Seth Godin Wants to Know if Your Music Is Any Good?

I highly recommend a recent podcast by Tim Ferriss, where he interviews Seth Godin. It’s long, but worth it. I like it when my brain feels alive, and Seth makes my brain feel alive.

For those who aren’t familiar, Seth Godin is widely known (and respected) marketer, thinker, and author of books like Tribes and The Dip.

In the podcast, Tim and Seth cover a number of things:

• Coffee
• Vodka
• Money
• Books
• Social Media
• Business Ideas
• Meditation

The two that stick with me are:

Money.  A Wall Street Journal article mentioned that after $75k/year, money stops making you that much more happy.  It just gets you more stuff.

Seth adds to this by saying that after a certain amount of dollars, we use money to tell a story.  Stories like: “I’m worth something now.”  “I have achieved.”  “I’m better than x.”

Or, to put it in musician terms:  “If I make x dollars… I’m a professional.” or “…I’ll be happy”.  or “…I’ll finally write the music I want to write (instead of the schlock I’m doing now).”

These stories have two main problems.  They’re false, and they’re distracting.

It’s possible that you should be saying ‘no’ to certain money-making activities, so that you can say ‘yes’ to something more important.

Which brings us to:

Value.  The major takeaway for me is when Seth gets into the area of value.  He asks, How are you creating value for the world?  How are you improving the world around you?  Are you making people’s lives better?

Answering these questions makes for a better personal story.

This story is about being generous, and creative, and bold.  It’s about saying yes to the projects you fear.  And about saying no to the resistance in your head.  It’s about prioritizing the meaningful stuff.

In the end, it’s about doing things you’re proud of.

The question I’m asking myself today is:  How can I add value to the world around me?

 

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