Your Job is to Make Art - Seth Godin at ConvertKit Craft & Commerce 2017

so let's stand up and give a very warm welcome to Seth Godin our closing keynote getting all four clubs here thank you so much this is a really special group and I'm privileged to know Barrett and privilege to be here I got to talk about golf for just one minute then we'll get to good stuff can we agree that golf is the worst spectator sports in the world there's not a lot of golf in Boise which is a good thing bad sport for two reasons nothing good ever happens and the second reason is because if something good does happen you're not allowed to wildly raucously applaud so just to show you what I mean do the worst measly as quietest wimpiest golf applause you can imagine that was terrible thank you can you double it double it again and one more time beautiful thank you that is what we do for a living that is the essence of our work you cannot cause somebody to start being interested but what you can do is amplify it and connect it and amplify and connect it and that is the work of the crafts person so I grew up in Buffalo right down the street from the roycrofters guy named Elbert Hubbard and Elbert who started it was the original craftsperson he lived at the time when industrialization industrialism was happening everywhere and he showed up as a writer in the Arts and Crafts furniture movement a publisher putting ideas into the world he wrote one of the most popular books ever written called a message to Garcia and what he understood that a lot of people the time didn't that a lot of people today don't understand is that most people think we have to address all the external stuff the strategy and the tactics and the do this do you have any quick tips and if we do that enough it'll be a lever to help people change their internal narrative but in fact what we're really doing is independent perhaps people as people are trying to make a difference is we are addressing the internal and along the way people we can come in rolls in getting the tactics taking care of that what is amazing about the people in this room is that ahead of almost everybody else you figured out that the system has changed and understanding that the system has changed is critical so I would never as much as Sarah Peck but I was a swimmer and when I swam I would swim really hard 16 32 64 laps and you'd find me on the deck exhausted when I was done and years later I went for a master swimming classes coach bill bloomer saw me do anything you know maybe you're doing it wrong and when this video started spreading around the internet I immediately grabbed it here's a bunch of bikers in Italy riding downhill on 60s and the rider who's that last place discovers that everyone else is doing it wrong and that biking is actually a system and that pedaling harder might not be the answer and making one more video or posting one more email or interrupting one more person might not be the answer so the essence of what I want to talk to you about for the next 40 minutes starts with this professional wrestling is fake now most of you knew that but a few people deterred it for the first time and once you know professional wrestling is fake you will see it differently from now on and I want to help you see some other things differently that the internet helped us understand that if like me you grew up with bats and dinosaurs this is what you think a bat looks like but if you turn them upside down you turns into a total badass here here are here are three bats getting ready for bed but in fact they're at a cocktail party and once you see that's this way you can't unsee it so this ability to see clearly what's going on to see bubbles before everybody else does to be able to call it and show up with what you need is hard because most of the time we don't see things clearly other people see a blank slate say what should I do the world has changed the system is new but those bikers they're saying what I already know how to do what do I already know how to make so you are living right through the death of the 500 year old book industry Gutenberg 500 years and then it's going to be like vinyl records right that vinyl records were perfect if you were in the record business in 74 you had to make money because if you played it a lot it would wear out you have to buy another one you under your friend you didn't have anymore have to buy another one you get in the car to buy another one went to a place called a record store that existed to do nothing but sell your product and there was the radio and everything else we all know what happened it went from perfect to impossible in just five years every record ever recorded available to any human on earth who wants it who has a smartphone for free the music industry is toast there's more music than ever before but the industry is over so the systems that we are playing in are changing faster than anyone realizes and you're showing up nibbling on one little edge of it but there's a blank slate here and the question is what are we going to do with it so you grew up and if you have a boss you're hearing it every day the same four-letter word more market share more students more sales more emails more interruptions more revenue more revenue more revenue this leads to mass marketing which means average products for average people makes up maybe pop-tarts but all these other products were designed to be average because if you want to mass market and interrupt the masses you better have something the masses want of odd which is average average stuff for average people which led to this whole mass marketing thing which is problematic this pictures really fuzzy I had a bad cold when I took it but if you look at the blue box in the upper middle Center that brand manager spent a hundred million dollars interrupting us all of us 100 million dollars on coupons and shelving allowances in TV ads and magazine ads why because she would hoping that we would buy the blue box and that once we bought it once we keep buying it and she turned back all that money well I did what you do I buy the yellow box or the generic I don't even know what that blue box it doesn't matter because I don't have a pain reliever problem I saw my pain reliever problem 20 years ago and most of the people you are trying to reach with your product or your course or your movement don't have the problem you are trying to solve or at least they don't think they do so they are not paying attention they're clicking they're moving on it's been said that the average internet consumer today has the attention span of a goldfish and so what we're doing if we want to reach lots of people is we're treating our customers like goldfish but they're not goldfish they're humans and by dumbing down everything and yelling about everything and putting in front of everyone and seeking average we're just making it worse we're not helping anybody because we're treating our customers like goldfish so this is a picture of my hotel room last night two o'clock in the morning it's a five hundred on whatever's capital no I was dead and take this last night I think it was at the Hyatt a couple weeks ago it doesn't matter the hotel room went three o'clock in the morning it's dark like all hotel rooms are three o'clock in the morning they're all the same because for 50 years the hotel industry got taught it's all the same high as Hilton they'll start with an H doesn't matter right and it worked because they have they advertise so much they interrupted us so much until sort by price showed up because I'm sort by price sort by distance if they're all the same I'll just take the close one I'll just take the cheap one and that's going to happen to every digital good that same to some asset just give me the cheap one they're all the same because they're all average they're all in for the masses so the marketer who says I'm going to find some course mo all course Mo's and assault them over and over and over again with Facebook ads and banner ads and pop-ups and pop-unders so until one day they buy from me is in for a rude awakening because humans are saying back I don't want to hear from you anymore when I invented commercial email we had a seventy-five percent open rate in the thirty seven and a half percent response rate to the email dissent how are you doing right what happened in the last 20 years what happened is people got a remote and they're not afraid to use it that we have branded ourselves to death and people are saying I don't want to hear from you and we've solved most of the shortages right it's not the important shortages of people being mistreated or not having water in some places but like the dreaded yoga pant shortage Fifth Avenue New York City 20th Street it's the yoga district there are six stores where you can buy yoga pants within two blocks and right around the corner it's a camera district where there's more than 1000 different kinds of cameras you can buy and right across the street is the story that will sell you more than 100 kinds of phones and then you can pick out your smart phone and if you want to pick from an unlimited number of insurance policies and so what's happened is clutters gotten more clutter because in boardrooms around the world they say well up and to the right that's what we want get us up and to the right and that leads to compromise how do we reach more people how do we get more average and so it's bad news time and I'm aware that it's bad news time I'm aware that if you have bet on the old system you could say who has designed this future didn't someone read the instructions and I agree that for people who are into the old system this is bad news right so you're just you're just not going to be able to interrupt yourself into success so now I can move on to the good news the first piece of good news comes with bad news associated with it which is that everyone in the world can engage with you now which means that everyone in the world is also your competitor that what we've done is turn the neighborhood into the world and the world into the neighborhood that changes things so I now want to shift gears and talk just for a minute about some statistics and understanding that you're going to need to really visualize what I'm talking about so this is a simple graph what I want you to do please first just to practice to make sure everyone knows how to do it raise your hand perfect beautiful put it down everybody in this room who is between five foot four and five foot nine inches tall raise your hand yes that's this group right here about two-thirds of you you're in the middle of the curve everybody here who's under five for three or so raise your hand that's you folks over there and everybody who's over five ten or so raise your hand that's you guys over there this is the normal distribution this normal distribution applies to a huge number of things right that you can look at the standard deviations down below don't worry about that the point is that in any population you're going to find this same sort of curve working so now let's try it one more time this time if you have a smart phone and you bought one between I don't know two years ago and eight years ago raise your hand it's just about everybody two-thirds of you if you have a smart phone and bought it within six months of Steve Jobs announcing it raise your hand that's a few of you and if you've got your smart phone in the last 18 months for the first time raise your hand fuel Aglets again it's exactly the same curve and what we have to understand is that when you're going to mark it with whatever you're selling everyone doesn't care everyone isn't choosing to pay attention everyone isn't that kind of person it's just these people who go first the early adopters these people still have a 12 flashing on their VCR right and so if you've been so seduced by this mass-market mind that you're going to be confused for a long time to come I want to argue that there are multiple steps of what we make when we make something that's important does craftspeople the first one the homerun the one where we must start is where you sell something that transforms the people that you are touching that creates identity that makes them loyal to what you're doing you know what loyal means they'll pay extra when they have a choice that they really have trouble differentiating the second thing that happens if you do that is some of those people will tell their friends and then the third thing that happens if you do you change the culture of a group and I'm going to be touching on all these things as we go but there are two things under this line that we got to talk about because those are the ones that people talk about all the time that I don't think are as important one that you're targeting new people targeting is a hunting term by the way and that you're thinking about mass and most organizations that get in trouble don't see the system that's the first thing we talked about and don't understand that there's two groups here the stuff above the line where magic happens and the stuff below the line where you're merely annoying okay so back to these basic ideas of how the system has changed one of them is this that bowling only works because of how far apart the pins are and that in fact if you move the pins one inch closer to each other you'll roll a strike every time and if you all in the pins one inch farther away from each other you'll never roll a strike and that this idea of understanding the linkages and the connections between one another has to be at the heart of what we're going to do to grow our organization and to grow our movement the second thing Fancy Feast gourmet cat food is not for cat it's for people because if it wasn't for cats it would come in Mouse flavor that's what they do when they sell us something is they tell us the story and in this case the story is you are a good person because you are feeding this to your cat another thing you should eat the stuff you're buying it for your cat but you are the customer and the story resonates with you you have no idea if yellowfin tuna and shrimp recipe with wild rice and gravy tastes better or worse than chicken and beef feast in gravy I don't know why the tuna isn't a feast but the beef is a feast you have no idea and the same thing is true of what people are going to think about the craft if you make or the course that you create or the thing that you are trying to build because they don't know if it's working until after they use it but the story about it is where they engage so we show up each of us as Sara said start something why because we want to make something special we want to make something work proud but you know what happens over time because we have committees because we have people are putting up with us because we go to conferences when people talk to us we make it a little bit more normal we make it a little bit smaller we make it a little bit more average we say that's okay because Google will find us that's okay because we'll be on Facebook that's okay because if people want the other time they can go and get it on Amazon but these three companies are preying on everyone who's making things less special and making things more average by taking a little bit more people's attention and a little bit more of all the clicks and if you're not number one in this search and you're not showing up over there you're invisible and the only people who are left are the people who have rejected this mindset of I'll get noticed for free and instead embrace the fact that they're going to get noticed because they're special and the only way to be special to not be average and the only way to not be average is to ignore almost everybody and to make it for a few people the third big challenge is this there's a lot of pressure to lower your price for a couple of reasons one because it feels generous it's not we talked about story a little bit and second because other people are allowing the price of their average stuff and so we think I'll just lower it a little bit or some wife cases now just raise your price but customers aren't stupid why would they pay extra for the same thing the only spot is to be the only one when you are the only one the one and only the one with no replacement then you've got a shot because sort by price is the bane of your existence these are computers for sale and Russia sort by price these are coffins for sale at Costco sort by price sort by price is a game you will never win so you have to figure out why you're going to win because someone didn't bother to sort by price and the way you're going to win is totally surprising by targeting the smallest possible audience not the biggest possible audience the smallest possible audience the smallest possible audience doesn't mean one person it means the smallest you can live with because if you target the smallest audience you can live with it will be or by your competition you will be delighting those people with a special thing that they can only get from you and then the bigger stuff takes care of itself but we begin and we come back to at the end of every day what's the smallest possible group that I can do my best work for it and what is without a question one no okay so we ask ourselves in two questions with everything we make who's it for and what's it for who because it's not everybody and what what is the change I am seeking to make because if you're not seeking to make a change what exactly are you doing which then brings us to this conversation we need to have about how we tell people our story and convertkit kicks in here as do lots of other things you do there are two ways to get married the first way to get married is to go on tinder and swipe right on every single person until someone says they will marry you I am told this is a stupid way to get married the other way to get married is to go on a date if it goes well go on another date with that person right wait till the third date before you tell them you're out on parole and then you meet their parents they meet your parents you get engaged you get married that's called permission the privilege of talking to people who want to hear from you not the right to privilege now I'm not the prime-minister of permission marketing anymore I retired from that role years ago but here's how you can tell if you have permission if you didn't send that note tomorrow how many people would contact you and say are you okay if you didn't put up that blog post if you didn't send out that announcement if you didn't put that thing into the world would they miss you if you didn't show up if the answer is no then you don't have permission you are merely being tolerated but if you have permission now you have an asset and that asset is priceless it is a priceless asset of attention so now that I have your attention and I'm aiming at the smallest possible market I can treat different people differently which is possible at scale for the first time in human history then if you look there's the bell curve again than when we just talked about what you've been taught to aim for the middle because that's where most people are aim for the middle but here's the thing you're small enough you don't have to aim for the middle plus the curve is melting bit by bit day by day you're given people a choice they're taking a choice the curve is melting so if you're into Jamaican polka music you can listen to Jamaican polka music by finding people on the edges not in the middle you're finding people who have chosen to care the people in the middle don't care that's why they're in the middle they're happy in the middle that's why they chose to be there when it comes to you know pick an item of clothing belts I'm in the middle just give me a belt I don't care what belt when it comes to little technological gimmicks I always have the coolest one because I'm on the edge so I care so you don't have to yell at me you just have to whisper because I have a problem I know I have a problem maybe you can help me solve it so you're not going to persuade them when this dress is the wrong color you're not going to talk somebody out of what they already believe what you can do instead is go to the edges and find people who want to be found to make stuff for weird people because these products for example were all invented for the weird people for the edges for the people who were thirsty that's where you begin over and over and over again at the edge with the interested people so if your model even in unspoken quiet moments is you know what you can choose anyone and wear anyone you are doomed because lots of people or anyone and they're better being anyone than you remember that different people hear things differently they see things differently you're not going to change the way they hear or they see not at first but you can earn their attention by going where they are okay moving forward a little bit as a Monterey aquarium and it was released high school what they teach people is to fit in to follow the leaders to comply that's why we invented school to teach kids to get a job to do what they are told it was invented by industrialist and one of the tools we use particularly against women but against everybody is one phrase you know what you're not as good as you think you are you're getting uppity what right do you have the key to this course what right do you have to do this what right do you have to do that and what we've got to figure out is how to adopt a completely different posture it's a posture that says it might not be for you but if it is here I am and then we've got to figure out how to get the word to spread so quick way to understand word spreading first guy with a fax machine what exactly did he do with it what you have to do when you get a fax machine is tell everyone you know to go get a fax machine so you can send a fax Bob Metcalfe invented Metcalfe's law he's not shy and metcalfe law says the power of any network is the square of the power of people on it it's the opposite of Fight Club right the first rule of Fight Club is no one talked about Fight Club first willow Metcalf laws let's talk about this devices will come out ahead so that thing you're making does my life get better if I tell other people about it because if it doesn't why on earth would I tell anybody else about it you don't have to pay me to tell people value just have to make my life better if other people have it that's how you heard about Twitter not because jack ran some TV ad on the Super Bowl but because someone Twitter said please follow me on Twitter because their life would get better if you used Twitter so it's the difference from I'm thinking about funnels to I'm turning my funnel into a megaphone by handing people something they can talk about this is what I call the purple count the transition from one more cow and a field of cows to oh my goodness that's a purple cow what would I do if I saw a purple cow I'll tell you what I would do I would tell other people that's the definition of remarkable remarkable means worth making a remark about and I used to be the prime minister of purple but I'm not anymore but I can tell you this simple rule the simple rule is if someone else decides is we're talking about it's remarkable it's that easy that's the definition of remarkable and this is really scary it's scary because you got taught don't fly too high you got taught not to get uppity it's scary because we live in a country this is a real sign who else is risked are you supposed to play at exactly we live in a country where there isn't nearly enough grit the grit to say no I'm not going to do that no I don't stand for that the grit to say maximizing profit is not my goal the grit to say I will put my name on this and if you don't like it I'm responsible the grit to fall down and skin our knees and get up and do it again and the grit to not be average because average when you add them all up it's nice but it's not beautiful and memorable what we remember the edge cases the thing that's alive that's bubbling that's real human because we got tons of non-human choices you know who made the Heinz ketchup in your fridge you don't know and you don't care because you just want advertised ketchup for the average hot dogs at the average barbecue that's what it's for but as humans what we seek is calming Wazza the Japanese term for godlike myth luck the way that gods would do it and the irony of course is that the most godlike thing we can do is be human to be present and to show up in a way that people note because we're aware of it were mindful now this beautiful cat running through the jungle I don't think he sings to himself did I leave the oven on or my instructor told me to keep my head up is my head up full jaguar running fully in it you cheater jaguar male cheetah full cheetah running fully in it when george Nakashima what a craftsman made furniture he wasn't worrying about the critics he was worrying about what he saw when Frank Lloyd Wright designed this building in 15 minutes on the back of a paper bag he did not say to the clients what changes would you like me to make let's do a needs analysis tell me what you don't like why don't you and your wife think about he said if you wish I will build this for you take it or leave it I'm making a piece of art here again back to that feeling in our head if you're afraid of flying don't look at this these are 747s coming in for a landing at Heathrow and they're dangerous Leandre matically off course so each time the pilots turn around flight back to Dallas and starts over no not what happened what happened is they adjust the pilot adjust that's her job to adjust if we do it wrong until we do it right and it's cheaper than ever to do it wrong until we do it right and that's the magic of always be testing right that's the magic of the internet world we live in that we do it wrong until we do it right so back to what this audience wants from you I'll share two words that they want from you and that you want from them the first one is the word you might hear if you're visiting a Zulu tribe which was Salib ana Tabata means I see you I hear you I'm with you we are present together is there anything that people you serve want more than that if they are learning something from you it is so that they can be seen if they are buying something from you it so they can be seen because it's about their self-esteem their status their presence as a human and the second one is enrollment because these folks on a journey to learn something from you we can't do education to people we can't do education at people we can only do them with them how is it that the kid is bad at math no statistics on every single player on the baseball team because they're enrolled it's not being done at them something they want to do because we live now in the connection economy it's the connections that we are building the assets that matter that create value Matt Ridley famously said no one on earth knows how to make a computer mouse nobody you need a team metallurgist Plastics software hardware supply chains together we can create innovation so this economy it's based on coordination trust permission which I mentioned and the exchange of ideas all of us are smarter than any of us that's why this conference is a good idea not because I'm here or Sarah's here Nicole's here is because you're here that's why it's worth it because you know something she needs to know and vice versa but all of this is dependent on two surprises things that are really hard for people outside this room to understand generosity and art generosity because why would we connect to a selfish person why would we connect to a faceless corporation and art art because what that's what we call it when a human being makes something something that might not work something generous something important that's what art is artists don't view the world through scarcity they view it through abundance unlimited opportunities to connect unlimited opportunities to make a difference and so when we show up to people they I don't know that much in the box and I give it to you I won't have it anymore that's a scarcity mindset but if you show up to someone's Adaline that much in the box but if I share this we'll both have it that creates all the virtuous cycles which leads us the idea of tribes invented 5000 years ago by Charlton Heston tribes are groups of people who share a vision and a goal and a costume and a way of talking in a way of being in the world right tribe we grew up with three tribes in our lives the spiritual tribe if you're from New Jersey a work tribe and a community tribe but now these tribes are everywhere so you got I don't know the Red Hat ladies in five hundred cities around the world having a couple drinks over lunch and getting uppity you have to read ad guys these guys pay $15,000 to enter the Ironman in Hawaii a race they know they're going to lose why do they go they don't have water where they live there's a ton of water in Boise why do they go they go because the other Red Hat guys are there and that's irreplaceable it's not digital these Red Hat guys who train all year round for the big day so white hat guys I don't get these guys but these guys I get 50 years this has been going on because it means something I cried when Leonard Nimoy died and I'm not ashamed to say it because it's part of who we were and our and it's for some of us it's not for all of us so here's a quick way to establish what I'm talking about go ahead okay stop six seconds that's the Idaho record one group took 28 seconds to clapping rhythm I was sweating bullets but they figured it out everyone figured it out how did you know it which rhythm to clap I made no eye contact I can go one two how did you know some groups have a fast cadence summit slow how did you know because we like doing what other people are doing we like being in sync not with everyone but with the people around us look around if they wanted a prom dress anyone in a tuxedo how did you know what to wear was there a memo right some of us wish there had been a memo because then it would have been easier so this idea means that there's a role here for you you get to be the ones who communicate who connect to commit to build a culture were clear who challenged people to go to the next level that's open it's open for anybody who wants to take it who cares enough to take it you don't have to invent the group The Beatles didn't invent teenagers they just showed up to lead them Bob Marley did not invent the Rastafarians he just showed up to lead them so now if someone asked me to describe marketing I only need seven words people like us do things like this do you know who your people like us are do you know what the things like this are an easy way to remember it almost nobody has the Suzuki tattoo [Laughter] and if you think about a non-profit walkathons don't raise that much money but they work and the reason they work is because you look to your left you look to your right people like me are supporting a charity like this so next we could give an easier for me to help people like us do things like this okay so coming around full circle sort of sad story to kick us off every year until recently four million dogs and cats in the United States were killed killed within 24 hours of being found on the street by the SPCA and Humane Society 4 million my friend Nathan Winograd went to work at the SPCA of San Francisco he was not in charge he had no budget he had no authority he saw this he hated it but he decided to do something instead of just swinging his hand so he went to the City Council his proposal was voted down instead he went to the people of San Francisco but not all of them just the weird ones not all the weird ones just the weird ones who wanted to listen to him the weird ones who wanted to listen to him or where people like us and in fewer than 100 days Nathan Winograd had enough money and more important enough commitments from volunteers the San Francisco became the first no-kill shelter in the United States in the city not one healthy dog or cat has been killed since that day in San Francisco and he has exported that message to more than a hundred major cities around the world and plenty of non major cities that are adopting this movement because one person said follow me follow me that leadership comes with this territory you didn't think that's what you were signing up for but that's all you got if you want to grow it's all you got if you want to find and lead a tribe so the system keeps telling you no no no no just do what you're told quick short hands raise your right hand as high as you can please thanks I'll raise it higher HM what's that about everybody holds back every time because that's what you got taught to do you got taught to do that by your third grade teacher by your coaching by that boss in that other box because if you put everything into it they're just going to have some more anyway you know who doesn't owe back artists right that David Mamet doesn't say oh I got a great line I'll save it for a future play I'm not getting paid enough for this play that Jackson Pollock does of this brushstroke I need that one for later that school taught us to fit in because what they wanted us to do is be compliant school helped us understand what management is which is not leadership management is telling people what to do getting them to do it faster and cheaper than yesterday leadership is saying we're all enrolled in this journey let's go over there I'm not exactly sure how we're going to get there let's go over there we have a leadership shortage and it's related to art there for a million years the way we fed ourselves was by hunting that's where humans got food only 10,000 years ago did we invent farming brand-new and farming was soon supplanted only 300 years ago by jobs by going to a guy and saying tell me what to do and pay me money brand new 1600 Europe unemployment was zero because there were no jobs and I want to argue we're headed back there really fast that the good job can't really be jobs that they're going to be art and what do I mean by art so let's just slide through this really quickly by art obviously Marcel Duchamp nude descending staircase obviously Pablo Picasso clearly Jackson Pollock this is art a human being doing something it might not work that connects us and draws us closer but did you know that Jackson Pollock had a brother Charles Pollock was a painter not an artist he painted just like his teacher Thomas Hart Benton he was a copyist not an artist and we have too many copies but it's not about painting Joseph boys was an artist worked in felt bill Shakespeare worked in words Richard Serra and artists who created sculptures that weigh a million pounds yes clearly art but Marcel Duchamp also an artist puts an upside down urinal in Turin art exhibit in 1917 causes a riot this is art not art is the second person who puts a urinal in an art museum there a plumber and and that's the thing that I worry about at an event like this because there's a lot of people who would like to do plumbing tell me all the steps give me the steps give me the steps I'll go do what you did that's plumbing we don't need more plumbers year-and-a-half ago I went to Shenzhen and in Shenzhen the city where they make every smartphone in the world is a little village called Dawson and in Dauphin they paint one-third of all the oil paintings produced in the world and you can go there and find almost anything you want the Mona Lisa $29 but it's not $29 because it's not the Mona Lisa it's a copy made by a plumber made by a copyist there's no wind there so the question I'll ask you is your best work it might take 10 minutes it might take a day what is it what's it for as we started with as Sarah pointed out what it's for is to make change happen that's our best work to change people and change has an ugly little brother and his name is tension the tension of it might not work the tension of amla fraud the tension of I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't work they always go together so yes you can ask me for a map you can ask me for step-by-step instructions you can ask me for one more case study I can't give you a map even a fictional one because if I gave you a map you would be a plumber that we live in a country with is a real book where people pay money to learn how to raise invisible sheep without making a mistake because they want to be competent but competent is no longer scarce right but if I can write it down I can find someone cheaper than you to do it that's why they invented fiber right that we've seen the video for the free hugs movement and it's sort of clever and funny this guy hates the free hugs movement because he worked really hard to be in the expensive hugs business guess what folks the internet doesn't care and if they can figure out how to make your stuff for more people cheaper they will so what are the bottled water guys supposed to do make it wetter because they taught us all it's all the same pure means all the same I mean they tried this but it didn't work the answer it turns out is kryptonite kryptonite is what makes Superman interesting this might not work we're teetering on the edge we might grow wings on the way down as Kurt Vonnegut said so you listened when the internet showed up it said who wants to speak here's a microphone and now it's saying to you who wants to innovate and if you say I'd love to innovate but failure is not an option I need to remind you that neither is success because all innovating is is failing and failing and failing until you find the next thing that works that's the chance we have the way to think about it is the guy who invented the ship also invented the shipwreck and you can decide if you want to get on board or not but there is no shipwreck free journey not if you want to do art and that's really good news it's really good news because most people are afraid to get on that boat and you are not so the obligatory Italian phrase salto mortality the dangerous leap the leap into the void the idea that we can throw ourselves off and grow wings on the way down that that moment of leaping is exactly when we are the most alive but what you will tell yourself as you're doing it if you're being honest is it's too soon I need more proof someone else should go first well when Gutenberg launched the printing press there is again 94% of the people in Europe were illiterate he should have waited until everyone knew how to read there were no bookstores you should have waited till barnes and noble got to Berlin right that when Mercedes launched the car it was against the law to drive a car he needed a letter from the king for his own invention and there were no roads there were no gas stations there were no all-night drive-through liquor stores he shoulda waited so the thing my fellow artist is this is a huge difference between being ready and prepared all of you are prepared but none of you will ever be red we're the other way around whichever way you want to think about it because what it means to be ready is to be sure it's going to work you can't be sure it's going to work because we live in a culture where people are watching videos like this right there are no videos online of people successfully riding a bicycle because it's not that interesting so we tell you ourselves oh no it's not going to work so I need to show you the end of the first video after the biker passes all the bikes he comes to the guy on the motor scooter who's leading the parade and like all good ideas it gets all frothy for a while and then other people start to notice what we're doing and it starts to spread through the bell curve and then the next thing you know and so what that means is you're going to have to do it again you're going to have to invent the next thing sorry because it doesn't last purple cows get gray that what we got to do is stay to that voice in our head we ought to ignore that voice of tackling us that says don't do it an alligator is going to buy you're going to fall for cliff sharks can eat you and land on your house we had ignore all of that realize that Icarus was invented to keep us in line and understand that there's something else that's possible so I've had some really great photos in my presentation but this is my favorite one this is from the soul of a conference it happens every three years they invite physicists from all over the world 19:27 here we go 29 people in this picture you may recognize there's Albert and Marie Niels Bohr it's said Heisenberg is in this photo but it's uncertain all we know is that of the twenty thank you all we know of the 29 people in ER seventeen of them won the Nobel Prize in Physics and almost all of them wanted after the photo was taken you didn't get invited because you won the Nobel Prize you won the Nobel Prize because you got invited solavei anybody look around you've all got the tools the people outside this room don't have the tools you all see the system you all understand what it means right so here's the challenge the challenge that we have to understand in the last story I'll tell you there used to be a flight from White Plains to Boston and I had an office there so if I drove I get stuck in traffic and I cursed the whole time thinking that I should have flown and so one day I flew there was no TSA at the time breeze do I get the boss in 29 minutes he's a big wind on the way back there was fog which for some reason is unexpected and they circle the White Plains Airport till we ran out of gas also unexpected made an emergency landing in Albany New York pilot comes on and says it's 10 o'clock at night we're in Albany New York got you that we're going to be able to go out for two hours maybe three but I think I can get you back to White Plains by one an hi this is ridiculous so over my laptop I do a quick search to have a little modem which is a pioneering at the time and Avis has one car left they close in five minutes I booked a car for door four seat car pay for it close my laptop stand up turned in the audience I need everyone's an audience turn to the passengers on the plane say ladies and gentlemen I am NOT a psychopath I am wearing a tie my car is in White Plains I think yours is too it's an hour hour and 20 minute drive I just went to the car got three empty seats who wants a free ride home no one raised their hand as far as I know they're still in Albany and I had a whole ride home to think about what had just happened I was in my tie and I realized what it was to stay on the plane it's United Airlines fault if you get off the plane it's your fault and it wasn't worth it for the story in their head for them to get off the plane so this is the challenge the challenge for these leaders in this room are you going to be able to encourage other people to get off the plane but in order to do that are you willing to get off the plane to own this to say I made this there is no doubt in my mind that you're going to be successful you're already successful as my French lien says that's not the question the question is will you choose to matter I think you will thank you for your attention [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you're right [Applause] [Music]

Channel: ConvertKit

Views: 443,116

Rating: 4.9178963 out of 5

Keywords: blogging, conference, seth godin, making art, generosity, convertkit

Id: rdUeq09cGJ0

Length: 46min 48sec (2808 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 13 2017