The Psychology of Authenticity | Seth Godin - From The Vault

I don't think people want authenticity. When you are working with a professional who is having a bad day, you don't want them to be authentic. You want them to be consistent. You want them to be the best version of themselves. Authenticity in 2024 is often used as an excuse for being a jerk.

Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. Today's episode is from the Finding Mastery Vault. A conversation with Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur, teacher, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time on leadership, creativity, marketing, and making meaningful change. We first released this conversation a few years ago, and the world just feels noisier and faster and more consumed by judgment than before. Seth's ideas feel remarkably relevant today.

I want people to realize what a miracle this moment in time is and to stop squabbling. To stop squabbling with each other and to stop squabbling with themselves. I want them to fix problems before they become too big to fix. And I want us to stop being toddlers and start being grownups.

At the heart of this conversation is a deceptively simple question: What is the change you seek to make?

We all quit and we don't talk about it and we don't think about it. But the fact is, unless you're wearing a tutu or still playing ice hockey at the age of 40, you quit things your whole life. And we need to get better at it. And we need to be clear about the difference between quitting a dead end and quitting in the dip.

With that, let's jump into this week's conversation from the vault with Seth Godin. Seth, welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I am so excited to have you here. I'm so stoked to sit down with you. But before we jump in, just want to ask and see how you're doing. Like, how are you?

I'm really good. Thank you for asking. And I was told if I came here, I would find some mastery. So bring it on. I'm ready.

Yeah, that's good. Okay, good. Maybe just before we dive into the mastery piece, let's just start with a bit of a state of the union. You are known as a marketing genius. You've been writing and teaching and speaking about business and creativity for decades. And so with that in mind, we're just kicking off 2024. What is your personal state of the union right now on leadership and teamwork and the way that you're designing your life? Three-part question.

Okay, well, so I'm obligated by the FCC to point out that marketing isn't what most people think it is. It's not podcast ads or interrupting people or spamming them or hyping. It's not promotion and getting the word out. That's what marketing used to be. It used to be advertising. What my work has been about is telling and living true stories that engage with people and spread stories that make a change happen that we're proud of. And because I wrote the books, I get to decide what marketing is, and that's what I've decided it is. So with that said, when we think about any period of time, call it a new year if you want. The ideas of leadership and teamwork, of making a difference, these are marketing choices. Because every time we open our mouths, every time we type something, talk to someone, connect in any way, we're doing it to make a change happen. If we're not here to make a change, why are we wasting other people's time? And too often we get seduced or indoctrinated into thinking that our job is to do our job. And I don't think that's really the work. The work is to be clear about who we're here to change, what we're trying to change, and how we're going to do it together. So that's been the narrative of my life for a bunch of years, and it's not changing right now.

Mm. Okay. State of the Union then is consistent. And when you think about leadership, How do you think about leadership?

So a lot of people are confused by leadership versus management. They think that managers lead and leaders manage. They're totally different activities. Sometimes one person does both, but lots of times not. Leadership is a voluntary activity in which someone decides to speak up, to make a change happen, and to ask for folks to follow them. Management is based on authority. There's an org chart. You need to do this because I said so, and I am the manager and you work for me. Now, we need managers, otherwise fast food places would fall apart and no one would show up for their shift. And we also need leaders. But just because someone anointed you as a manager doesn't mean you're automatically a leader. And it feels to me like in times of change, In times when people are distraught or lost, that's when we particularly need folks to show up and lead.

And so there is some theory around leadership, best fit of leadership for contextual experiences, meaning that when people are leading, the way that leadership happens typically in a high-stress environment versus something where everything is going really well and it's easy, that there can be some differences there. But that, that, that actually, as I'm talking out loud, I wanna set that aside. Can you give your best kind of synopsis of the traits of a great leader? Like what you think those skills are?

Well, I mean, you've had some extraordinary guests on this show and some of them got to be extraordinary cuz they were in the right place in the right time and lightning hit. And some of them, that, you know, winning championship after championship after championship, it's pretty clear that they have a practice. And the practice begins with enrollment. Enrollment is essential if you want to lead. So what do I mean by this? I mean managers don't need emotional commitment. Managers simply need people to follow the manual. And if you don't follow the manual, well, you're going to need to leave. Leaders need folks who have voluntarily signed up to get on the bus that is going to the place where the leader wants to go. So when you were talking to Jack about rugby, the thing is you shouldn't devote 4 years of your life at Berkeley to playing rugby if you don't want to win the NCAA championship. Enrollment is a given, right? That, that's what you signed up for. And What he has is the power to simply say, you need to get off this bus because you're not helping the bus get to where it's going. Or he can say, you should sit near the front of the bus because you're helping the bus get to where it's going. But it doesn't work without enrollment. And so when we think about what did Satya do at Microsoft that doubled their value compared to Apple in just a year? Well, you can say he had the insight to announce that AI was going to be the next thing. And if we look at his predecessor at Microsoft, one of the worst CEOs in the history of American management, Ballmer was good at telling people what to do. But the problem was he was wrong a lot and he wasn't leading. He was managing. Whereas what Nadella has figured out how to do was create the conditions, make enough space for people to fill in the gap between where they are and where they want to go, to enroll in that journey. And what I believe is that that's what most people want out of a good day at work. They want to feel like they enrolled in something that was worthwhile.

Yeah, one of the remarkable pieces about Satya is how aware he is of the relationships with other people. And so we were in, we were in a session together and I was sharing an idea and he looked and he stopped his team and he said, I don't care if we spend the rest of the day on this. I want to make sure— and what we're talking about is knowing each other's personal philosophy. I want to make sure that we understand each other really well because we're— we've got something really important that we're trying to get after. And that idea of creating the space not only within oneself, to share, but the space with amongst the team to be able to know each other so that you can work well with each other. It sounds like it's written out of like, I don't know, some sort of novel about how the greats do it, but that's actually how he does it. And so there's a difference between oftentimes what's happened, what's written about and what actually gets done. And when you can line those two things up, it's pretty remarkable what can get done.

Yeah. Yeah. I would love to talk about the personal philosophy thing, because I think that there's some, there are some traps there, but it does get to the heart of enrollment that, you know, part of the magic of Goldman Sachs or someplace like that when it's working is everyone's very clear they're there to make a lot of money. And so there's this super easy metric that you can just announce, but almost every other job in the world. That metric is not really what's on offer. And so figuring out where we are and where we want to go, getting aligned around that, I think it's at an emotional level. It's not at a practical level, but the emotions are at the heart of enrollment.

So when you say about personal philosophy having some trapdoors in it, what, which parts do your eyebrows raise?

So, well, there's a, there was a great conceptual artist And the name of his book was Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of What One Sees. And if you think about that sentence for a while, it will really get under your skin. We invented words a million years after we had emotions, and the words almost never really fully capture what we seek. And so what happens is when we go through this exercise, particularly if we're going around the room in a circle and everyone's busy thinking about what they're gonna say, we end up trying to put it in a box that ends up being a label. The same way when companies have a mission statement, company mission statements are almost always stupid because they've been through so many committees, they don't mean anything, right? So why does someone who's one of the top 100 people at Johnson Johnson go to work tomorrow? I guarantee you it's not because of what their mission statement says of to create health opportunities for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, they have a personal thing around status, affiliation, fear, safety, meaning. These things, those are colors. Those aren't words. How do we talk to ourselves about what we're afraid of? How do we talk to ourselves about what we dream of? And if we have to put it in a clever sentence or two, I guarantee you we've sort of put it into amber and it's not alive anymore. It's, it's more complicated than that.

So more complicated, meaning that the contour and the shape of emotions is different than the words on walls, meaning that there's some sort of behavioral aspect that needs to happen with it.

I was thinking about like what, 45 years of me doing projects, what is this making, keeping me going? Because I don't have to do this for a living. Right? And I like solving interesting problems. I like turning on lights for other people. And I like feeling like I did something generous that people would miss if I wasn't there. But not one of those three things is actually determinative. There are plenty of interesting problems I don't want to solve. There are plenty of people I don't want to teach. There are plenty of interactions where my generosity would make me feel worse, not better. It's much more complicated than the 3 sentences I just said. There are organizations I've worked with and in where they've asked me to go solve a problem and it has completely lit me up. And then 2 days later, there's a different problem. But the way they asked me or the people who are involved in it or the side effects of it left me completely flat. I didn't want it to work. So I don't know how to tell you, and I'm a writer. In 40 words or less what my philosophy is. I just know that there are flavors of it and it changes all the time.

It seems that your personal philosophy is to help turn the lights on to others. I mean, you said it easily and eloquently, but I want to recognize how you're setting up the challenge, which is you're saying, um, look, I, I'm a writer. I work to put ideas together. And even for somebody trained and like myself, this is really hard. And I nod my head and say, "It sure is." And then I would say, to kind of harden it just a little bit even more, is when you think about the world's greats, Mandela to Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, whomever it might be for you, that they were so clear about their philosophy and the way that they lined up their thoughts, words, and actions. And I say that with great reverence. Their thoughts and words and actions were really lined up in every room that they went to, that it was clear what Nelson Mandela's philosophy was and what he can do or she can do. I believe I can do as well, is be that clear with my philosophy. And so if you don't mind staying here for a minute, just kind of—

no, this is the juicy part.

Yeah. Yeah, right. How do you think about your philosophy and kind of what are the mechanics that you're not saying that this is it?

Like what happens when you put together the great words, you say, "No, that's not it for me." Okay, so we're gonna take a small sideline on one other word distinction that I think is really important, which is authentic. Which is authenticity. And I know that's a word you use a lot and you use it honestly and with care. And I completely disagree. I don't think people want authenticity. I think authenticity is overrated. I think that Nelson Mandela had really bad days. I think that my friend Jacqueline Novogratz, who should win a Nobel Prize, has had bad days. When you are working with a professional who is having a bad day, you don't want them to be authentic. You want them to be consistent. You want them to be the best version of themselves. Authenticity in 2024 is often used as an excuse for being a jerk. Hey, I was just being authentic, right? Well, yeah, but don't be a jerk because there's a version of you, the version of you we hired, the version of you we work with, the version of you we follow. That version of you wouldn't talk that way, wouldn't undermine this project that way. I know in this moment you are authentically feeling whatever you just did. Fine, but you're a professional. Professionals are consistent. So I would rather have a consistent surgeon than an authentic surgeon. And I am sure that Nelson Mandela argued with people, that he was short-tempered. I am sure that there were days that he took the short road instead of the long road. And but when he was doing his work, he did something very difficult. And so for me I don't need a motto and I don't need a slogan. What I need is to have deep inside of me what I believe the best version of Seth Godin in public is, the version— best version of Seth Godin in relationship is. Can I act like that right now? Could I find the effort, the emotional labor to show up as that? And I have discovered that when I do that I don't regret it. And there are people who disagree with me who say that we should live in a world where it's okay to say what you want to say and do what you want to do at all times. And I have trouble hanging out with those people.

Yeah, especially if that includes a disregard to the other person's experience of what's being said and experience. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. If you've ever hired for a small business, you know the real cost isn't just the salary, it's the time that you lose when the fit is the momentum that stalls when that fit doesn't work. And that's the pressure of having to get it right while you're still running everything else. That's why I'm paying attention to LinkedIn HiringPro. It's built for the reality of hiring when you're operating lean. You describe the role in plain language, and then HiringPro helps you draft the job post, surface the right candidates, and then narrow to a shortlist without turning hiring into another full-time job. And when applications start coming in, it doesn't leave you buried in resumes. It streamlines screening, including AI-powered interviews for initial conversations. How about that? So that you can spend less time searching and then more time connecting with the people who match what you need. With HiringPro, you can hire with confidence knowing you're getting the best talent for your business. In fact, those hiring with LinkedIn are 24% less likely to need to reopen a role within 12 months when compared to their leading competitor. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com/mastery. Again, that's linkedin.com/mastery. Terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. Travel a lot at Finding Mastery, and sometimes travel makes it tricky to eat well. Best intentions, and then you're at the airport, and then suddenly the only options around you are the ones that you'd rarely choose at home. Something I come back to often is that discipline isn't really about willpower in the moment. It's often about choice architecture, setting up your environment ahead of time so that the easy choice and the good choice are the same one. That's the role David plays for me on the road. The gold bar, it's their flagship high protein density, great texture flavors that make it easy to stick with. So when I throw a few in the bag before my trip, I've already made the decision. The hard moment later takes care of itself. And the team here at Finding Mastery, they love the bars as well. They are ripping through them in the Finding Mastery lab. Salted peanut butter and Fudge Brownie seem to be the fan favorites right now. They have built something with real rigor in a crowded, sometimes ambiguous space like nutrition. That matters when it's something that you reach for again and again. David Bars are now available in major retailers like Walmart and Target. And if you'd like to buy them directly and get a special offer for being a Finding Mastery listener, head to davidprotein.com/findingmastery, where right now if you buy 4 packs, you'll get the 5th one for free. Again, that's davidprotein.com/findingmastery. The consistency is a really cool word. And for me, consistency— there's a difference for me between a high performer and a master, or somebody who is walking the path of mastery and somebody who's walking the path of high performance. So high performers are able to be consistent on demand, even in high stress conditions. Like they can show up, get it done, scalpel, whatever it might be like, and you want to be able to bet on them. And, and there is consistency in their ability to replicate the right internal and external conditions to be able to, to quote unquote, win whatever that thing is, to, to be great at it. So, but there's a difference between that and mastery and the path of mastery. And I'm not going to supplant authenticity and mastery interchangeably, but the path of mastery has contour to it. There's some shape and a soul. I like— I love the title of your book, Song of Significance. I love that the— not only the alliteration is, is really cool, but what song elicits. Exactly. And that to me. Yeah. So a lifestyle or a life with style that has song imbued in the way that we are going to be, you know, poetic in how we're doing life. And there's the highs and the lows and da da da and all of that stuff that I say Well done in title and well done in approach to life if you can live with some song in your life. Now, mastery has that similar feel and contour. Okay. That being said, is authenticity for me— let's make sure we're saying the same thing. Authenticity, it's not saying what I feel I should say. Authenticity is the ability to declare what I— the values and virtues that are most important to me. And be consistent with those across conditions. So that— yes, we're actually saying something very similar here.

Yes. Yes.

I'm totally, totally across conditions. Yeah. And so where things break down, leadership breaks down, is if somebody says, look, I'm about compassion and kindness and that, right? And then you steal $5 from their pocket and they berate you in front of— in public and they make you feel small and stupid. That's not authenticity. That's actually some sort of shadow game that they're playing.

Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, I wonder if we are saying something similar and—

Oh, I think we're totally, we're totally aligned. I am challenging the way people might interpret what they could hear when they hear authenticity, that I think that you're highlighting something important when you talk about mastery, because again, the words matter here. Mastery sort of implies that you've learned what you need to learn and you're as good at it as one can be. You've mastered it. But in fact, Miles Davis and 5,000 other people we could mention were always learning, exploring around the edges. But those people had what you're talking about, which is the confidence to change the promise from the standard promise of a professional to one that goes beyond that, to say, I'm going to be consistently a version of this that is very hard for other people to replicate because I've paid these dues, because I care enough, because I have the domain knowledge, because I'm willing to sacrifice the short term, right? Like if I had written the sequel to This Is Marketing instead of Song of Significance, it would've sold 20 times as many copies, but I'm not willing to trade to go do that. That is something that I think you're trying to capture. In 100%.

Yeah. So selling out for something is not the way of mastery, certainly not the way of the artist.

Right.

You know, so that selling out is— I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. And I go, oh, that's cool. That's cool that you even recognize that. But I love that phrasing that you just shared about how the promise that you're making and authenticity— let's go back to that word one more time. It gets really confusing. So it was in the subtitle of one of my first audiobooks, or my first audiobook, Living and Leading Authentically. And it makes me cringe at one level. And the reason— and you say, why did you choose that word then? Because I really wanted to unpack what authenticity is. So I thought— you and I both thought a lot about this, and because it gets thrown around so easily. But authenticity is not making somebody feel bad because that's— you needed to be authentic in your expression of discontent or whatever it might be. That's not what authenticity allows. It doesn't permit for that. Authenticity requires discipline.

Right.

And with that discipline to either stay on the edge when it's uncomfortable for you, but you're still taking in other people's experience into account for it, or discipline to stay true to the first principles that matter to you.

Right. And you become the kind of person you seek to become, and then it becomes authentic to you. But it's not the way you were born.

So I'm remembering years, right?

Like, so years and years ago when I was a book packager, I did 120 books in 10 years with a team. And so I was constantly in book publishers' offices pitching one idea or another. And I remember one, there's this person and they're like, like this, they refused to make eye contact. It was just like a body language lesson in how to get as little as possible out of a meeting. And an hour later, I had a meeting with a different person who was also skeptical, but they projected this openness and this curiosity and asked provocative questions that would get the best out of me. So here were two people both doing their job. One was doing it poorly because they were being authentically skeptical in the way that they had evolved it to be because they thought they had power. And there was the other person being of service to me and to them and to the institution by using the same amount of time to create the conditions to get more out of me, right? Well, that second person would say they were being authentic too. Well, somewhere years before, there was a fork in the road between these two people, and one person said, how am I going to spend this meeting to soothe my boredom? And one person said, how am I going to spend this meeting to be of service?

And you had hinted on that earlier when you said the best version of me. Is to do that internal work to understand what is the best version of me. And I didn't think we'd spend this long on authenticity. Sorry, but I think it's— I think it's really good. No, I think it's really good because I want to— I do want to understand how you get to that felt sense and how you articulate that best version. But let's pause here for a moment and say the best version of me is speaking truth to power. And I'm sorry it came out edgy. The other best version of me could be, you know, I just let it go. It was— I just need to be a little bit more kind of accepting of what other people are doing, and I just needed to let it go. In the same circumstance, somebody trips and spills coffee all over your brand new dress or whatever it is, right? And one part of me says, hey, be more careful now. This is dangerous, and you just ruined a shirt. So I'm speaking truth to power, if you will, if that person's a supervisor. And then the other is, in this weird example, is like, it's okay, no big deal. The point is you have to really be aligned to it. That's where I go. It was authentic.

If you, if you say it's okay, where did the alignment come from? Because in both cases, I think what we're asking is how long is the timeframe? You speak truth to power. In the moment because it lets you feel good, or you speak truth to power over time and you're changing the system in a way that you're proud of. Because the person who's doing it in the short run doesn't cause the change to happen. Whereas—

That's exactly— I love what you just did.

Yeah.

I love, I love what you just did. That's your, okay, so that's how you're thinking about consistency. Consistency in that way. Right. I love that. Not consistency in the high performer way that I was really thinking about it earlier. That's really cool, Seth. I like that a lot. Okay. And then the other piece on the way that you know your best self, I think I heard you say my best self in a relationship, and maybe I'll add it like the best self of me in work. And, and I don't— I can't remember the exact example there, but that idea that I'm different across different conditions, it made my eyebrows go up like, wait, what does that mean? You know, I want to be the best version of myself independent of the external conditions. I want to bring myself, the best of me, forward consistently. And so how do you, how do you help me understand that piece?

Okay, so there are two ways that I can help you unpack it. I'm one of the world's best style canoeists. I learned from Chuck, who learned from Omer. Omer invented the sport in 1924. If I am in a cedar strip canoe in Algonquin Park, Canada, doing my fancy Dan canoeing, I am not speaking on stage the way Seth Godin speaks on stage. I'm in a totally different context. And I am not Seth Godin the author in that canoe. I'm Seth Godin the paddler or the canoeing instructor in that canoe. That's a different context. If my wife and I are having a conversation about something, I should not be talking to her the way I would talk to Fred Wilson when he was on the board of my company. It's a totally different context. So what is the best version of you as a dad? It's almost certainly not the best version of you as a canoeist. Why would they be at all related? Mm.

Because virtues and values are consistent across conditions. However, skills and capabilities for success in each one are, are unique.

Could be, but what if I play poker? If I play poker, I better be good at lying because in that context, that's how you win.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, maybe poker and other forms of deception are super tricky, you know? So, or surgery.

Or surgery. Like if I'm a, if I'm a surgeon and a 4-year-old dies on the table and I feel it the same way a neighbor's kid dies at 4, I can't be a surgeon for very long. That what they teach you in medical school is to find some professional distance, because when you're doing surgery, you cannot be present with that 4-year-old the same way you would with the kid down the street, or you will not be able to do surgery ever again.

I mean, at least that's how 200 years of surgery has, you know, um, taught us. That they're being like— and listen, my surgeon friends are going to like give me a ton of shit right now, but orthopedic surgeons are still using hammers and nails and screws and, you know, like, so I mean, there's— I think there's room to grow is my point. Oh, sure. A neurosurgeon, dear friend of mine, he's a healer and a surgeon. And so I'm not saying he's the model for—

No, I'm not. Just to be clear, and again, I don't need to have the last word every time, but he's not in tears every time because you just can't bring that personal trauma to the front line if you're a trauma worker. It's just, you can't be a professional.

Yeah, yeah, because the, the, the requirements of that environment, to your point, necessitate of I wouldn't say a different version. I think we're going to have semantics here on this one. I require different capabilities for you to be able to meet that moment. Watch this in an authentic way.

Okay, great.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah. Okay. So, so the point, I think the point here, Seth, for both of us is like, who are you and how do you want to show up in this world? And if we can get any movement towards that as a consistent practice for people, it'd be pretty damn cool. Those are the people I want to be around.

Yeah. This is at the heart of your contribution, and you've made a big difference for a lot of people. And I just reconstructed because I don't know why, maybe a course I took when I was 20, I'm not sure. I reconstructed as, what is the change you seek to make? This interaction, the reason you showed up today, what is the change you seek to make? It might be something as simple as, I would like my manager at McDonald's to not fire me and make sure I get paid. That is the only change I'm trying to make, to change my manager from someone who's gonna fire me to someone who isn't. But at a very big level, Nelson Mandela had a much bigger change in mind. And if we can be in service of the change we seek to make, the coherent response is to be authentically consistent or consistently authentic, because that is the single best way to make the change we seek to make. And for me, that is where meaning lies, is to be a meaningful specific, to show up with a reputation that gives us the benefit of the doubt, that gives us leverage so that we can cause whatever change we're seeking to have happen. And there are plenty of people where that change is, let's make the stock price go up. And there are other people who say, I wanna make someone who's lonely feel a little bit less lonely right now.

You know what I love about that framing that you're doing is it puts the person asking the question in the driver's seat of not necessarily the change happening, but the actions that are aligned For, so now you're actually in that simple little framing instilling agency and efficacy and, you know, that kind of internal volition to make a difference in the external world. And so, like, I love that framing. That is so well-grounded in good research. Was that cleverness by you or was that, do you go and search, you know, and research, I'm sorry, like Bandura's theory on efficacy and self-determination theory, You know, like, how do you go to come up with that very powerful framing?

I believe where it started for me was my first year as an independent. I got 800 rejections in a row. So my first book—

does that mean an independent writer?

Yeah. Well, I wasn't a writer. I was a book packager. So I, my name isn't on the COVID of many of the books that I did, but I caused them to occur like a movie producer does for movies. Chip Conley. Chip Conley and I did our first book together in 1986. I sold it for $5,000, and then I got 800 rejection letters in a row. And what I was doing in the books I was pitching publishers is I was saying, this is a book I would like to read, this is a book I would like to make, this is a book that shows that I am particularly clever and insightful. And I met this guy John Boswell, and Boswell shifted completely my thinking in one afternoon. And he said, look, no one wants to buy a book that you want to write. They want to buy a book they want to publish. And I was like, oh yeah, that's right. And so the shift was, how do I produce a book that matches what a book publisher and a reader want, not what I want? And if I can embrace that and realize that my best version of me as a book packager is I make books that I am proud of, that other people want to publish and that other people want to read. Suddenly it became profitable, but it also became useful because I wasn't demanding that the world give me a standing ovation. What I was saying is, how could I be of service here?

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I love that.

And it's a little bit like you're getting your cake and eating it too. As an artist, somebody might be— how would this be on a commissioned piece? Like you're lining up the commission, the person who's paying for the piece and the things that you want to create, right? And so you're lining those two worlds up as opposed to the You know, the rogue artist that is only creating what they want and damn to those who don't find it interesting. And I'm going to eat out of my, you know, I don't know, chicken soup and tuna can for the rest of my life. Yeah.

Right. So Herbie Hancock's autobiography is fantastic. And if you look at Herbie's career, Herbie did not chase electronic music when it was popular. He did not chase the thing that led to Rocket. He pioneered those things. He has in 4 different categories just triumphed, always surrounded by some people who said he was crazy, who said, "You should just do more of what you did yesterday." So he's leading. He's not asking people for directions. He's saying, "I'm going over there. Who wants to come?" But he had enough empathy to say, "If no one wants to come, I'm feeding the wrong voice in my head." Let's listen to a different place I might want to go that other people actually might want to come to.

That's really cool. That, that there's so much power in that. And that seems to kind of not square with how I think about the true innovators that I know is that they're nearly obsessed with the way that they're seeing a future state or a future product or something. And it feels like they're constantly trying that out. Most of them don't work in a, in a solitary environment. They're trying it out and iterating quickly based on the way it comes out of their mouth or the way it feels as it comes out of their mouth. If it's like creating a future state versus a product necessarily. And, and to me it feels like those innovators are committed to something Adjusting as they go, but not saying, if no one's listening, maybe I should pivot. Is—

or did I hear that? So many juicy ways to decode this. Okay, so here's, here's the first one. Vincent van Gogh was not born to paint in oil paint. If he had been born 200 years earlier or later, he would've done something totally different. What he did was he saw things around him in France in the 1800s. And then came to what felt like a natural conclusion that this is what he was born to do. That Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are almost exactly the same age. Not a coincidence because they came of age when those wordless emotions they had inside of them were best expressed by hitching themselves up to the fast-moving wagon train of Moore's Law and what computers could do. So then Steve gets, you know, quote, obsessed with pushing something, pushing something in a different direction. But it's not, think about it, nowhere. It came out of the world he was being marinated in. So that's the first part. The second part is there are tons of people who are innovators, who are in love with a version of the future, and you've never heard of them, and neither have I, because they're just wrong. And The ones that you and I bump into were right enough that we noticed them. And so it's easy to imagine that the symptom of being an innovator is to be sure of yourself. But in fact, no. Most innovators who assure themselves, we've never heard of. It's just sometimes there's someone who assure themselves and their innate perception of the world happened to line up and someone was ready for what they had to say. So like, I invented email marketing. I built some of the first online games. Those things didn't come out of nowhere. I, there was stuff around me that made me feel like I could survive the critics and the people who said I was crazy because I was context aware enough to know that there were some threads there that I had a decent shot at weaving together. But there was also stuff I invented that was wrong. And if I was still sticking with it, you and I wouldn't be talking right now. Yeah. That's—

so how— so this is— is this why you wrote the book The Dip? To help people understand how to get out of it? Yes.

So The Dip was the first book about quitting, and which is astonishing because we all quit and we don't talk about it. We don't think about it. But the fact is, unless you're wearing a tutu or still playing ice hockey at the age of 40, You quit things your whole life, and we need to get better at it, and we need to be clear about the difference between quitting a dead end and quitting in the dip. And the dip is that moment when it feels so hard and so unlikely that you should quit, because that's when everyone quits. And sticking through that dip is how we get to the other side. Organic chemistry is one of the biggest dips. Every doctor has to take it. They don't use organic chemistry when they become doctors, but they have to take it because it's a filter, it's a dip. And if you can't make it through this, you're probably not going to be able to make it through your residency either.

Yeah, SEALs training, um, in the old gymnastics program, just to make it easy to understand, it was like level 7 or 8 when they had to do a double back on the, on the beam for for female gymnasts, it was like, that was the place that you see the exodus.

Yeah.

Right. So, and this is— I was always— I gave your book out a lot when I was working, like, with a high volume one-on-one with athletes at that phase in my life. And I gave it out a lot and I was always very nervous to give it to folks, but I thought they needed—

Yeah.

The ones I gave it to, they needed a way to discern the mechanisms that sit underneath stopping, quitting, as opposed to helping them recommit to going forward. Exactly. And it's not— your book does not say you ought to quit. Basically, it's saying, understand the difference between stopping and quitting. And yeah, I think—

Yeah. And I think Pete talked about that a little bit with you.

Coach Carroll.

Yeah. And I think that his retiring, or however his exit is occurring, that's what grown-ups do, right? You're not going to be 80 years old and playing or coaching in a major sports league. So there's a day between now and then when you're going to quit. Why don't you do it on purpose? Why don't you do it with your eyes open? Why don't you do it so that you can re-enroll on the days you don't quit, knowing that you are going to quit one day, but it's not today.

Yeah, right. And that reaffirms that it's not today. I ought to give this the right attention.

Exactly.

You know, to detail and to love or whatever it might be. Right. Because I am now making a choice.

Yes.

And again, back to the word agency, like I choose how I'm going to experience life, even, even if the external conditions are not what I hope them to be, I'm still going to choose the way I do it. Which is a radical way to go through life. You know, so we had Chip Conley on, which I know that you've mentioned and you've got a long history with him. And we titled his podcast Overcoming Limiting Beliefs. And here we are talking about, you know, the human condition. So you've been thinking about this stuff for a long time, influencing Chip or Chip influencing you, and probably both directional ways. But I'm— there's this conversation that's brewing right underneath the surface for me. At least, which is about something I've been really interested in on limiting beliefs, which is the— this overindex on paying attention to what other people think about me. Yeah. And when I'm very sloppy with my life and I don't know who I am and how I feel and I'm not quite sure, and I'm more interested in looking good and performing well to be part of the tribe or the community, I outsource my sense of being okay to other people. And we had fun, we named it FOPO, fear of people's opinions being one of the great constrictors of potential. All that being said is, how do you think about that modern-day experience where we're constantly looking outside of ourselves to see and gauge if we're okay? How do you speak to that phenomenon?

Yeah, no, I saw your riff about it and I think it's really important.

Oh, thank you.

I gave 1,000 speeches around the world when I was flying. I never—

Oh, you're not flying?

Haven't been on a plane for 2 and a half years because of the climate.

Because— oh, wait, hold on, hold on. I want to get to the Fopo bit, but I think I read this and I clocked it, but you're not flying because of your commitment to the environmental conditions of the climate. Is that—

Yeah, it makes me feel like accountable. Also, I believe that I have just enough leverage that if I say, can I do a virtual talk instead, some places will say yes. And if more places do virtual talks, then the number of people who aren't flying goes down even more. And eventually we're going to have to change the culture somehow. And that's a little tiny piece of it. The other part is after getting sick during COVID and stuff, I'm like, life's too short for me to go race it. Around on airplanes. The technology exists for me to be talking to Michael right here, right now, better than we might be talking in person. Let's just do— let's commit. So I never liked doing talks with simultaneous translation because everyone in the audience hears what you had to say about 6 seconds later. So the feedback is weird. And number 2, I really don't like talking in convention centers because the acoustics are terrible. So I'm giving this talk in Mexico City in a convention center. Double whammy. And in the third row, there's a woman talking on her cell phone. Now, she's not listening on her cell phone while I'm talking. She's talking on her cell phone while I'm talking. And oh my God, I'm on stage and I decide that this means I am failing. So I aim all of my energy and I'm I don't have a memorized talk. So I'm actually talking to her about distraction and digital devices. I mean, looking right at her. And after about, felt like 10 minutes, it was probably 90 seconds, I realized there are 3,000 people in that room who came to hear me. And there's one person in that room who didn't. Why am I sacrificing my contribution to 2,900 people 199 people. And so in my mind, she disappeared. She just vanished from the room, and I could go back to being judged by the people I want to be judged. That is the key word. So like, when you tell a certain kind of friend that you have a new idea or that you're thinking of getting a new job or whatever, they will try to talk you out of it. They will try to talk you out of it because they care about you They will do things that feel like they are judging you in the way they roll their eyes or whatever, because they are afraid for you. And part of the reason they're afraid for you is they're afraid for themselves because they don't want to look into the void. Don't ask those people for advice. Don't tell those people about your new idea. But that does not mean you should ignore everyone because that ends up with trolls and narcissists. What we need to do is figure out who are those small group of people that when we are judged by them, they make us a better version of ourselves. Finding those people, treasuring those people, honoring those people, that is hard work that's worth doing.

I offer this to you and see if you've got a different lever that, that there's a round table that I have 8 chairs on it and it's a sacred seat in my life and there's 2 criteria to make it you know, onto this table. One is you've demonstrated time under tension with me. You understand my scars, my ambitions, my hopes, my dreams. And so when you have an opinion, it's in context. And so there's a caring that has, has endured, you know, over tension and time that I go, yeah, we have care in place. So that's one criteria. But the second criteria is that that person needs to be— have done something, you know, like, like, like really been in the arena and gone for it in their life, because I value that information from the frontier in that way. And so that means they're— it doesn't mean that they're world-known, it just means they've really made changes in their life and gone for it to be about those changes. And so those are my criteria. What if you were to quickly think about criteria For you, for those folks, what are though? What are they?

Well, I hack the problem a different way. Um, there are two hats. Uh, there are some people who I want to wear a reassurance hat, that the only reason I'm telling you something is that you should tell me that it's a thing that's worth doing, and that if anyone can do it, it's me. Reassure me. And there's a second hat. If you only have people with the first hat, you're, you know, a comedian who's surrounded himself with 7 Yes Men who makes bad movies, right? You have to have a second hat people. The second hat people have insight. Second hat people are going to ask you hard questions. The second hat people are going to say, yeah, but what's the hard part? And what are you going to do after that? What are you going to do after that? So it's very hard to find someone who's going to wear both hats.

Cool.

And I am comfortable in the list of people I have on both teams. And As I've moved through my career, I don't call the people on the first team too often because if they reassure me too much, I'm going to do something scarier than I'm ready for. But I love talking to people on the second team because that's an interesting problem worth solving. And I do the same for them, which is, let's dissect this, let's think about this, and you can talk to the reassurance people later. I'm not here to reassure you. And I have many colleagues and friends who know that I am not the reassurance person. They don't come to me for reassurance because I think reassurance is mostly futile. It runs out too fast, and I don't want to be on the hook for telling them it was a great idea when I didn't think it was.

Insight and discernment, those two, it's a really important skill. And I love that you, whether you explicitly know or intuitively know— I bet most of us intuitively know who to go to to get a, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." You know? And who to go to if they're like, "Well, hold on. You want to talk about this for real?" Yeah. And then so if you, if the reflex is to go to the first and not the second, we probably have problems. But the second versus the first is really cool. Thank you for the clarity there. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Magic Mind. Something that I come back to often is the power of principled mornings. The performers who sustain excellence over over decades, not just for a season, they almost all have one, a set of behaviors that they do not negotiate away because they understand that how you enter the day shapes how you move through it. For a long time, my mornings have been disciplined, but a little incomplete. I do all the practices for stillness and movement, but when I sat down for the first real hours of cognitive work, there was a ceiling that I kept noticing, clarity that faded faster than I wanted to. And I told myself it was normal. Magic Mind is part of my mid-morning routine as a way to work with that. It's a daily 2-ounce mental performance shot with clinically backed ingredients like lion's mane, ashwagandha, turmeric. 2 seconds every morning. It's awesome. And I notice when I skip it, sharper thinking, steadier focus, better energy through the back half of my day. I'm not wired, I'm just more consistently on. The formula is based over 10 years of research, nanoencapsulated for 5 times better absorption than traditional pills and powders. Go to magicmind.com to get 50% off your first order. Small routines done consistently are where excellence tends to live. This one might be worth adding. Finding Mastery is brought to you by our flagship mindset training course, Finding Your Best. Anytime you feel the pull to reset, to zoom out, to refocus and ask, am I moving toward the person I want to become? It helps to remember this: lasting change comes from training. Not resolutions, not short-term sprints, but deliberate practice of the skills that shape how we show up in work, in relationships, and in the moments of great intensity as well. That's what Finding Your Best is all about. It's a science-backed framework for training your mind. It's the same set of tools that we've taught to Olympic athletes, top executives, elite military teams, and artists at the peak of their craft. In this course, you'll learn the foundational psychological skills to be your very best, full stop. And the best part is you can start anytime. Right now we're running a limited time offer on Finding Your Best. Simply head to findingmastery.com/course and use the code RENEW100 to get $100 off your registration. If you've been waiting for the right moment, this is a good one now to lean into. Spring and summer, they are powerful seasons of momentum. It's a great natural time to step into growth, to refocus, to recommit to who you want to to become. And this discount will not be around for long. So go to findingmastery.com/course, code RENEW100 for $100 off today, because your future is not shaped by what you intend, it's shaped by what you train. And then do you have a personal experience with FOPO, fear of people's opinions, and it being a constrictor in your life in some way? 1,000+ stages.

Almost every day.

Oh my goodness, really, Seth?

Yeah, I mean, I, I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD, and, um, I would often say something that might be right or smart that was inappropriate and was not. I was the nerdy kid, not the popular kid. And when that is your high school experience, you wear that scar for a really, really long time, maybe forever. And so I feel it and then I do the thing anyway, right? I realize that I'm gonna stand up and give a TED Talk. I've been lucky enough to do it 5 times and some people in the audience aren't gonna get it. And I have to work hard to pretend I'm ignoring the people who don't get it. That's okay. They're there. They don't get it. If everyone got it, I didn't give a good enough talk. I wasn't far enough ahead of cycle, but I had to stop going to TED in person because I just didn't like the way it made me feel when someone whose work I respected turned their back on me and walked away because I was being judged in a way that wasn't helpful.

Wow.

That honesty is— I can't tell you how reassuring it is for folks to go, oh, even Seth Seth has it? Like, I've seen his TED Talks, by the way. You've crushed them. You know, I don't know if I just found myself in hat one or table one with you, but like, so like, I think it's really an amazing gift. You just gave a whole new community of people, the Finding Mastery community, like, oh yeah, Seth has it too, you know? And so obviously I talk about it in my book that that's— it's something I struggled with as well. And so How do you, how do you work it? Of course, you cannot go back to TED, but when you're on stage, like the way that I work it is that I have to be my tuning fork for choosing the shape and contour and feel of the right words. I don't shape my talks either. I've got like a couple of slides and then a couple of words to each slide, and that's kind of— I leave the rest up to risk, which is fun, you know. But how do you, how do you do it? If you're managing like, uh-oh, that person, I really need to get their approval, or I really hope they like what I'm saying. Oh shit, they're walking. Are they walking out? No, they can't be walking out. Oh, they must be going to the bathroom. They'll be right back.

Okay, so there are two stacks to my answer. The biggest stack is this: pick your customers, pick your future. If you pick customers in any sense of the word customer, if you pick customers that have the power to make you unhappy and do, you have made a bad choice. So, you know, I could imagine being a veterinarian who worked on small and friendly dogs, but I could not imagine being a veterinarian who worked on big, angry dogs, because if I was spending my day with big, angry dogs, my day wouldn't be that good. So we all get to pick our projects. We get to pick our bosses. We get to pick our careers. We get to pick our relationships. Don't pick someone who can stop an important project dead. Find a different place to bring these ideas that's more resilient, right? So when you pick your audience, you pick your future. And then the second thing I did as a speaker is I had the same first section, 40 seconds long, of my talk for a long time, and almost all of it was in the slide. Not in me. And I structured it that way on purpose because I could see the reaction of the room. If the room didn't like it, that wasn't my performance of the day because I had exactly the same thing I could test over and over and over again. So now I could grade the audience on a curve. So if I'm in— I did a talk to 3,000 Goodyear Tire and Rubber car maintenance franchisees And they had been up till 3 o'clock in the morning drinking the night before. I know because I didn't get to sleep that night because they were making so much noise in the hall. And so I'm the— I thought I wasn't with them.

I was not with them.

Okay, so it's 8:30 in the morning, I'm the first talk, there's people in the room but they're not really in the room. And I do my open and it burns, it just dies. And I'm like, I'm not going to talk faster. I'm not going to put more energy into this. I'm not going to try to get something out of these people. They've announced where they are on the curve. I will be here for them. I will do a job I am proud of, but I will not judge myself by the way they are judging me because they are not the people they would have been if they had risen to the occasion. That doesn't mean I dislike them. It just means I'm being clear with myself. The same way, if you're, if you're a stand-up comic, And everyone in the audience only speaks Italian. Don't beat yourself up for bombing. They only speak Italian. So figuring out how to put people on a curve so that you're not amplifying imaginary criticism helps you figure out what needs to happen and what doesn't need to happen next. This usually happens to most people in a negotiation. Because if you are negotiating with someone and they're good at it, they are making you feel like the price is way too high and you are morally wrong. They're doing that in simple ways, like not speaking. Well, understanding what's the meta of what's going on is what a professional does. What an amateur does is just keeps lowering their price to make the other person happy.

You just dropped so many gems in like a 90-second I'm not going to judge myself the way they're judging me might be the quote, might be just the quote of the day. Maybe, you know, certainly in January for the podcast series. Like, that is great, Seth. And but the clarity that you have and the conviction that you have to not do that probably does set you up to be more consistent or consistently authentic. Or is it authentically consistent? You know, like, like that, that discernment there that, whoa, I'm gonna give them a test. I've got lots of base. It's a reference test. You know, your first 90 seconds. Is it a slide, a video slide or something that you—

it was, it was a, um, it was a joke, but the punchline was on the slide, not from my, from me.

And if they go, ha ha ha, you go, oh, I get it. Because this thing has killed in most— Killed?

Yeah.

It sounds like a— not the language I want to use. This thing has done really well in most rooms. So I know that this is more about them and not me.

Yeah.

Oh, that is really good. You might not know this, but in football— so I spent 9 seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, as you referenced, Pete Carroll. And one of the things that we would do is the team would spend a lot of time figuring out what the right plays are. And there's two ways that you— the right plays for the game. And you, you think about them, then you practice them, you know, on Wednesday and Thursday and you go, well, those didn't work and those did work. And, oh, maybe we try a couple different ones for Friday and Saturday to see how they work. And then you script the first 15, or that's what we did at least. And then there was this thing which was GTS, go to school. And you're— the world doesn't know it, but you're— if you get 3 yards on the play, that's great on a GTS, a go to school. You're seeing how they lined up, you're seeing how they played this look. And football, as many people understand, is like a game of deception. So you're testing the defense, you're gathering information, you're seeing, you know, how they're playing and responding. And that whole thing, that whole thing sounds like what you're doing in the first 90 seconds is to gather reference points about how they, they are going to show up. So I say that because it was, I've never talked about it out loud publicly.

Yeah. No, I think that, and it's fine. That you, you and Coach Carroll were doing something where the game theory was much more pronounced cuz you are actually seeking vulnerabilities, et cetera. What I was doing was telling myself a story, and I needed to tell myself a story to do my work.

Yeah.

So that's the different part, right? The GTS was about like game theory to your point. And what you're saying is like, it's a way for me to tell a story. You probably don't need that rubric anymore, but it's, you know, because you don't need to say to yourself based on how they respond that I'm okay. You could probably do away with the rubric, but it's still a good reference point to see how they're showing up.

Yeah. And to figure out which people are there for the journey you want to go on, because you can give a talk or make a pitch to a company or whatever it is with a different sort of momentum and energy based on where people are willing to go. So a, a, a quick aside, back when we were inventing email marketing, We could get a meeting with any marketer in the world, in New York anyway, because it was new media. It was 1996. And you say, "We're on the web, will you meet with us?" And they had a guy whose only job was to meet with you. So we're at one of these meetings, David Simon, my head of sales, and I, and for the first 7 minutes, everything we said, not assertions, but truths about things that had worked in the past, was met with just straight-up skepticism, just a huge amount of pushback. Not the objection of somebody who was eager to be persuaded, but just intransigence. And we had an hour meeting, and at 7:07, and I hadn't talked this over with Dave Erickson first, so I hoped he would follow my lead, I closed my laptop, I put it in my briefcase, I shut my briefcase, and I said, we don't want to waste any more of your time. Thank you for having us. And the two of us stood up and we made it one step over the threshold and they ran after us and said, no, no, no, come back, we're sorry. And the rest of the meeting went great because what I did was instead of constantly pushing against them, I said, if you're not enrolled in the journey, don't come. And it's an exchange of status roles. It was an understanding of professionals talking to one another. If you're not in, that's fine, we'll go, but we don't need to play this particular game. I would never have done that at a meeting where the other side was cheering me on to go ever further and faster because they were already enrolled. So figuring out the level of emotional enrollment you have in the room, that's part of why you're such a great podcaster, because I feel comfortable talking to you about these ideas, whereas somebody who's just got a list of questions they're not really involved.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you do that? How did you get me engaged? Like, how did you— talked about the meta-awareness earlier, which I want to come back to, which is the, the game of all games, if there's such a thing, a game of life, you know, which I'm not sure it is a game, but like this meta that you can see how it goes, you're watching how it's happening. And as a, as a trained psychologist, like, it is the best part of the experience is like, oh, I see me, I see this person, I see the space between us, I get the context and I'm in myself and I'm also observing like it is the best part. And I try to do that in all of my relationships the best I can. But how did you do that here between us?

Well, I listened to enough of your stuff to understand that you're here not to gratify your ego and just get people to buy your course, but that you're actually truly interested in the work. And the first two things we talked about were things I disagreed with you about. And did you do that?

Wait, did you do that on purpose?

Yeah.

Yeah. Come on, man. That's great. And then what were you testing?

Well, I was disagreeing with you because I've been on 500 podcasts. I don't need to do any more podcasts. So what's going to make this worthwhile for me? I'm not going to show up and say, "I agree with this person on everything, blah, blah, blah. Please buy my book." I'm not here to promote my book. I'm here to have a good conversation with someone I had never met before. Well, you gave enough signals that what makes it something, an interesting conversation for you, is when there's points of agreement and disagreement. And if I had just shown up and said, "Oh, everything you do is really cool. What do you want to talk about?" I don't know where we would have gone from there.

Yeah, I love that because there was— that was a moment. This is a public forum, of course, but it feels intimate because it's just the two of us. And that's a moment where I could have gone— swallowed all of it, like, ah, shit, the expert on this is saying that, okay. Or like— and you saw both of us, I think both of us tested, like, are we okay? Are we, are we okay to keep doing this? Which was cool. I really appreciated that. About yourself. So thank you for that. And then the second part of the question, which is about the meta piece, is like, how do you enhance your ability to observe without attachment? To observe and see and feel what's happening without being sucked into the first-person drama of the experience?

All right, well, so let's talk about attachment. I wrote about it in The Practice. It's a Buddhist term, but a lot of people have trouble with it. In the West. So here's the way I describe it. If you and I are going to swim across Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park and we don't have proper safety equipment, one reasonably safe thing for us to do is to stay about 8 feet apart from each other and be aware of each other. The other way we could do it is we could actually take 4 ropes and tie them hand to hand and leg to leg and be attached to each other. And if we did that, one of us would drown, or maybe both of us would. That attachment is being emotionally connected to the output, the outcome, even though we don't have control over the outcome. And so I'll write a blog post, and I wrote the blog post. I don't get to rewrite the blog post. It's in the world. I need it to be the best blog post I could make, but I'm not attached to the outcome. If it didn't resonate with you, my day will go on. I will learn something about how to do a better podcast, a better blog post tomorrow, but I'm not attached to that outcome. And what has happened in traditional corporate culture is we've pushed people to become attached to the outcome. We think that if you win the lottery, you have some sort of skill, and if you lose the lottery, you did something wrong. The outcome of the lottery is totally different than the lottery. Your mistake you made was buying the ticket in the first place, but whether or not you won is irrelevant. Right? Winning the lottery, you still did a stupid thing. You bought a lottery ticket. So the thing that I am trying to do when I'm doing my work is say, this probably won't work, but it might be worth trying. And if it doesn't work, would the journey have been a good decision anyway? That's different than saying this is only a good decision if it works, because that's not the case.

Mm. So we're talking about the work, right?

Is—

and I think what I hear you talking about is like making the decision to not attach to the outcome, but to make the decision because you believe with the best available information that you have and the ability to have some insight and discern and maybe even calibrate that amongst other people, like like, you know, what do you think? You know, the 8, in my case, the 8 people on the table to be able to move forward with a decision. But what I'm trying to understand is how do you get the meta-awareness of what's happening in a present moment? And you went to attachment, which I'm down with.

Right.

And what I hear you saying is like, just if you practice non-attachment, If you practice letting go of the article that you wrote, once it's in the wild, it's a reflection of your ideas at that time, and it might not be for anybody, or it might be, you know, catch on fire. Like, if you practice non-attachment, you will be more available and more free to be able to have a meta-awareness. Is that right? Is that—

well, I think that, that, that, yes, that gets us to there. And then the second half is, what do almost all people have in common.

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And I would argue, once our basic needs for food and shelter and healthcare are met, what we have in common is we either seek status or affiliation. Affiliation is dignity, is being part of something, is being respected. Status is who's up and who's down. Is my leader beating your leader? Did my team beat your team? Why on earth do people wear $150 professional sporting jerseys to hockey games? They're not playing, right? It's status and affiliation. So if you are at a circle of people and the the dinner check comes, the person who grabs for it might be looking for status. The person who grabs for it might just be nervous about affiliation and remembers that they didn't pay last time. When you see two people who are bickering about something, they're almost certainly not bickering around the thing they're bickering about. They're bickering about status or affiliation. Where is the fear? Where are the dreams? What— who has been stripped of dignity and who needs more respect? And if we can find those where we started this conversation, those colors, those flashing lights, then we have a chance to help someone adjust. So one of the people, when I first became a teacher in 1977, this young woman, she was 12, was 6 inches taller than all of her friends. And if you disagreed with her about something, she would punch you in the face hard. That was her method. And the two of us got in a canoe and I taught her a few things, some of which had to do with paddling a canoe, but most of which had to do with focusing energy on a different kind of control. Now I have words for it, which is I helped her reconfigure status and affiliation in her head. I helped her get to where the fear was. And she never punched anybody ever again. And that's not because I'm some sort of gifted psychologist, it's because I was in the right place at the right time and I saw the thing to show her a different path down the road. Most people, it's baked in so deeply by parenting, by caste, by indoctrination, and by chemistry that you're not going to fix it in one canoe lesson. But it's still what's informing the meta of what's going on. What I definitely know is nobody knows anything. You know, like in my industry, this book, which saved my career, I had no publisher when this book came out. That's why it's in a milk carton, cuz I published it myself. And the person who's been my publisher ever since turned it down cuz he said, you're washed up. I don't get it. And after the book sold a quarter of a million or whatever it was, he changed his mind. And folks, it was—

for folks that are— for folks that are on audio, oh, sorry, reference the title, please.

Yeah, yeah, it was— it's a book called Purple Cow. Um, you know, the, the fact is Adrian's not an idiot. He's way smarter than me. But in that moment, based on what was happening for him around him, the crazy bald guy who had yet another crazy book, this one named after a cow, It was too much, too soon. No, not interested. And then the world changed, but it wasn't about me and it wasn't about my book. It was about status and affiliation and opportunity and fear and connection and all of the other things. And discerning the difference between someone who actually realizes it's a bad idea and someone who is having their own thing going on in their head That's an art form. That's not easy to do.

Okay. A bad idea versus somebody that's got something going on in their head, meaning that when you really calibrate, when you truly calibrate, you can discern if that's their stuff versus your stuff.

Right. And if 10 people in a row who you, who have good taste, if 10 people in a row say, I don't think that's a good idea, you have to make a new decision. Right? So J.K. Rowling stuck it out longer than 10. But 10 really good publishers turned down Harry Potter. But if she was never going to make it to 40 because there weren't 40 good publishers, she got lucky toward the end and it was lucky. But most of the time, for most of us, our work doesn't need to get past person number 10. If 10 people in a row that you respect, that have insight, who are all coming from different places of status and affiliation, look at a thing and say, based on my professional insight, this isn't going to work. You might want to try something else.

I love this conversation. I love how you've organized, like co-created or created your life. I really have respect and regard for that. Seth, what do you really, really, like really, really, really want?

I want people to realize what a miracle this moment in time is and to stop squabbling, to stop squabbling with each other and to stop squabbling with themselves. I want them to fix problems before they become too big to fix, and I want us to stop being toddlers and start being grown-ups.

If we're in person and want to kind of give you a big hug and say, damn, that's good.

Yeah.

And where does that come from for you? That, that to me is what The Song of Significance is about. Your newest book, right? What— where does that come from? But I just— I'm sure you just felt it. I felt it in this conversation, the way that you just contoured your language and the way that you emoted that. Where is this coming from that it's so important to you?

My parents. I miss them every day. It's what they would want me to talk about.

That's so beautiful. I feel that in a way that, of course, you just elicited my relationship with my parents. Thank you for that. How long have they passed? How long ago did they pass?

My mom was probably 20-something years ago. My dad was more recent than that. They were extraordinary human beings. They taught me through example. I grew up in Buffalo, New York, which is not a very big place, and we regularly had strangers at the Thanksgiving table. My dad sponsored dozens of refugees. He helped run United Way as a volunteer. My mom ran part of the art museum. It was just— I thought that was normal. I thought it was normal to be in community.

That's really cool.

One thing that Mom taught you was about giving people the benefit of the doubt, and it started by teaching me to give other people the benefit of the doubt. And then inevitably I started giving myself the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, geez. That bit of kindness that you're advocating for is needed. It sounds like Tier 0 for Mom was like, let's just kind of do it this way, and it came full circle to you. How about for Dad? Um, the one thing—

my dad was an engineer and an entrepreneur, and he loved solving interesting problems. Dave Erickson. He was my hockey coach. And he saw that the other teams— we were 10 years old— the other teams had one puck for 18 kids. And he saw how cheap pucks were. So he just went out and bought 20 pucks. But then he discovered that carrying 20 pucks is awkward. You got to put them in a bag and everything else. So he got out a drill and he drilled a hole through the center of each puck and then just got one big shoelace. And he had an easy way to carry pucks. 20 bucks. My dad was solving problems giant and small on a regular basis, also absorbing my mom's lesson of, like, he was on the board of the Black Baptist Church in Buffalo just because someone he worked with asked him to do it.

Yeah, look at that. Look at both your parents, pretty radical. Yeah, I see why you're feeling what you're feeling, and I don't know if you want to I'm going to ask you a question. I don't know if we keep this in the podcast or not, if it's too sensitive, but like, how were you as a son? Obviously you performed and you're world-renowned and, and, and you've got all of that. I'm wondering if— I'm wondering why you've gone to those lengths to be so extraordinary in anything. And then I'm also wondering how that squares with how you, how you were as a son with them.

I don't think there's much I want to do over about the relationship I had with my parents, and I'm super lucky in that respect.

Wow.

And there was enough communication and enough clarity around that. We all make mistakes. I've made plenty, and being a teenager is always really hard. I don't think it's useful or particularly accurate to say that I've achieved an extraordinary I started on the 99.5-yard line and the world lined up for someone with my skills. It lined up with, for someone with my attention span. And I don't, you know, I look back at 9,000 blog posts and all the books and everything else. So yeah, that was pretty cool, but it took me a long time to do those things too. And yeah, doors were open for me that weren't open for enough people. And there are all these things, not only that I did that I would probably do better if I did them again, but there's so many things that I didn't do. So many people I didn't notice or see or help. So many doors I didn't open for other people. And so I'm not ready to pat myself on the back anytime soon.

So refreshing to hear that answer, you know. Born on third base, think you hit a triple. That, that idea, you know, that's really refreshing to hear. And, and the fact that you're like, I'm not done. There's still more for me to give. It sounds like.

Yeah. Giving is an interesting term. Um, you know, generosity is not about lowering your price. Generosity is not about giving things away. It's about doing the emotional labor to make things better. For somebody else. And that might mean, if you're a luxury goods provider, raising your price. It might mean, you know, showing up in the surgical theater, confronting that thing that you are afraid to do because a patient needs you to do it. And, you know, Atul Gawande— I hope you have him as a guest one day— Atul Gawande's book, The Checklist Manifesto, brilliant. And it's fascinating because all the data shows that if you just put a simple one-page checklist in the operating room, millions of people are not harmed or dead versus not doing it. And getting surgeons to say yes is really hard because they have to confront their status fear. They have to confront all of the things that are part of their identity. And so for me, the best work I do The work that helps me achieve the goals I have feels like a gift to me and to them, but it doesn't cost me the things that most people associate with a gift costing someone.

Very cool. That's really cool. Seth, do you— this is maybe we're going to round, keep the analogy, we'll round home base here. Do you work this porous between your thoughts and your your feelings? Do you work well with your emotions on a regular basis, or is this refreshingly new to you?

Okay, so Sapolsky's new book about free will and determinism is absolutely fantastic. And emotions are just chemicals. We have lots of emotions available to us. There are ones we try to wall ourselves off from, So when I was in Kabira with the Kabira Book Club years ago with Jacqueline, talking to some of the poorest people on the planet about a book I wrote, which they had read more carefully and closely than any reader I have ever met, there was a wellspring of emotion that I had been isolating myself from because it's easier to live a life in New York if you don't realize that every single day there are people living in Kabira. That we intentionally focus on certain things to get through our day. There is a wellspring of emotion that I tap into in order to do my best work, but it is not necessarily the emotion of mortality or grief. There are other people who can find that fuel. I don't find it fuel. The emotions course through all of us, and if we ignore all of them all the time, it's corrosive. If we embrace all of them all the time, we're paralyzed. And I think part of the work is to realize that we have agency even if we don't have free will, and that agency can be put to good use. And if I can look something squarely in the eye and have it be productive, then you should sign me up.

Seth Godin, you are singing the song of significance. I hope I'm not the only person that's ever said that to you. What a beautiful emblem you are for the work that you've done. The well is deep and the articulation is crisp and the contour is warm. And I want to say thank you for the way that you brought the best version of you into this conversation. And so I'm looking forward at some point, at some point to be able to meet you in person and maybe have a glass of tea or something. So Seth, thank you for the work you've contributed, and I'm excited about the work you're continuing. I want to encourage people to go check out Song of Significance.

Well, thank you. This was time well spent. You're on an important path, and I'm glad I could join you for a little bit.

Appreciate you, Seth. I loved this conversation, brother. I loved it. And so thank you again.

Next time on Finding Mastery, John Gordon is one of the world's leading voices on on leadership, positivity, and high performance. He's the best-selling author of more than 30 books and has spent decades helping elite teams, organizations, and individuals build better habits. But in this conversation with Dr. Michael Dravet, John reveals something much more personal. Together, they explore why the patterns that keep showing up in our relationships often point back to our own unhealed wounds, why the habit holding us back is sometimes the one we can't see, and how one simple how daily practice changed the entire course of John's life. So join us Wednesday, August 19th at 9 AM Pacific only on Finding Mastery.

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