Curt Fowler

“Instead of wondering where your next vacation will be, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin

Seth Godin wants you to know that you are wasting the chance of a lifetime. Godin is the author of 17 books and owner of one of the most influential marketing blogs on the internet. I recently finished watching a 30-minute interview with Godin and learned a lot. Here are some of the key takeaways:

How are we wasting the Chance of a Lifetime? Two ways, according to Godin:

Externally: It takes $100 to connect with anyone in the world. Why are we not taking advantage of that?

Internally: If not now, when? There has never been a better moment to chase whatever God has placed on your heart to chase. What voices are you listening to that are keeping you from starting?

Godin on finding the purpose for your life or the right time or the right opportunity,

– It is a waste of your time! You are just delaying starting. Move now. Publish, print. Quit delaying. You are stalling because you are afraid to fail, but risking failure is the only path to success.

Best business decisions Godin has ever made:

– 1. Blogging every day. Even if no one ever read his blog, expressing your thoughts daily will improve your thinking. Putting your thoughts out there builds trust. It attracts the right people to you and repels the rest. If you blog like you talk, you will never run out of things to write. No one has ever suffered from talkers’ block!

– 2. Seeking out things he is wrong about. He has made countless bad decisions, which is good because making bad decisions is the only path to making good decisions. Try arguing the other side of any decision. Do this out loud, with a friend. Push against your own decisions.

On quitting. He wrote a book about it.

– Never quit when it gets hard.

– Do quit before you start.

– Do quit once it is clear you are at a dead end. Recognize failure, pivot and move on.

On productivity,

– Have an instinct to ship, not to be perfect. Seeking perfection is just fear of failing. Get over it. Failure is required for progress.

– People who win at “Jeopardy” press the buzzer before they are certain they know the answer. Say yes and figure it out.

– Give yourself a deadline and ship. He has shipped his daily blog post every day for a very long time.

– He doesn’t watch TV or go to meetings. He figures that saves him seven hours per day.

– Decide how you will use your time to ship the things that matter. Say no to everything else.

– Claim your space, what matters to you, and deliver on your promises.

On disappointments and setbacks,

– Hopefully, you do not take it personally if you lose at Monopoly. You put up the game and go to bed.

– Apply that to life. It didn’t work? That is interesting … It is not about you. Learn and move on.

– Failure is a requirement.

– Will you be better because you played the game, made the sales call, posted the blog post? Absolutely!

On the Myth of Momentum,

– Nobody who we really admire got where they are at quickly.

– Quick success is what we all want, but it rarely happens. If it does, it often ends catastrophically. Look at the lives of most lottery winners. They were crushed when it happened too fast.

– It is not the big start, it is the big finish after years of building up trust.

On raising free-range kids,

– What is school for? It was established to create more factory workers.

– It should exist to teach people to lead and to solve interesting problems.

– Ask your kids what they learned while trying to do something good for others.

– Congratulate them when they have a huge failure trying to solve an interesting problem or trying anything worthy (asking the girl out, going out for a new sport, helping kids who cannot help themselves, etc.)

On permission marketing,

– Permission marketing is when your audience would be upset if you did not show up for work today, did not open the store, did not send the blog post.

– We will never matter to everyone but mattering to “your” people is what counts.

– Stop worrying about everyone. Help one person, then five, then more.

We love helping leaders build great businesses. If you’d like to learn more you can check out our free resources at www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.

Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders build great organizations and better lives for themselves and the people they lead.

Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker, and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA, and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.