The New Resume, Dancing with the Fear of Innovation and Nike’s Brand: Special Interview with Seth Godin
This interview was originally published in Hebrew. Since I got great feedback on it and there are many deep insights any reader can benefit from reading this — I translated and published this post also in English:
“…Show me what you’ve built, organized or led.
Show me what you’re proud of.
Show me a group of people you lead and who trust you…” (Seth Godin)
Seth Godin does not really need to be introduced. He is the leading, if not the leading, figure in the global field of marketing.
But, to say of someone that he is number one in a particular field, is a general statement that’s really hard to stand behind. What I can say, and stand behind, is that Seth Godin has a very sharp thinking, which leads to deep marketing, advertising and the career development insights.
And yes, he is number one.
I’ve heard the name Seth Godin countless times. The coin fell when I started reading his book, This is Marketing. Rarely does a moment of enlightenment and wow! occur to me while reading. It’s not because I’m particularly smart, it’s mostly because I’ve already heard or read similar things elsewhere, or the messages I came across were not very deep.
The experience while reading This is Marketing, and later on Linchpin, was very different.
There were many moments of enlightenment. And there were many moments where I stopped and closed the book to think things through in depth with myself, and make sure I fully understood what I was reading. By the way, Godin has written 19 books (!).
“…To be peculiar and idiosyncratic. To be the one we would miss if you didn’t show up. (Seth Godin)
In my (Hebrew) post “Tools for Technological Understanding, Real Value Creation and Industry Connections”, I talk about the task I gave my students:
“I gave the students a very simple task. They had to find and contact two opinion leaders from the industry in which they wanted to join. They can ask them for career tips, compliment them on a job or an article in which they have appeared. The idea is simple — to take initiative and connect with people who, so to speak, seem distant and very successful to us. “
When I got to the end of the Linchpin book, I took on (my own) task of contacting Seth to thank him and ask for an interview. To my surprise, Seth answered me pretty quickly. To my delight, he also agreed.
It was important to me to keep a relatively short interview, because sometimes, when you talk to someone of this magnitude — you realize that this is a rare opportunity, on the other hand, you also understand that it is a particularly busy person…
Q1: In Linchpin you wrote: “Projects are the new résumé”. This deep statement is easier to understand and apply when thinking about a more tech-oriented industry. How personal projects can also help older and less sophisticated occupations to benefit from this reality?
Answer: More than ever, we hire people, not cogs. If we need a cog, we outsource the work. Which means that finding people who are committed, interesting, interested, delightful, engaged and enrolled is at the top of our list… and so, how do you show that? It seems as though a piece of paper that says you were obedient in past jobs is insufficient.
Show me what you’ve built, organized or led. Show me what you’re proud of. Show me a group of people you lead and who trust you…
Q2: In your books you praise art, authenticity and generosity. However, in these weird times of uncertainty, fake news, misleading information and shallow look-at-me messages, do you think they got distorted or lost some of their power?
Answer: Scarcity creates value, and they seem more scarce, don’t they? Trust is in short supply, and if we can find someone we trust, we’re much more likely to engage…
Q3: In This is Marketing you said that if Nike opened a hotel everybody would know what it would be like, because they have a distinct brand. On the other hand, if Hyatt came out with sneakers — we would have no clue what they would be like. How can I, as an organization, can be more like Nike than Hyatt?
Answer: This is about your creative practice. About choosing to dance with the fear of innovation. It’s about deciding to stand out with generosity–to make bigger promises, distinctive ones, and then keeping them.
This is counter to the industrial mindset that we were raised with.
But it’s more human.
To be peculiar and idiosyncratic. To be the one we would miss if you didn’t show up.
Q4: Can you name three books, not written by you, that you’d recommend to your younger self?
Answer: The War of Art, Caste and The Art of Possibility
Q5: This question is from Shirly Dwek — What was your biggest challenge in your journey to become Seth Godin of today, and how did you overcome it?
Answer: Not dying! That and deciding to ignore the people who don’t get the joke. We can’t possibly please everyone, but it sure helps if we can decide WHO we are here to serve. And then to ignore everyone else.
Q6: This question is from Matan Valdman — What is your opinion about writing a blog that covers subjects and topics that are not related to your current daily job or expertise?
Answer: How can we expect to gain expertise if we don’t make assertions? What better or safer way to become who we seek to become than to do it with a series of blog posts?
I hope you liked this interview. In my future articles here (feel free to click ‘follow’ for updates) I will go deeper into Seth’s answers and I will try to extract more great insights from them. I will also share my guidelines of how to approached thought leaders (or VIPs, if you want), and doing so the right way, following the 4 principle I taught my students.
Feel free to share the interview, visit Seth’s blog, follow him on Twitter. And of course I’ll just finish with a warm recommendation to make sure your next book was written by Seth Godin, no matter if in English or Hebrew…
Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or Twitter
