Episode 234

0:03
Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with producer Jason
defilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of
the world's most brilliant and interesting people, and turn their wisdom into practical
advice that we can use to impact our own lives. And those around us. Today, one of
the most prolific authors of our time 18 International bestsellers, he blogs every single
day on one of the most popular blogs anywhere in the internet. I've known Seth Godin
for years now. And if you've ever had or overheard a conversation about marketing,
you can't go more than a few minutes without someone quoting Seth Godin, if you dig
deep enough into sets where you can see his influence all over corporate and startup
culture, as well as publishing and even education. You all requested said so many
times that I flew out to his office in New York to do this interview. Of course, talking
with an old friend is always a good time. And it was a lot of fun to hear his thoughts
on how to stand out in the crowd. Do something thing that lights you up and is
profitable and valuable to others at the same time. Sets thinking is really on another
level. And if you're not familiar with his work, then this episode will really shake up
the way you think about your work life, and what you bring to the world. If you want
to know how we've got such great guests here on the show, yeah, the numbers speak
for themselves. I wish that were true. It's about the network. It's about systems and
tiny habits. It's about outreach and maintaining those connections. I'm teaching you
how to do that for free over at six minute networking, Jordan Harbinger comm slash
course is where you can find that. And by the way, most of the guests here on the
show, actually subscribed to the course in the newsletter. So come join us and you'll
be in some pretty smart company. All right. Here's Seth Godin.

1:43
You're viewed as a successful person. As far as your work is concerned. I don't I don't
know much about your personal life.

1:51
Rather than starting with your successes, which I'll include, of course, in the
introduction, I would love to start with some failures because I think people look at
successful people. Like you and they go, this guy never had to worry about much.
You know, he's successful. And he's been successful. And as far as Google is
concerned, he's always been that way.

2:08
Okay. I mean, I am averse to the failure Olympics, because I think sometimes it gives
us a place to hide. But there are two kinds of failures. I have failed more times than
anyone who's watching this in terms of projects brought forward that didn't resume.
When I was a book packager, I got 800 rejections in a row. And for more than 10
years, I was on the edge of bankruptcy four weeks away from being completely out of
money. When we were building yoyodyne, the company that ended up going to
Yahoo, our biggest client was AOL. And at one point, the VP of AOL said to me on
the phone, if you set foot on our campus, I will have you arrested. Oh, wow. Right. So
it was high stakes. And there are things that I brought, you know, books I've worked
on for a year that sold 1000 copies. There were projects You know, another thing we
did for AOL was one of the best ideas that I ever had. We worked on it for a year, we
built the whole thing out. And a week before it launched, AOL switched its business
model from royalty to flat rate, which meant the project got cancelled. And so there's
a lot of bumper cars when you decide to do electric projects, and I wouldn't have it
any other way. The real failure that I think is worth talking about it's way more
interesting now that I've survived the other is the failure of inaction. And like
everyone, I have a really long list of that. What are the things I could have done in
didn't to other people, I could have helped but didn't. And that's the kind of thing I try
to pay attention to. Because I know a lot of people who have succeeded. And the
reason they succeeded is because they persisted, but also because they've protected
against the downside. So they still protect against downside. What could they have
done? accomplished if they'd protected a little bit less against the downside, and
instead said, doesn't matter, that this might fail. What matters is that this is worth
trying, and not something I try to motivate myself to do all the time.

4:13
When you see people protecting against the downside, what are you primarily
referring to deserts those are kind of a common example of people being overly risk
averse, or,

4:21
well, the most important, good way to protect against the downside is you never want
to get thrown out of the game. And so the reason I can confidently say I've failed
more than most people is because I haven't gotten thrown out of the game. I gotta
keep trying. Yeah, I did. Thousands of book ideas and published 120 books, there's a
book packager and only three of them became big bestsellers. That means I had 117
that disappointed the publisher, right, stay in the game, make it so that you're not
thrown out. But the thing that people avoid is the one star review on Yelp. The person
in the audience who doesn't laugh at your talk, the internet But with a customer who's
furious at you? Well, maybe it's not for them. And if you have a way to make
promises that aren't disingenuous, don't undermine your reputation. And then you can
make people whole when it doesn't match, well then fine, it's not for you. And so if
somebody goes to a horror movie, and it's too scary, just give the guy a million
dollars, man. Don't feel like you shouldn't have made it. I have a podcast and we
thought about for whatever reason, I thought about Stanley Kubrick a lot. 2001 was
trashed by the critics when it came out. That it was boring that it was poorly made. So
what should Cooper have done? pulled it from the theater? Of course not going to
work at blockbuster. Yeah, right. But you make the movie knowing some people
aren't gonna like it if you want everyone to like what you do. I can't even you can't
even open like an ice cream stand because people are allergic to ice right?

5:55
Yeah, I got what did you do to almost get have this threat of being a wrested AOL. I
mean, okay, so the

6:02
fact that I embedded with my team that your your non commercial email, if you've
ever gotten an email, you wanted to get that because we invented it was 1990, long
before the web. And we ran games of skill and sweepstakes using email because there
was no World Wide Web. So one of our big clients was AOL. One of our big clients
was Carter Wallace, the people who make our extra dry deodorant. And so if you
were playing the extra dry deodorant game, you got an email every week. And if you
got the questions, right, you moved up in the standings, and at the end, you would
win. I don't know cars. If you played the AOL game, you were getting emails every
week about parts of AOL that you could go research on AOL and have fun and win a
prize. Well, Monday, the emails went out. And for whatever reason, the AOL players
who were 400,000 got the extra dry email by mistake. Oh, yeah. And it was on AOL
stock was going up every day. So Not good, not good. And so I had this long, long,
distraught meeting with my tech people, and they built all this stuff. And a week later,
I get to the office and they've done it again. Oh, yeah. And so I called down to
Virginia, which is where I was, and I said Audrey was the vice president. I can't tell
you how sorry, I'm going to fly down there. Just express my concern. I'm really sorry.
And that's when she threatened to have me arrested if I saw my campus. So we then
hired a great expenses guy, we haven't quit his job. 50 year old who was growing up
who would build a whole system? And then third week, I get to the office at 4am.
Because no, no email at home, right? For I am, check it. And it's mixed up again. No,
no. And I call Dan my head of engineering in our Boston office. And if it hadn't been
the basement office, he would have jumped out the window. It turns out what this guy
had Built was a system that showed just four of us what was about to happen. So only
four people got the email the third week, and it was fixed after that. But

8:09
yeah, I'm getting anxiety hearing it.

8:12
Imagine.

8:14
Yeah, you will. Okay. So you've had a bunch of failures. That's the failure Olympics.
I'm with you on that. I feel like there are people now who are just like, here's this even
bigger screen. Oh, well, let me tell you. Let me one up your story about that. And this
thing I almost did to myself on purpose so that I had a story for your podcast. And I
get that. Do you ever have imposter syndrome these days? Or is that kind of a thing
that you've put behind you?

8:38
Yeah. So for those people who haven't heard the term imposter syndrome applies to
both sexes genders, but women in particular feel it which is I'm a fraud. What right do
I have to be on the stage? What right do I have to be publishing this idea running this
podcast? And I have really strong feelings about this and some people are may or may
not uncomfortable by it, but here we go. Of course, you're an imposter. Of course you
feel that way. What right? Do you have to be sure that you can define the future? You
can't. If you don't feel insecure, you're a psychopath. Yeah. Right. The fact is, when
you feel like an imposter, it means you're onto something. It means you're leaning out
of the boat, doing generous work. If you're not feeling that way, you're not working
hard enough.

9:27
What does it mean when I simultaneously think why isn't my work bigger and also,
maybe I shouldn't be leaning on it. But I have imposter syndrome and entitlement or
something, whatever that's
9:36
called. And they go together, believe that you are doing something generous. And
what we see in our culture is who's number one on YouTube who's number one on
Billboard, he's number one on TV. And they don't mention that they're, you know,
142 TV shows and only one can be number one. They don't mention the average
podcast in the country. Here's 145 listeners. Yeah, average. Yeah, your podcast could
be great. It is not related to the fact that someone else has more listeners to you. Those
are separate thing. And there are tactics and strategies that you can use to get more
people to see what you do. But the number of people who see what you do, it's not
related to the goodness of what you do

10:21
think that's important, because I know that people have it's just an American thing.
We're obsessed with charts, we're obsessed with rankings. Everything is competitive.
And that's good because it makes the free market a little better. But it's also there's
some part of us that goes well, if I'm not number one that I'm garbage or my work is
garbage. And that's inherently unhealthy, because nobody can start at number one. I
mean, not really,

10:47
unless you realize that the whole thing is about categories, the taxonomy of what
category so I will never have a number one billboard single, because I don't make
music. Oh, yeah, right. Well, if you can invent a category, you get to be number one
in it. And I've been doing that my whole career, I was the number one creator of CD
ROMs. For parents when I did my Fisher Price, CD ROM title, because it was the
only one, right. And when I was referring to do books with Amazon, I was number
one in my category, but you have to be a pioneer. But the benefit of being a pioneer is
you have to invent a category that's very small. And you can be number one, right?

11:25
Right. And then and then you just spend, hopefully not too much time looking over
your shoulder going home, what else?

11:31
Actually, you want everyone else to figure it out. And that's the other thing is that I
was at a trade show this weekend in the fancy food industry, and the people who are
at the tradeshow aren't competing with each other. Right? There isn't the problem of
this chocolate versus that chocolate. The problem is that 99% of the people don't buy
any expensive chocolate. That's the competition. Right? The competition is always
none of the above the competition is didn't show up. So right now with the NBA and
with the Kim workshops. We're trying to reinvent the way people learn who is my
competition? My competition is cat videos,

12:09
which are pretty compelling depending on who you're asking. But yeah, maybe not
the same level of value as somebody who flies here from South Africa

12:16
to learn from you.
12:18
I love the idea that school is failing idea generators, mold breakers. And there's this
old model of school because I'm learning more now as an adult than I ever felt like I
did as a kid. It makes me a little nervous, because now I feel like Oh, I got to make up
for lost time. Because if this is what learning was supposed to be like, What the hell
was I doing for 3027 years in school and in grad school? What should younger people
or people in general be doing to it maybe improve the way that they educate
themselves or improve the way that they learn?

12:50
Well, so I use the word education and learning differently. Yeah, education is a
management system to get you to comply. There's a prize at the end. There's a
certificate Whereas learning requires enrollment voluntarily saying, I want to move
forward. The most important thing we can teach is thirst, the desire to learn that once
you want to learn, the amount of things you can learn goes to infinity because
everyone has every course they'd ever need to take right in front of them. The
problem is when we try to do it to people against their will, sure,

13:26
yeah, I don't remember willingly going this Well, after a while. It's just beaten into
submission, basically. But

13:32
now I don't have enough time to read all the books that I want. There's none of that
time for me to take all the courses that I want online. Or or in person for that matter. I
can't get to school fast enough from the time you're six or seven. What coaches and
teachers and parents say is, why didn't you get an A? Well, no wonder no one wants
to play that game. It's stacked against you. That if we could figure out how to create a
cycle of Wasn't that fun? No one learns how to walk or ride a bike from a course.
Right? We learned how to do it by trying it failing and trying again. And so we are
born wanting to know that skill, we learn a skill, but then we are brainwashed into
stopping. I think

14:18
there's also an element of us being brainwashed into thinking we can't do it on our
own. I don't remember a whole lot of people even when I was younger, encouraging
me, my parents, of course, but school it kind of wasn't Hey, research this on your
own, figure it out on your own. And I remember the one or two times teachers
actually went Whoa, you're learning how to read on your own just gonna let you do
that. It was kind of like stop reading the first graders book when you're in
kindergarten. Exactly. And read this Dumbo compliant.

14:44
Yeah, right. And you know, the same thing happens to the adults that I put on the spot
all the time. And you know, I told the story last week when I used to move really no
you're not I was hiring the person a week. And for a small company. That's a lot
Yeah, and we would do, I ran a full page ad in New York Times 500 people
responded, we had two sessions of 100, people each came to hear me give my pitch
once, so I wouldn't have to repeat it to every single person. Then we put them into
groups of five. And my employees went and sat in each group interview of five to
find out if they're people like us, then they went to a smaller group. So I would sit at a
group of people with five. And I'd say, here's the deal. And I had to make it more and
more specific, because people kept misunderstand the question, I don't really care
about the answer. But if I want to know how many gas stations that were in the United
States, without using any outside information, how would you figure it out? Hmm.
And I would say this to the group of five, and every single time they fell into three
categories.

15:51
One person would take out a pad

15:54
to people would say no to whatever anybody else said. One or two people would lead?
Well, we could do this. What do you think about this? Oh, see there this many
companies that so get how many cars? How many people? Does that person? Then
there's the other person is writing down whatever they say, Nah, that's a bit What else
you got? Well, who do you think I hired,

16:16
we need to mix down

16:18
all leaders did was that it wasn't really about leaders It was about curiosity, because
all we were doing as an organization was solving problems that hadn't been solved
before. I didn't need people to do repeated tasks. I needed people to solve problems
that hadn't been solved before. They could be big or small. And if you're afraid of
solving a problem without a textbook without a manual, I can't fight that.

16:42
And you probably don't want the person who's naysaying and you probably don't need
the scribe as much you can find them anyway,

16:47
we got a few of those people. But in general, every time I heard the curious person, I
got a curious person and curious people in fast changing times and the people you
want by your side,

16:57
especially somebody who's not afraid to voice an idea and agree Where they think
that person might also take their job? Yeah, that's somebody who's not afraid of a
little bit of risk and also doesn't have a scarcity mindset that's going to come them
back, unplugged someone else's computer or whatever.

17:13
You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guests Seth Godin. We'll be
right back.

17:17
This episode is sponsored in part by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning
community with thousands of classes covering dozens, dozens and dozens, really, of
creative and entrepreneurial skills. They've got photography, creative writing, design,
productivity, Jason Didn't they have like chests in there and stuff too.

17:35
They've got all sorts of things. I'm actually taking an Adobe Audition course because
I've got a project coming up where I have to use Adobe Audition, but since I have
Skillshare, I can get up to speed pretty quickly. And I tell you what, the classes are
fantastic. They're actually taught by really skilled people

17:52
that are sharing their skills. I get it. I said it You did it. There you go. So I think this is
important. Lifelong Learning is obviously important to me. It's an According to Jason
it's important to most of you all listening as well. So join the millions of students
already learning on Skillshare today and we've got a deal forum Jason

18:08
join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer
just for our listeners get two months of Skillshare for free. That's right Skillshare is
offering the Jordan Harbinger show listeners two months of unlimited access to
thousands of classes for free to sign up go to Skillshare comm slash Harbinger, again
go to skillshare.com slash Harbinger to start your two months now that Skillshare
comm slash h AR t i n g er.

18:33
This episode is also sponsored by design crowd. crowdsourcing is how busy people
especially business owners, like myself get stuff done in the 21st century and thanks
to design crowd, you can focus on running your business while handing over the reins
for your company's logo web design t shirt, you name it to a pool of over 715,000 I
love how that keeps every time we do a read the cut that number increases 715,000
designers around the world designed Crowd sources custom work based on your specs
and then you pick the design that you like best. So here's what you do.

19:06
Go to design

19:07
crowd.com slash Jordan, you posted brief describing what you want from the art that
you need. Design crowd invites 715,000 ish designers from Sydney to San Francisco
to respond. You get a couple designs the first few hours over a week and change you
get 60 100 I think we got like 300 when we try those different pieces from designers
around the world, you pick the ones you like you approve payment to the designers
and if you don't like any of the designs you get design crowd offers a money back
guarantee. Jason

19:36
check out design crowd comm slash Jordan that's d s IGN CR o WD comm slash
Jordan for a special 100 VIP offer for our listeners, or simply enter the discount code
Jordan when posting a project on design crowd. Thanks for listening and supporting
the show and to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard from
our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger comm slash deals. Don't Forget we have
a worksheet for today's episode, so you can make sure you solidify your
understanding of the key takeaways from Seth Godin. That link is in the show notes at
Jordan Harbinger comm slash podcast. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to
the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger comm slash subscribe. subscribing to the show
is absolutely free. It just means you get all the latest episodes downloaded
automatically to your podcast player as they're released, so you don't miss a single
thing from the show. Now back to our show with Seth Godin.

20:29
You bring this idea up in a Kimbo. There's an example of these kids getting laptops
and is it Africa or South America?

20:35
Yeah, Nicholas Negroponte.

20:37
And this is fascinating because I'm thinking, Oh, well, you know, I always try to
guess where the story's going. I don't know if that's just from watching too many
movies or Yeah, and I was wrong. I thought, oh, they're gonna get these and they're
gonna find Candy Crush and then nothing ever happened in the tablets ran out of
batteries. And that was the end. Somebody played Candy Crush until they ran out. But
that's not what happened right? So this the self learning process is much different than
the bash people into the black factory workers process. No

21:05
one had ever spent time pushing these kids to obey. There was no school, they had
never been to school. They were functionally illiterate. They were born to grow up to
work in the field. And when Nicholas is the founder of the MIT Media Lab, so he
does things that are on the edge and with rigor. And they tracked every single
behavior on every one of these tablets. The kids taught themselves to read, they taught
themselves to hack the system, so they could use the camera and other tools in it. And
mostly, they taught each other how to use it. Because no one had ever told them not to
do those things. And instead of just sitting around doing nothing, they had something
to do. The idea of Candy Crush is candy questions and opiate, it's designed to take
your mind Oh yeah, noise around you. But if you're not surrounded by this ever
competitive noise, candy, questions, more Right, yeah, it's supposed to be boring is
not boring to learn how to edit Wikipedia. And that's what these kids did.

22:06
I'm very impressed that they've learned how to do I mean, takes took me a while to
figure out how to edit Wikipedia, right? It's they don't they certainly don't make it as
user friendly as it probably could be these days. I think that's a little bit by design,
because it makes vandalism a little more

22:18
difficult for sure. So here's the interesting statistic that I just looked up on Wikipedia.
32 million people have a registered account on wikipedia. 3900 people are authorized
to start a new article in Wikipedia without oversight. That's the size of the funnel, one
in 10,000, meaning that most people at Wikipedia simply fix typos. A few thousand
people really get deep into it, and 3800 of them are the actual quote staff, Wikipedia.
That funnel is fascinating because it applies to most forms of everything we think
about out of every 30 million people who say I paint. How many of them are cutting
edge artists that belong in metropolitan? Oh, yeah. Right. It's not a talent thing, right.
It's a skill and commitment thing.

23:11
That's important. That's an important point. I think that's more important than I
originally had given a credit for it. Because a lot of us will say, I can't really do that I
don't have the natural skill or man, it's gonna take me 20 years to build that level of
skill. Yep. But since that's not the metric, we're really required to have to do anything
important. Exactly.

23:29
It becomes not irrelevant, but certainly less important and less relevant than we might
have thought. Right? Because most of the things we celebrate in the media, the
culture, our talents, how tall are you? Can you dunk a basketball how fast you on the
buzzer, jeopardy. These are the things that I will argue you might be wired for. But
the other stuff, persistent, open minded, curious, generous, driven. Those things are
harder to build. The game show around. But that's the rest of our lives. Those are the
people who end up running the rest of our lives. Because that's what makes the culture
work. I think we all know it's

24:09
cheaper for big companies to make, as you said, average things for average people.
But now we're seeing all these micro market subcultures influencers. So there's no
Larry King Live anymore. I mean, maybe it exists, but but not really in the way that it
did in the 90s. Right, where we're like, there were news articles that I read, when I do
research on people. It says, during Larry King Live a plane crashed into and it was
like, well, that must have been at 10pm on every weeknight because everyone was
watching this. Yeah, that kind of isn't a thing. And unless it happens during Game of
Thrones or something, right? And even then it's like, oh, well, on Tuesday, oh, that's
when I watched it. So late night TV, even those those are the big things that people
talk about. And those are fragmented, and those are competitive and those hosts are
crying and they're serial about the lack of ratings and giant shows like Phil moss
Whatever on HBO vagina show

25:01
your show is the bill maher show. That's what I learned that recently and I was like,
That's not right. And then I asked people to have the secret inside. Yeah, details and I
went, well, where's my contract with HBO? Exactly. Where's my giant Sound Studio?
Right? Well, there's legacy business. That's right. Yours is a growing one, that we
could talk forever about the dynamics here. But what happened was, the FCC said
there's only three channels that creates scarcity. Everyone's watching TV that creates
this value. The programming was not how do I get more people to watch TV? It's how
do I get them to not watch one of the other two networks because the game theory is
pretty simple, which is if I get a third, I win, just a third. That's plenty. And so if
you're running a commercial against one third of the American population, you better
sell them something they want to buy. Yeah, because that's a lot of people. So you
have Heinz ketchup and Kraft singles and Ford Motor right? But then the FCC stops
mattering at all. And we go from three channels to larry king, he actually wasn't as big
as it may seem, today, he was tiny compared to mash, or to Carol Burnett. Then you
go to 100 cable channels. And then you go from 100 cable channels to a billion
internet chat. If there's a billion internet channels, if there's 70 million blogs, if there's
5 million or whatever it is, podcasts, there's no shortage of things to tune into. And by
definition, there will be some hits because we like to have something we can buzz
about. But even the hits are tiny. Compared to what they used to be that Mad Men
which was considered the greatest TV show of its time. 3 million people tuned in
every episode,

26:48
which is like if your podcast had that you'd be one of the top podcasters but I don't
know if you're beating Rogan at that point.

26:54
Right. But if you on TV in 1970 that was last three millions. There was no TV show
that had fewer viewers than 3,000,019 70. Really? Yeah. Wow. I guess last place,
because you had a third if you just tied, right, if you just tied you had 60 million
50,000,040 million people watching you, wow, this is 3 million. It's Mad Men,
because the whole thing fractures if the whole thing fractures. Number one, it's not
clear advertising makes sense. But if advertising does make sense, why on earth
would you advertise average stuff when you could buy specific places to put your
ads? So if you know that it's a vegan podcast, you can sell them vegan stuff, right?
Which you never used to be able to buy an ad for vegan stuff, where could you afford
to do that? So now we're way out of the longtail because it's also true at the very same
time. Just a coincidence. container ships plus robots plus computers means we can
make secure edge case products at a reasonable price. So if you think about a product
like the title, I have one on my cheat sheet which is is something that can like help
you find your keys if you lose them, right, it's a little Bluetooth dongle or whatever in
1970 you could never afford it to make this because you would have need needed to
find 40 million people who would go to Kmart to buy one because you need shelf
space. Oh, we don't need shelf space. We have Amazon limited shelf space. So all
these things line up 3d printer to make the prototype 3d prom driver Raghava. So you
don't need to sell that many tile the first year to be glad you started the company. That
was inconceivable in 1970. So all these things lined up at the same time to create this
long fracture thing, which means most ideas are underwater. Most of the songs on
iTunes, sell zero copies a year. Most of the Kindle books sell zero copies a month
zero because it's under the line. There's a whole bunch of stuff One, as I said, podcasts
have 145 listeners, so you're not going to make a living at it. It's a great hobby. So
what we're going to end up with is all this churn at the long tail, and in the short head
when the Rogan's or whatever show up is the hit. Because hits are harder to find. You
can make money from it. And because there's so much cheaper to make, you don't
have to make that much money to be glad you did.

29:23
So can knowing this, can we make a huge impact? Like we used to be able to do by
getting a hit or creating something and having it resonate with the message? Is it is it
harder now? Or does it just look harder? Or we kind of like

29:37
what money when you buy it? Yeah, I guess that Yeah. You mean, come to the
executive to change the culture. But do we make a lot of

29:43
Yeah, so is there even a such thing as cultural radar anymore?

29:47
We want there to be cultural rate, right? And so there is and it's not I watched 40
episodes of Seinfeld. It might just be gaudy idea. And there's a whole bunch of people
Know what you just said? Right? So it's, it's a meme ification of how we talk about it.
But what's really happening? And I think we see this beautifully in the way the gay
marriage movement succeeded so quickly is what are your friends doing? People like
us do things like this, the people around what do you see? And so what they realized
was they didn't need to make a case or change everyone's mind. They simply needed
to make it so that people who cared about the issue would normalize it enough to the
people around them. So even though there wasn't a central broadcast, a central show,
it becomes as grounds up groundswell. Yeah, I find and so it's done, right. And so
we're going to see the culture keep changing horizontally, not the vertical way. The
vertical way was Oprah would have somebody on who's said something that was
heard by 25 million women at two o'clock in the afternoon, who and then boom, it's
on the radar. This is slower than that. And more horizontal than that, but it will
change the culture because the CI culture wants to change. And people want to be in
sync with their people.

31:16
That That makes sense. And it sort of leads me to what probably sounds like a dumb
question, which is, does it still make sense for us to do good work, high quality work?
And of course it does. But it kind of seems like it depends on the measure.

31:30
But semantics matters so much. Yeah. So let's be clear about what quality means.
Sure, quality does not mean the luxus quality does not mean expensiveness those
words are often associated quality quality. Edwards Deming, Phil Crosby, their
definition is meets spec. If you meet spec every time, you have created something of
quality, so a Toyota is higher quality than others. 1968 Rolls Royce, because 1968
Rolls Royce made by hand, broke down more than a 1990. Toyota, it was higher
quality met spec. So the production of almost everything in our lives, food chain, the
mechanical devices we buy way higher than any time in history, because engineers
figured out how to improve quality. Okay? If I get a Kindle book and it's filled with
typos, slow quality. I get a Kindle book, and it's a trashy romance. Well, was it
marketed as a trashy romance? Because if it isn't, it's a high quality trashy, read and
meet spec meet spec. So what does it mean to do good work? Well, I think they do
good work. Great work is a good work, met spec. Great work, you can't stop talking
about it so exceeded your expectations that you have to spread the word and therefore
if we want to have A change in the culture, we have to be remarkable. And what it
means to be remarkable is to do something great. That doesn't mean quality. It might
mean the opposite of quality. It might be Wabi Sabi, it might be a humanity to it. That
you know, so when, when you saw jon stewart choking up last week when he was
testifying before the Senate in the house, that was low quality. And it was excellent
work. Right, because he didn't finish the sentences he got choked up in His Word. So
he didn't deliver the word properly. But it was remarkable. It got seen by millions of
people it made a difference to because it was human because it was great work. And
so I think our obligation is to not be the sort of fold perfectionism of holding it back
because it's not perfect, but instead say this is important, and I'm going to do what's
necessary to make it important. Wabi Sabi, correct me if I'm wrong is where the is, is
a Japanese art form. Word. They sort of did they deliberately break the pot and then
glued together with gold or does it? There is a thing it starts with a K. I can never be a
word that's called. Okay. So, if you went to Japan and I can be 60 and said Wabi Sabi
no one would know him. It was actually a psychoanalyst in the United States Lennar.
I want to say things Koren wrote a book called Wabi Sabi, which he conflated two
words Wabi Sabi. And basically, I'm not doing a literal translation, one means depth.
And one means nature and one implies handmade. It's the reality of use. And so,
astroturf lawn in the suburbs might be perfect. But a playground has Wabi Sabi. You
can see the footprints of the kids who came before you. That catcher's mitt that's
brand new from the store is new. But a warning catcher's mitt is worth more because
it has Wabi Sabi. It's been there and it's on its way to going away. So yes, there is a
Japanese form of sculpture where you intentionally break a sculpture and then glue it
together with gold to show that that's our lives, right? Our lives are nothing but our
scars are the things that didn't work out. And I treasure them. we each do that my
failures are more important to me than my successes, because it's my failures that
made it so I could be here. That idea of Wabi Sabi and humanity flies in the face of
what happens when you see CBS, make a three minute piece of video. I was on CBS a
couple weeks ago, really good people. There's only two of you here. There were five
of them. And they were here for hours to make a three minute thing, because they
wanted to take out all the Wabi Sabi. They want it to be like not, and this really
happened, but that this is a version of what happened, right? And one of the reasons
that Hollywood movies cost so much is that when you have an unlimited budget, you
spend the last half of it taking out all this time. Stuff that would make it look real.

36:02
Right? Yeah, everything is Oh, that wasn't lit perfectly or there was a. Someone
walked by outside. We have to get rid of that. And it's what Yeah, we're in sets office.
You know, what, what's this? There's wires in the shot. Yeah, there are wires in the
shot. There are wires in the office. Exactly. So and people like that about podcasting,
right, the wasabi is there until there's just too much Wahby that everything else gets
lost exactly

36:24
where my pockets in the bathroom right behind us here in the shower. And I lined it
with some foam. And I just go in there and I hit record. And I have no staff other than
Alex who does the final edit for me. Because I figured that's what people wanted from
me.

36:39
To be clear you're not actually taking a shower. You turn on the water. I don't know.
That might be a little Yes, no more Wabi Sabi at that point. More like what Yeah,
what

36:52
you're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guests, Seth Godin. We'll be
right back after this.

36:57
This episode is sponsored in part by manscaped Now

37:00
this was a product that I just I wasn't sure what to do with it.

37:05
Well, I was I knew what to do with. It's

37:08
right there on the tin,

37:09
literally called manscaped. And I thought okay, so this is what precision engineered
tools for your family jewels. I think that's their slogan, which is kind of creative. I see
what you did there. Now, this is this is delicate you you should handle this one
delicately right, Jason, just like you would handle your junk. And they've got this
electric trimmer that they've redesigned, right? A lot of us will go and shave. I should
speak for myself. A lot of us well, we'll go and shave with a regular razor. And
they've got it's called an I'm not even kidding. The lawnmower 2.0 which has
proprietary skin safe technology, so it's not going to Nick or snag your nuts. Which
I'm wondering if

37:50
I will say that we weren't we were actually forced to read that. So we're not we're not
going to fly here. But yes, it does. It does have the skin safe technology. So your your
your taint is safe with with the lawnmower. That's right, the look to lawnmower 2.0

38:06
or 2.0. Yes, yeah.

38:09
Plus like

38:09
a lot of guys, they'll have a hair trimmer for their head and they're like, ooh, do I want
to use this down there? I'm not so sure about that.

38:17
I've lived with guys who trim their beard and their balls with the same little trimmer
and I'm like, please keep that on your side of the sink dude, because that's just gross.
Well also you're just playing with fire what happens

38:27
when those blades gets pulled out a couple hairs right? What happens when that
happens down down ENDA? Not good at all. So I think it's good that this is
specifically made for it. Also, they sent us a really nice I mean, these came in and I
I'm not gonna lie, I was fairly surprised. super high quality. The bag that came in was
high quality. I actually once I saw this, I requested one for you. For Gabriel and for a
couple other people here on the team did folker to get one.

38:56
Oh Yes, he did. And he has used it and he said that the summer will be Much cooler
now thanks to manscape got it hashtag TMI. So,

39:04
anyway, let's tell him about the deal. I'm just I need to I need a shower after this read
but Jason Tell me what the deal we got for him.

39:11
You can get 20% off and free shipping with code Jordan at manscaped calm that's
20% off with free shipping at manscaped comm use the code Jordan and you get all
sorts of goodies in here to like which I love the crop preserver which is an anti
chafing ball deodorant and moisturizer. So you get this is this is a full ball package
that we're yeah full ball court press you get here in the manscape bag it's funny

39:39
stuffy didn't know you needed

39:40
right oh my goodness

39:41
All right. This episode is sponsored in part by better help. I love these guys. I can't
believe this didn't exist earlier. I I'm a big fan of therapy. You've heard me
recommended a lot on feedback Friday, but I also I I drink my own Kool Aid if you
will. I don't know what the I eat my own dog food. That was what I was meaning to
say. I love that. therapy. I think it's healthy. I think everyone should have it. Here's the
thing people go Oh, well, you know, I don't have anything no if you're saying you
need therapy to stay that way even if you just talk to somebody once a month once a
freakin quarter seriously, it's worth it better help offers licensed professional
counselors, which is key Don't be hiring some life coach thinking you're getting actual
therapy. It's not the same no hate on life coaches. I mean a little but they're not
therapists. If you've got depression, stress, anxiety, relationship stuff, sleeping stuff,
trauma stuff, anger stuff, all that self esteem issues, that huge list of stuff that needs to
be handled by a professional in order for you to stay productive, sane, healthy, etc.
And I love that it's confidential. It's private, you can text you can video chat. This is
not driving across town, finding a parking space making sure you got the appointment
time, right. This is go to your car during your lunch hour, because you have 40
minutes, half hour or whatever, to do a session. That's what I'm talking about. That's
21st century therapy right there. Jason we got a deal for him, right?

40:58
Of course we do. It's a Truly affordable option for our listeners and you get 10% off
your first month with discount code Jordan, and you don't have to go sit in that
waiting room and look at all the other people and then think about them judging you.
You can just do it from the comfort of your own phone. So why not get started today
go to better help calm slash Jordan. Simply fill out a questionnaire to help them assess
your needs and get matched with a counselor you'll love. That's better help calm slash
Jordan.

41:23
This episode is also sponsored in part by progressive

41:27
saving money on your car insurance is easy with progressive it's an average savings of
$699 a year for customers who switch and save. In fact, customers can qualify for an
average of six discounts on their auto policy when they switch to progressive
discounts just for starting a quote online or owning multiple vehicles. Get your quote
online at progressive calm and see how much you could be saving discounts not
available in all states and situations. Thank you for listening and supporting the show
your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air and to learn more and get links to
all the great discounts you just heard. So you can check out those amazing sponsors.
Visit Jordan Harbinger comm slash deals. And don't forget the worksheet for today's
episode, that link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger comm slash podcast. And if
you're listening to us on the overcast player, please click that little star next to the
episode. It really helps us out. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Seth
Godin.

42:19
Let me tell you where I get a little discouraged there there are podcasts to talk about
real housewives that what the host had for breakfast. Yeah, she's drinking three she's
three glasses of wine deep when she does it. It has twice the audience that I have at
least technically Yeah, probably more like five acts. It's you know, super profitable.
Sure. And everyone's going we want to buy ads on that one. But then there is an
element of well not ads for things that maybe smart people would buy because they're
not listening to that. But you'll never have better ratings then. Sure jersey shore or
something that makes us all go cringe with the brands are paying the person to not
wear the clothing

42:57
right right. If you AB tested website enough He will turn into a porn site.

43:03
Really think about is that an experiment that actually was running? So think about

43:06
it because you have two ads. One ad has someone sort of unclothed, when it doesn't,
which is going to get more clicks, you have two things that people can do. One
involves getting a short term hit of endorphin one doesn't like bit by bit by bit, it's
going to keep pushing you in a direction for a certain audience. Right? If you look,
why is the spam from Nigeria, so poorly written,

43:30
deliberately filtering in people that would fall for it? Exactly.

43:33
Because it costs them a ton. To get you to the next six steps of interaction. They don't
want a smart person in the funnel, because it's just gonna break before they pay. They
want dumb people in the function. And so the question I would ask you is, What's
your goal? If your goal is to maximize the income from podcasts, then the quality you
want is the dumbest, most current short fix, quick hit thing you could come up with
With because advertisers are obsessed with mass and perversely pay extra to reach
large numbers of undifferentiated people when they should be paying less per head
than that they pay more, because they're lazy and traditional. So if you if that's work
you're proud of, this is easy to do, right? It's not It makes me want to take this pencil
and, well, it was hard, like, I don't think you should, because you're comparing apples
to oranges, that those people what they really should be doing instead of a podcast is
making a network TV show. They're failing to because they only have one 10th the
reach they'd have on network TV. So it's a hierarchy, but it's not a ladder you want to
be on. Instead, you're saying, for the people on a journey I care about. I can go with
you over there who wants to come. And that's not the way to maximize your profit
way to maximize your profits go to work at Goldman Sachs. This is the way to
maximize your impact on the people you seek to

44:58
serve. Do people come to you And say things like, how do I stay motivated to do what
matters rather than what makes profit in the short term? Or is that a question you'd
like that they should be able to answer

45:09
on their own? by existing? I don't get asked that question. But I don't do any
consulting or coaching. So I don't get asked as many questions as you think. Sure. But
the question I get asked much more often than that is, I have been moved by the news
to do X. I want y and I'm not getting it. How dare the culture do that? How can I fix
it? Right? That sense of entitlement happens constantly. And the answer is what made
you think that X and Y were related. You're entitled to do X, you're not entitled to get
y that there might be a disconnect between the x you're doing and the y you think
you're entitled to get and it's that but that and that is getting in the way of your joy, I
can tell you how to get That kind of output, but you will be able to do the kind of art
you say you want to do, you'll have to do something for them. And what I write about
in this as marketing is most marketers say, I have a key, show me the lock, it fits.
Hmm, that's a really dumb way to get into a house. Yeah, a smart way is to say, here's
a lock. Why don't you go make a key that will open that. That makes much more
sense. That is a service mindset, built on empathy to say, I'm not going to force you to
change for me to serve you. I'm going to go to who you are, where you are going and
bring you something that you that you know you need.

46:36
What advice would you have for somebody who as you put it in? Is it the Icarus
deception? I always mess this title up.

46:43
That's the name of the book.

46:44
Yes. Did it have another title? Or was there just a misprint in an article that was big
that had the title wrong? Or allegedly in my head? It had another title, but in real life,
it never had another? What was the title that was in your head? Okay, maybe I heard it
on a podcast or something. Because it just just polluting my brain. What advice would
you have for people who fly too low, right? Because there's people who are making
things that think this doesn't matter. There's too much noise. No one cares about
deeper thought anymore. That person might be me. Maybe I'm using you as my
therapist right now. But, but in a way, right? Because there's people who are going,
Oh, what makes smart content when everyone's dumb, which is not necessarily true,
but it

47:24
will feel that so once you make that statement is your next statement. All right, I'll
make some content. But you don't really want to right. Now we're back to the I want
to do what I want to do, but I'm not getting what I want. Right, right. You know, the
number of blog posts I've written that have won the internet 07 thousand 400 blog
posts that I have never had one go super viral. And that is totally fine with me. In fact,
what I know how to write one of those blog posts, I don't want to write one of those
blog posts because if I did I get hooked on that and I'd have to do it again. Sure. And
so I'm flattered when people look to me as a big success, except authors that I really
respect that Liz Gilbert and Malcolm Webb was about. So 20 times as many books as
I do 20 times. And I'm not, I don't 20 times the podcast listeners you do 20 x is a lot.
That's a lot. Yeah. And if I was going to focus on that, it would be foolish, because if I
want to go be Liz Gilbert, I should figure out how to be Liz Gilbert, and then maybe
I'll get Liz Gilbert gets, but there already is Liz Gilbert, I should just be me, and figure
out how to organize my overhead so that what I'm getting for being me can sustain me
to do it again. That doesn't mean you know, try to do outreach that's appropriate. You
don't try to find the leverage and a social ratchet and learn how to do that kind of
marketing. It just means you don't do the chip on your shoulder, right? Because the
world this idea that you're entitled to x because you put the effort in, you just got to go
to the The floors of museums with artists you never heard of painting after painting
from people you never heard of go to the record store of records after they're just as
good. They're just not famous. Right?

49:12
Right. And it's easy to go. But I've been doing this for 12 years. I should and I always
have to check myself on that. Because when I look at people will say your YouTube
should be bigger. And I go, yeah. So what would you do and you talk to the expert,
and they go, Oh, you know, you need like a snazzy explosion in thumbnail and it
hasn't saved this quote, blew my head up when Seth said it, and then people will click
and then they'll go, that wasn't my head's not exploding. This is dumb, but then you
get more

49:39
like carbureted Trust for attention, right? you're optimizing magazines that I used to
respect. Now I've had lines like this one thing United Airlines, it will blow your mind.
Right? Well, okay, I clicked once, but I'm never coming back. Right. And so in the
long run, we've seen it again and again and again, in the long run. You can trade for
attention, which can't trade for trust.

50:03
I think that's a really good point. You see websites that were once the preeminent,
whatever magazine, and now it's it's called a click farm and they're not really
exaggerating. Right, exactly. And you can turn your work into that if you're not
careful by going, Wow, look, when I put more cleavage on Instagram, well, maybe
not for me or you, but some people can do that. And they'll get more followers. But
then, are you getting people that want to buy your floral arrangements? Are you
getting people that want to hear your opinion on something? No, you're getting

50:32
Yeah. See, we have in the office every day, right? I don't use Instagram the way I'm
supposed to. I don't use Twitter the way I'm supposed to. And I use Facebook the way
I'm supposed to. And I'm aware of that. But my job is not to make Mark Zuckerberg
happy. My job is to work with the people who want to go on this journey with me.
And if using a social media outlet, the way that will make the CEO happy, will
undermine what I'm trying to do. Then I don't want to do it. I'm also not doing a
particularly good job. Making Barnes and Noble happy. All right, fine. That's not my
job.

51:04
You turn down this billion dollars in stock options. Was that for yoyodyne? Or was
that No, no, that's after

51:09
I was after I sold it. And I was at Yahoo. And Bill Gross, the guy who invented so
many things on the internet that he doesn't always get credit for, including Google's
business model, ran a company called IDEA Lab. And IDEA Lab was the next hot
thing. It was going to be a multi multi, Steven Spielberg was on the board was the real
deal. And Phil called me up. right around the time I was thinking of leaving Yahoo.
And he said, We'd love to have you be the chief marketing officer for idealab. We're
going public in six months, and there's a billion dollars and stock options in it. And I
said no. And it doesn't matter that the internet bubble burst in between the two. I'm
sort of sad it didn't it would have been great if there really was worth a billion dollars
because the magic for me was I never again had to Say, I gotta do something for
money, right? Because I turned down a billion dollar.

52:04
Right? Great. So why sell out for 100,000? Exactly done?

52:07
Yeah. And my life has been better ever since

52:10
prey. Yeah, I can see that. That's my follow up to that was what did that teach you
about doing things for money? Because Yeah, if you're gonna I used to be a wall
street attorney my bonus check was supposed to be as big as my annual revenue is for
this but I would not we would not be he'd be talking to one miserable guy or not at all
right at this point. And I can see that I can see that being almost liberating. Like look,
if I didn't sell out for that there's not really an amount of money that's going to make
me then changed by principles

52:37
Exactly. Or make traveling work. But I also have a lot of other principles about
industriousness and for emotion that make me work way harder than I would work if I
was just seeking to maximize profit. How do we know

52:55
what feedback to listen to? Because we're getting a lot whenever our work is out.
We're getting a whole lot of feedback. Some of it's unsolicited. And I like to improve
my show, or whatever. People like to improve their writing their work based on
feedback. But it's, there's a YouTube comment that says, I don't like your purple
glasses. And then there's different types of people that might love them or not coming
on your glasses at all. Because that's not the freakin point. Exactly. How do we really
know when it's not such an obvious example, who to listen to?

53:26
So I just recorded a whole podcast about this very topic. So I'm gonna try to be myself
too much. But here we go. The most important thing to remember is a simple
sentence. It's not for you, that if someone gives you a piece of feedback that indicates
what kind of person they are by the nature of the feedback. So you run an Indian
restaurant on Sixth Street in New York and you have a $24 spicy vindaloo. If you
finish it, you get it for free. It's not spicy. And someone comes the restaurant says I
hate spicy food. really obvious what you should do and it's not take it off the menu. It
say to that person. The selca Ukrainian food is two blocks over here. Nothing in the
restaurant is spicy, here's their phone number thanks for stopping by. What I sell is
not for you be able to do that is hugely powerful. So I look at you know the 100 most
beloved books ever written. All of them have more one star reviews on Amazon than
any book I've ever read all of them because if you're going to write To Kill a
Mockingbird or Harry Potter, a lot of people are going to read it and a lot of people
are going to read it some of them need to say sound for me. And the way they do that
is by writing a one star review. But Harper Lee shouldn't have read her one star
reviews because it's not going to make her a better writer tomorrow. All it says is I
don't like spicy food. Good luck to you. So that's the most important thing. Do not go
looking for these one star reviews because they will not help you do better work. And
it's in our instinct, people like us to go look for the one star reviews because we want
to put ourselves in the state of angry underdog again, beating ourselves up thinking
that that's the fuel for our best work. I'm not sure that's true. It's like you see me, Seth.

55:17
How do you know I do that every single morning? Yeah, there's a part of that.

55:21
I haven't read an Amazon review in seven years.

55:24
That's probably wise. Yeah, I think looking for like a three star. That's where
sometimes you get value. Not always though, right? Maybe more like the email.
That's three paragraphs that comes emails feels very different to me.

55:35
Yeah. Because email isn't in public. So that person is not trying to raise their status.
Lucky emails, not anonymous, right? And email has a history. So if I've never heard
from you before, and you write about a blog post I just wrote, that's negative, I'm
going to ignore you. But if in 145,000 emails I've answered through the years, I've
seen you By now and then questioning something asked me about something and then
you send me a note. That feels really different to me. Sure. Right. So one of the things
I learned is, people in Australia don't like it. When you say it's summer, and it's hard.
Hmm, cuz it's winter in Australia. So they feel left out. So I now say, for people in the
Northern Hemisphere, right, or whatever, because I want to acknowledge, right? How
did I come to know this? I came to know this because someone, several people I trust,
who I've been back and forth, I've never met, like, you know what? We prefer it if you
do this, I'll listen to that. That's advice. That's not feedback.

56:41
Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's hard to remember in the moment, but it's worth
revisiting that, especially if you find yourself at two o'clock in the morning scrolling
through your most critical reviews on whatever platform.

56:53
Yeah. And also, as long as we're talking about what's true, as opposed to what's
emotional, if I said to the two guy's name, the greatest jazz album of all time? I don't
know. Maybe you kind of blue Miles Davis.

57:06
Yeah, I was gonna say some Jake Coltrane or Miles Davis,

57:09
kind of blue john Coltrane. Miles Davis, five days beginning to get

57:17
got the idea. Five days later, it's completely done. So Miles Davis, and then you can
leave if you listen carefully, you'll hear their mistakes, you'll hear their notes that are
not perfectly in tune. In Miles Davis can make one of the greatest jazz albums of all
time in five days. Why is what you're doing so hard? Or another question? How long
would it take you to type 150 page book? Well, if you know how to type you could
probably type it in for this. So why does it take a year? It's not the typing. It's the
getting out of your way. Mmm hmm. miles got out of his way that you can write a
book I wrote the dip in two weeks. You can write a book if you get out of your way.
So the work here is not you have to get network standards and practices in the a&r
people to say yes, we will put you in the store. And you don't need to get Tower
Records to give you shelf space because they're all gone. You bought anything you
want. So the work is find the people you seek to serve. Bring them a true, honest
version of the change you seek to make. And then let it happen. Don't obsess about
the one star reviews, learn what you need to learn from good advice, and do it again.

58:31
I've heard you say things that indicate that you're not a fan of hustling, so to speak.
Sure, I hate that word even because I think that the whole internet is full of hustle
porn, as I call it. Yeah. There's whole bodies of work that are just to motivate people
to either have a no stand on the beach and do this or something. Can you elaborate on
why
58:51
hustle selfish? It's selfish. Hustle says how do I create enough reciprocity debt Lots
close talking plus promises that are hard to keep, so that someone will let me go
forward rather than doing the difficult work of saying, that's a hustle. Right? So you
can get hustled by a life insurance salesperson, you get hustled, with the car
dealership, you can get hustled at the bus station in New York City, that it's not
bullying, but it's in the same category. That, you know, one of the hustle things that
went around a couple years ago is one way to hostel. Somebody is engaged with them
a little bit and then ask for a favor. Mm hmm. So email. Hey, Seth, what's your
favorite color? Yeah, right. You might think oh, really, my favorite color is yellow.
We've learned my book.

59:41
Right? That it drives me absolutely. The worst is Jordan. I'm a huge fan of your work.
This thing really changed my life. And I'm like, Oh, I'm having a good read here. This
is a really, would you and then I go, Oh, so this was years buttering me up. I feel

59:54
you're trying to create an environment where I will feel worse by saying no, that's
hustling Because it's nothing generous, it's nothing that you would do if you weren't
going to get something in return. Right? It's something risky on your part. Like
sometimes people will say, I'm taking a big risk here. I'm asking you for someone. So
what exactly is your risk? Right, there is no risk, what you're doing is trading favors
and working your way up ladder up the ladder, so that in a hurry, you can hustle your
way up. And it is never been easier and more socially acceptable to hustle. And my
point is, hustle is different than what that other word hustle means, which is the
hockey player who always skates a little bit harder. The hockey player who always
practices a little bit longer, we also call that hustle. That also is fine, because you're
doing it in service of supporting your team, not because you're trying to trick your
way forward. And I think that when we ask most people, would you like to be
hustled? Right? They would say no. And if that's really the case, then I'm going to
propose to people That they have a better way forward than hustling

1:01:02
you advocate often for taking this this long term approach versus the short term
approach. And that's for a lot of people. I think they really love this. When it comes to
investing money or investing in yourself or a business. Generally, it's a good idea. It's
more scarce these days, which I think is an opportunity. But I wonder how you or we
would go about persuading people to take the long term journey instead of just what's
going to work short term. Speaking of hustling, right?

1:01:27
Yeah, I guess I still come back to what what is it that you're hoping for?

1:01:33
Ideally, a fulfilling career?

1:01:35
Well, if you're trying to get to Cleveland, don't head south of Michigan, right? It's not
gonna get you in that direction. I've spent some time recently talking to 1819 year
olds who are trying to move their way up. And they're surrounded by images that say,
million dollars by 22 or bust the hustle porn. Yeah, and it's like okay, though. People
show me what happened to them when they turn 30. Where are they now? Because if
the trajectory was a straight line, they'd be Warren Buffett by the time they're 30.
They're not what happened between 22 and 30. What you see is these people are
signed up for an endless cycle of boom and bust. And they have to constantly engage
with new people because they burned all the old ones. If that's what you want, go
model them, leave me alone. But if you want the other path, start living the other path.
Take a look at how long it took for someone to do it. And do it and do it and the
stories never end. Right. I want to be Amanda Palmer. Well, Amanda wrote down
exactly how to be Amanda palm. It does not involve one day Oprah called me and
then I was Amanda Palmer. That's never the story. Wait for that phone call from
Oprah.

1:02:51
But Seth In the meantime, I know we'd said 55 We are 55 and five seconds. Say thank
you very much.

1:02:57
Thank you. It's been fun.

1:03:00
Great, big thank you to Seth Godin. We're gonna link to a bunch of his books here in
the show notes. And we're teaching you how to connect with great people like Seth,
reach out to people that you admire, keep relationships going with people that you've
known for years and reignite those old relationships that you've let lapse. It's a free
course on how to do this over at Jordan Harbinger comm slash course, I literally have
nothing to sell you. I kind of wish that I did. But in the meantime, this is all free. I
don't plan on making it not free but no promises there. I would love to hear what you
think about this. A lot of people don't dig the well before they get thirsty. And they
find out the hard way when they need relationships. So ignore this at your own peril.
Jordan Harbinger comm slash courses where you can find that and most of the guests
here on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us it's
a bunch of successful people. It's not a it's not sort of one of those bottom rungs,
scrape the bottom of the barrel type of things. This is skills that successful people use,
not just introverts, not just people who don't know how to send an email. I'd love to
hear what you think about it because you will are pretty damn smart from my
experience. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway
here from Seth Godin, I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram and
there's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger comm
slash YouTube. Speaking of feedback, of course, I do read everything especially
reviews on Apple podcasts. Even if you don't use the app I'd love to see a review from
you. It's a great way to let other people know how to find the show. And if you need
instructions on how to do that because Apple share don't make it easy. Go to Jordan
Harbinger comm slash subscribe and we'll show you how this show is produced in
association with podcast one and this episode was co produced by Jason defilippo and
Jen Harbinger show notes and worksheets by Robert Fogarty music by Evan Viola
and I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests
are their own. do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the
show? And remember, we rise by lifting others the fee for this show is that you share
it with friends when you find something useful which should be in every episode. So
please Share the show with those you love and even those who don't. In the meantime,
do your best to apply what you hear on the show. So you can live what you listen, and
we'll see you next time. A lot of people ask me which podcasts I listened to and
recommend. I've been friends with Pat Flynn of smart, passive income for years now.
And Pat, thanks for joining us. You had a really interesting episode recently about
why people really hate us online. And of course, you hear all these cliches like, oh,
you're not, if you're not getting haters, you're not doing it right. And it's like, okay,
maybe that's the reason. Also there are other reasons like some people are just
horrible, but what what some, what are some of the conclusions you came up with in
Episode 372? Yeah, this has actually become one of my most popular episodes
recently. And it stems from and the reason I created this is because my son who's nine
started a YouTube channel, and he got a really hateful comment from some random
person on his on his video. And the comment was, this is to a nine year old kid, by the
way, it was kill yourself. That's so horrible. Yeah, and thanks for My wife and I, we
sort of taught her son to look out for this and to understand why people are like that.
And what we taught him and what we try to teach people in this episode is that hurt
people hurt people, right? People do this. And it's not usually a reflection on you. It's
usually a reflection on something that's happening in their life. And I go into a lot of
examples beyond the one with my son, but my own personal examples, being an
online entrepreneur and having a following online on very similar situations. And
thankfully, my son was big enough to go, Well, I hope

1:06:26
this person is okay. Instead of going,

1:06:29
Oh my gosh, like, my content is crap. Or I should stop doing this or, you know, or
worst thing possible, obviously, and we're thankful that we're able to teach him at a
young age and we just wanted to In this episode, talk about hate online in a very
honest way. And hopefully Have you realized that, you know, hurt people, they hurt
people, and it's not about you, it's about them. That was an interesting point that I had
to figure out on my own. I mean, doing a podcast being online at all, for 13 years. I
don't know about you, but I've seen not online at all, but it being in a way if you can
even call it the law. Light of influence or whatever the hell you want to call it. I've
found that over the last 13 years, it's gotten much worse. It used to be there was the
occasional crazy person, but they were actually so obviously mentally unstable. And
there were some jerks online. But now it almost seems like there's a huge number of
people that are really, really negative and it sort of speaks to more people being online
in general, but it also seems like more people being online to vent about their life or
something. I don't know. I'm interested to hear what you think about that. So check
out 372 of Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai