying, I just need to get the word out. I’ve done all the hard part. Now I just need to get the word out. You haven’t done the hard part. What you’ve done is waited for a miracle. And the people who have gone on to build, for example, useful businesses on top of a Kickstarter, stepwise said, all right, I don’t have enough money to build a factory, get into Best Buy, do national advertising. But I do have enough money to get 1,000 people to pay me $200 for a coffee maker. And then I can do the next one. And then I can do the next one. So this stepwise process back to time says the shortcuts are illusory, that the most direct way forward long in the moment. That I’m going to serve a group of people that so need what I’m doing that they pay for it, and that are so delighted by it that they tell their friends. And then I’m going to repeat it, and I’m going to repeat it. And if you look at articles on TechCrunch and places like that, at companies that raised 50 or 100100 million who are going to change the whole world overnight, they’re all gone, right? Because you just can’t shortcut that on demand. What you can do is find that group of people and bring empathy to them and make a change of them. (Time 0:40:47)
  • Status, Affiliation, and Tension
    • People desire status and affiliation.
    • Build products and communities that offer these, creating tension through scarcity and exclusivity. Transcript: Tim Ferriss There are some obvious examples that spring to mind, Facebook, something like that. But Krispy Kreme, another good example. It’s better when you tell your friends, you end up being a hero. Great. So that is a meandering caffeine-infused, speaking of caffeine, lead into what I think is a question, but I’ll let you take that wherever you want. Seth Godin So for people at home, I’m cheating. I made these decks of cards that people can get, and they have 200 questions on them. And what you do is you play them out so that you can challenge your peers to work with you, to start working your way through these questions. The book has more than a thousand questions in it because the questions are how we open the door. So in the case of the network effect, what do people want? Well, at some level, there is a desire for mechanical efficiency, that you want everyone to drive on the right side of the road if you live in North America, because if some people drive On the other side of the road, someone’s going to die. And so there’s very much of a network effect about which side of the road are we going to drive on. There’s no disagreement whatsoever. Those spots are mostly taken. So now we have to say, what do people want? And I think people only want two things. Three, freedom from the feeling of fear. Let’s leave that aside. The other two are status and affiliation. Affiliation is who are you hanging with? Who are your friends? Who’s at the table with you? Are you alone? Affiliation is I got invited to a fancy wedding in the Hamptons a couple of months ago. We pull up, you had to park your car, and then a golf cart would take you in. And there’s three of us waiting. It’s Helene, my wife, and I. And I’m wearing a suit. And there’s a guy who’s also waiting. He’s wearing a tuxedo. And I’m like, oh, it’s going to be a long night. I’m feeling really bad for myself. Didn’t I read the invitation? And then two more cars pull up and three people in suits get out. So now you can hear this guy going, oh, oh, because he was the only person in a tuxedo. Why should it matter? Right? It’s still closed. Well, it does matter because where do you fit in? And status is who’s up and who’s down, who’s winning. So something like Magic the Gathering said to a kid who might see themselves as lonely, this is a really good way for you to hang out with other people without having the kind of conversations That make you uncomfortable. You can talk about dragons and orcs and stuff like that. But by making them collectible, they also built in status. Because if you have a thicker deck or a more valuable deck, you’re moving up with people that you’re competing with. And those two things kept dancing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. So what we’re probably doing when we build a modern entity that’s going to use the network effect is we are offering people either affiliation, everybody else is doing this, you are Being left behind, or status, which is you’re in the right room and other people aren’t. And if you leave this room, your status is going to go down. And so if you do the math of the TED conference, that’s all it is, status and affiliation. If you do the math of why people have the latest version of earbuds or whatever, status and affiliation over and over again, are we giving people, creating the conditions for them to Get the status they seek or the affiliation they crave? (Time 0:48:30)
  • Community Building
    • Money represents a story and charging for communities fosters commitment.
    • Focus on community leadership by creating conditions for self-governance and charging appropriately to signal value. Transcript: Tim Ferriss So I’ve leaned towards free because the money wouldn’t really matter. But for instance, when I’ve done in real life gatherings, I don’t care about the money that comes in through ticket sales. I do care about having an accurate headcount so we can plan for the event. And if people have to even just put in their credit card for a $1 payment, they are more likely to show up. So these are some of the thoughts rattling around. How would you chew on that stuff? Seth Godin The money always matters because money is nothing but a story. It is not a pile of green things or Bitcoin. It’s a story. So years ago, I did an event in New York for nonprofit leaders. I wanted to make sure they showed up, but I didn’t want their money. And so I said to them, you got to bring a check for $100 made out to a charity I pick. And at the end of the event, if you don’t think it’s worth it, you can take the check back. But I knew that everyone would have skin in the game. And I was heartbroken that some people took the money back because their mindset of donation was, I’m already working in a nonprofit. I don’t give money to anybody else, which was heartbreaking. But it helped me see how deep the money is a story thing. So you mentioned three communities that I’ve been lucky enough to be part of. And in each case, the money was different. So at the Carbon Almanac, it was my full-time job for a year and a half. I was a volunteer, and so were the other 1,900 people. No one got paid. No one paid. And I don’t think community management is as important as community leadership. Community leadership is about creating, there it is again, creating the conditions for the community to lead itself. So my job was, what are things like around here? How do we talk to each other? Who gets to stay and who has to leave? But once I could do that, then the amount of actual management I had to do was fairly minimal because the right people were in the room. The Alt-MBA, we wanted to establish that it was a bargain compared to $200,000 at Stanford and that it wasn’t some simple online course. You had to show up every single day. And so we charged $3,000 to $5,000 and thousands of people went through it. And the fact that people paid a lot was very important because they got more than that. And the minute that wasn’t going to be true, I should stop doing it because the whole premise was your time is worth even more than the tuition. We’re never going to cut a corner because we have unlimited money to spend on this facility. And the third one is called Purple Space, which runs now, costs $20 a week. And the reason people pay to be in it, that I need them to pay to be in it, is so that they’ll show up. Because like many asynchronous online communities, it’s easy to join, but then it fades on your priority list. So what I would push back on is you said that the purpose of the community is to make sure the book works and to make sure the book is good. I don’t think that’s the purpose of the community. Now, it’s your community, so you get to decide. Tim Ferriss Yeah, I know. Push back. Seth Godin I think the purpose of the community is to build a place where using some of these core ideas, the people who engage with each other supercharge their journey to where they want to go. If that’s what it’s for, then a side effect is the book’s going to be good. Tim Ferriss That will be my indicator for the book working. If people have successes, help one another, and I see that as a natural outgrowth of their engaging with the material, if those are the tendrils that grow out of the soil, then it will Have worked. Nothing less than that. Seth Godin But that’s why you charge for it. You charge for it, not because please come here and help Tim make his book better. Tim Ferriss But I worked so hard on it, Seth. Seth Godin You’re charging for it because you’re saying, if you’re going over there, over there, that’s where I’m taking people. If you’re going over there, I think this is worth a lot of your time and $100 out of your wallet. And at any time, you don’t think it’s worth $100, you just hit this button and you’ll get the $100 back. So that means I have to work overtime to make sure that people would rather stay in it than click that button and get their money back. (Time 1:16:04)
  • Thought-Provoking Questions
    • To spark new ideas, ask yourself: If you had to increase prices tenfold, what would you change?
    • Consider what you would do if you were certain of failure and what scaffolding you can build for others. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Oh, yeah. There are a lot of really good stories in that one. All right, Seth. So for somebody who’s thinking to themselves, all right, I want to sit down and I’d like to sort of shake the snow globe of my mind with some questions, some more questions that I can use To land on approaches or solutions, strategy, as it were. Do you have any other favorite questions or perhaps counterintuitive questions, any questions that you might toss out there as good fuel for the fire? Seth Godin I have one question to get you started and then two interesting challenges. The question to get you started is, if you were forced to increase your prices by 10x, what would you do? And this really unsettles people because they know how to think about if they were forced to have their prices because their competitors are racing to the bottom. But if your competitors weren’t changing and you had to charge 10x, what would you do different? Well, for example, this is where concierge medicine came from, right? Because all these other doctors are saying, how can I take more insurance? And one doctor shows up and says, I’m going to charge 10 times more, and this is why people are going to get in line to pay for it. But it doesn’t have to be luxury goods for the ultra wealthy. There are lots of things where you could imagine charging 10 times more. This is where the bottled water industry in the United States came from, charging infinite times more. So that’s one question I like to ask. Another one is, if you were sure you were going to fail, what would you do anyway? And I think that tells me a lot about who you are and what you stand for. (Time 1:27:29)
  • Probability and Decisions
    • Recognize the stacked deck in probabilistic situations.
    • Position yourself where odds favor success; making good decisions matters more than outcomes. Transcript: Seth Godin You’re going to stop. So you’re making these bets on what’s it going to be like, what’s going to happen after that. And now I want to talk about probability and games and decisions. So if I have a standard deck of cards. Tim Ferriss What is your deck of cards called, by the way? Seth Godin It’s called the strategy deck. The only place you can get it is at Seth’s.blog slash TIS. And it’s really cool. If I have a deck of 52 cards and I say, Tim, pick a card, what are the odds you’re going to get an ace? Four and 52, right? One out of 13, right? There we go. Yeah. Because the deck is stacked. There are 48 non-aces and four aces. Every time we engage in any probabilistic thing, the deck is stacked. And it is on us to know before we make a bet how many aces are in the deck. So if you’re applying to get into a famous college in Boston, and you are fully qualified by every one of the published measures, you have a one in 15 chance of getting it. Because after they take all the qualified people, now it’s pretty random, one in 15. That’s how the deck is stacked. If you are super, super good at football, and you’re applying to a small college, they have football scholarships, you have a way better chance than one in 15 of getting in because that Deck is stacked differently. So what we seek to do when we’re making a bet is show up in a place where the odds that the card we need is going to be in the deck. That’s what probability is. Probability means that when you see poll results, it says there’s a 60% chance this person is going to win the election. That doesn’t mean it’s a tug of war between six and four, and the sixth side is going to win every time. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just means there are six aces and four non-aces, and there’s going to be a random selection, and you’re going to get the card you get. So what we need to do when we’re thinking about our strategy is not focus on how hard we’re working or how much we want it to work out. We need to focus on what’s the deck like. And so your journey into archery is partly based on the fact that you have thought through who else is going to show up at this tournament. Because if there were a million people who had devoted their lives to archery, I think you would understand your chances of winning a medal were very small. (Time 1:32:03)
  • Decisions vs. Outcomes
    • Distinguish between good decisions and good outcomes.
    • Focus on making sound decisions, even if they don’t always yield positive results, unlike many corporations. Transcript: Tim Ferriss I would pick something else. Yeah. Probably. Just given the time constraints and the fact that, I’m coming in with, I guess, five to six months of serious training. And some of these folks have been shooting seriously since they’re eight years old. So got to pick the right category. Got to pick the right deck. Seth Godin And so then the thing that goes with that is from our friend, Annie Duke, which is what’s the difference between a good decision and a good outcome? And the question that I would ask entrepreneurs who think they’re innovating and leading is, are you okay making good decisions that don’t lead to good outcomes? And most people, if they’re telling the truth, the answer is no. And in my case, answer is yes, I have disciplined myself. That’s one of the things I’m really proud that I’m good at. What are we talking about here? In her book, she talks about the Seattle Seahawks. It’s the Super Bowl. It’s fourth down. They’re on the two or three-yard line. If they score, they win. If they don’t score, they lose. Pete Carroll calls a pass play. Calling a pass play is a really good decision because if you do the math, if you analyze all the situations, a pass is more likely to score than a run. He calls a pass, it’s incomplete, they lose. Everyone says, Pete made a terrible decision. He should be fired. No, he made a good decision, but he didn’t get an ace. He just got one of the other cards. That’s okay. You should celebrate that because you still made a good decision. If you buy a lottery ticket and you win, you made a bad decision. You should never buy a lottery ticket. Winning is just a weird anomaly, but the deck is stacked against you. Don’t do that. Don’t play games you can’t reliably win. So when I’m talking to people about decision-making, I say, you know, tell me the last time you made a really good decision. And they do, and it always has a good outcome because they’re measuring the wrong thing. And corporations are terrible at this. Corporations promote people who make bad decisions and have lucky outcomes. And they don’t promote people who make great decisions, but didn’t get lucky. (Time 1:34:45)
  • Hiring and False Proxies
    • Avoid false proxies when hiring.
    • Hire based on observed work performance, not superficial signals. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Have you corrected course or spotted false proxies in your own life, or many projects, industries, etc.? Seth Godin Here’s a really useful one. I was arrogant and thought I was good at hiring people because I was looking for signals that were ultimately false proxies. And I could see those signals faster than most people, certain questions or certain attitudes in interviews and things like that. But as I thought about it afterwards, what I really wanted from people who I was hiring to work with to do a job was for them to do the job, not to be good at interviewing. And so I made the decision to only work with people I’ve worked with before. That doesn’t mean only people I’ve met before. It means if I’m going to hire you, I’m going to give you a project and pay you to do it. And that’s your interview. And we never even need to meet in person. But if I’ve seen you work on a project, like I want you to work on a project, there’s no more false proxy, right? And as a result, I’ve been able to work with a much more diverse group of people, geographically, background-wise, skill set. Because now it doesn’t matter if I want you to come over for dinner. It matters that we’re doing this project together, and I know you know how to do this part of the project. So the Carbon Almanac, every single person could do anything they wanted once. And then if the community said, we really like that, they got to do it more. And so one guy from India, Vivek, he showed up and he wrote one article and it was terrible. And someone gave him some feedback and the second one was better and he was going to quit, but he got some more feedback. And the third one was so good, he ended up writing 17 of the articles because he figured it out and like, great, we trust you now. Just go and go and go and do it. And in a world that’s so open to connection to strangers, it feels like that’s the appropriate way to interact with the work, which is to work with people who want to do the work and who Can show you they can do the work. (Time 1:39:52)
  • Feedback and Bullies
    • When hiring, clearly define whether feedback is crucial for the role.
    • If so, make it explicit that accepting feedback is a non-negotiable requirement, just like rejecting bullies. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Do you read if someone is open to receiving feedback? I guess the answer might be you give them a project and you give them feedback. That’s the only way to know. So maybe you’ve already answered my question, but are there other indicators? Seth Godin So I think back to this idea of Jeff Bezos creating the conditions for who wants to invest, you creating the conditions for your community. There are certain projects that I want to work on where I’m the creator or I want to work with other people where taking feedback isn’t an asset, where you’re looking for somebody who Has a point of view, and this is what I do, take it or leave it. And there are other things where taking feedback is super important because that’s going to keep things in sync. And for me, it’s not giving someone who doesn’t match that a pass just because they’re good at what they do. And this is analogous to having bullies who work in your company. I had a guy who worked for me years ago who was a yeller. He wasn’t a bully, but he was a yeller. And we had one big open office. And the second time I heard him yell at someone, I quietly took him aside and I sat him down. I said, if you ever yell at anyone ever again, I’m going to fire you on the spot. It doesn’t matter that you’re the most valuable person in the company because you are. It doesn’t matter that you’re the most senior and skilled person. If I let you do that, I have made a statement about what it’s like around here. And he sent me a thank you note 10 years later because he never yelled at anyone at work ever again, even after we stopped working together. Because I was the first person who had the guts to say, we don’t want bullies around here. And the same thing’s true. If you really need someone who can take feedback in a role, you’ve got to say, if you can’t take feedback, you can’t stay. And it doesn’t have to be a confrontation. It can just be, what are things like around here? People like us do things like this. What (Time 1:42:10)
  • When Feedback Isn’t Needed
    • Recognize that feedback isn’t universally beneficial.
    • Some roles, like those requiring specialized expertise, benefit from independent perspectives. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Would be an example of someone who you don’t want or you don’t require to take feedback? I mean, I can probably come up with a few as I search. You probably can be faster on your feet with this. A surgeon. Yeah, I was just going to say neurosurgeon. Seth Godin I went to a dermatologist four months ago, and he was terrible. He not only was terrible at his bedside manner and terrible in that he didn’t read the notes that I gave him, and he’s terrible that he prescribed a drug I already had a prescription for. He didn’t make me better, right? So I wrote a letter to the head of medicine for the whole thing, and they have obviously systems in place to make people like me be quiet, but not to actually listen to people like me. Because they’re taking the position, don’t come here if you don’t want to do what our doctors tell you to do. Because we’re busy enough already. We just want patients who aren’t going to push back. And there are plenty of people who, if you need something that is way outside your area of expertise, right? If you hire Chip Kidd to make the cover for your notebook, which you should because he’s a genius, Chip should not listen to your feedback because he’s Chip Kidd, damn it. (Time 1:44:12)
  • Seth’s AI Usage
    • Seth Godin uses AI daily, favoring Claude.ai over ChatGPT.
    • He leverages AI for brainstorming and clarifying complex concepts through iterative dialogue. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Fair enough. How do you use AI and how do you foresee using AI yourself? Seth Godin I use it every day for more than an hour. I think it’s electricity for our century. In the late 1800s, there were companies that said, yeah, this electricity thing’s interesting, but we’re not going to be an electricity company. And they’re all gone, right? That electricity is now, not an electricity company, you’re just a company that uses electricity. And the same thing is true, I believe, with AI. I will tell you, and I’m not afraid to say it out loud, I think ChatGPT is arrogant and lazy, and I use it as a last resort. Claw.ai is a dear friend. I love Claude.ai. We have great conversations. It’s empathic. It’s self-aware. It warns you it might be hallucinating. And when it makes a mistake, it’s eager to correct it. And I use perplexity exclusively. I almost never do a search with a search engine. But what I’ll do with Claude, every word I publish, I wrote. But what I will do with Claude, for example, is I will say, here’s a list of three bullet points. Can you think of four more? And it’s great at that. And then I’ll rewrite them, and now I’ll have five bullet points, and it’s much better than if I hadn’t engaged with Claude. If there’s a concept in the world that I don’t understand, I’ll say to Claude, can you please explain it in 300 words to a college student? And that helps. But I did it once and I still didn’t understand it. And then I said, can you write it to me like a Seth Godin blog post? And it did, and it did a terrible job, but now I understood it. So I rewrote it and I said, do you think this is better? And it said, oh yeah, that’s much better. And I said, thank you. I’ll tell Seth. And Claude said, do you know Seth Godin? And I wrote, actually, I am Seth Godin. And I’m not making this up. He then wrote, I can’t believe I’m talking to you. Your books have changed my life and then named like four of my books and it changed the way. I’m like, all right, I’m in forever. You got me. I don’t know how you did that, but we’re friends for life. (Time 1:45:26)