Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Systems Saved Me. Today we'll be breaking down This Is Strategy. To drop these value bombs I brought to Seth Godin into EO Fire Studios. Seth is the author of 21 International Best Sellers.
that have changed the way people think about work and art. He writes one of the most popular daily blogs in the world and has given five TED Talks. In today, if our nation will talk about this is strategy, make better plans. The 27 egg dishes will also be talking about Dorothy and her crew, the thing about cheaper. What does wrong mean? Everyone is elusive in Fire Nation. If this elusive sounds a little elusive, then guess what?
This is Seth Godin. This is how he rolls. It will all make sense when we get back from thinking our sponsors.
over 40,000 businesses have future approved their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting financial management inventory and HR into one platform, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Seth, say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that a lot of people might disagree with.
Hey everybody, it's great to be here. I'm going to have a two-parter. First part is authenticity is dramatically overrated. Authenticity is for friends. Consistency is for professionals. Shouldn't sign up to do something that you hate, but people don't want to buy the authentic you. They want to buy the consistent professional you. And the part that goes with that is that hustle is way overrated. No one wants to be hustled.
People want to be seen, connected, treated with dignity. They want you to help them get to where they're going. They don't want you to hustle them.
Fire Nation, be prepared for value bombs. So this entire episode, I've had the honor of interviewing Seth multiple times over the past 12 years of entrepreneur's on fire. And every time it's a delight, it's a treat. And today we're talking about this is strategy because it's all about making better plans. And Seth, I just want to start with the reality that we live in a fast moving, chaotic divisive world.
Talk about a practical framework for what an effective strategy may look and feel like for our listeners fire nation. So strategy isn't tactics strategy isn't a permanent plan strategy isn't a guarantee strategies a philosophy of becoming. It requires us to see the world as it is and then to imagine how we want to change it who's it for and what's it for.
So the world is divisive because media companies make money dividing us, not because people are actually divided. The world is chaotic because technology and systems change makes it different than yesterday, but it only feels chaotic if you want the world to stay the way it is. And so what we have is the chance to find better waves, because if you're a surfer, that's what makes you a better surfer, that we can see the systems
We can see the games that are being played. We can show up with empathy for the market and suddenly our work feels a lot easier.
Fire Nation, I love that analogy of a better surfer, somebody that finds better waves. I was just a podcast host back in 2012 and I found better guests and I'm talking to one of them right now, Seth Godin, who is somebody who was able to come on add value back then and is still adding value to this day in so many ways. And in fact, this book that I actually have here right in front of me
has 294 short sections. Each has this amazing story as well as this fantastic takeaway. And I just picked a few of my favorites. I mean, they're all great, but I have a few favorites. So I'd love for you, Seth, maybe go deeper on a couple of those. And the first one that really kind of tickled my eyebrow was number 47, the 27 egg dishes. Take it away.
Okay, so Beryl Sharszewski had a problem. And her problem was that like a lot of people, she loved to cook, wanted to teach people how to cook, and mostly wanted to be able to build a platform on something like YouTube. So we see YouTube show up. Like, oh, well, YouTube needs stars. I'll be a star. And the chances that you're going to win that lottery are very, very low. Because if there's a million people trying to be their next Kardashian,
Only one of them is going to win. That's a lottery. You don't want to play that game. So what Beryl did is she created a YouTube channel that where she taught people how to cook, but where she highlighted how her viewers around the world were cooking, she made them celebrities within the circle that they wanted to be part of. And that means that she transformed viewers into participants. The word spread.
And now she has a gig with PBS in the US and also has about a million followers on YouTube. She is making a living doing this because the world was waiting for someone to show up and organize, connect and lead.
Fire Nation, I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the early part of their journey, come into this situation where they had this really big, great idea. And the reality is the most big ideas, they're also kind of broad. They're also kind of vague. They're like, I want to be a huge star on YouTube, maybe in the cooking space. And so doesn't everybody else that has any desire of cooking.
And it's where can you discover the niche that's maybe been overlooked or is being done poorly by most or everybody or the competition is just not there for any number of reasons and then go all in and make it happen. I mean, for me, that was just quantity with entrepreneurs on fire seven days a week instead of one day a week twice a month. And so what is the niche that you can dive into?
that's going to be really interesting to people because you're going to own that niche. And number 181, Seth, is Dorothy and her crew. I could talk about the Wizard of Oz forever. I love it. But here's one of the lessons we can take away from it. Dorothy did not go to the line that Tin Man and the Scarecrow and hustle them into helping her because it was important to her. She went to each of them and said, do you need a heart?
Do you need a brain? Do you need courage? I'm going over here. Do you want to come with me?" She created the conditions for her team to get what they wanted, not demanded that they help her get what she wanted. And this idea of empathy, of realizing other people don't want what you want, don't see what you see, don't need what you need. If you can't say that and mean it, then why on earth should people engage with you, root for you, be part of what you're doing?
And one thing that just kind of brings up to me, Seth, and I'm curious for you, is this an analogy? Does this kind of run along the same lines? Is this quote by Maya Angelou? And it's very close to something along the lines of people will forget what you say. They'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you make them feel. And for me, Dorothy there,
is making each one of those individuals feel seen as their problems that she's looking to provide a solution to. And therefore, she's making them feel good. And those are interactions that I know a lot of us try to give to people every single day. It's like when we walk away from that interaction, how do we make that person feel? So is there any analogy there? Well, they rhyme with each other for sure. So it takes, I just did the math the other day, because I'm writing a blog post about this. It takes 900
thousand minutes to train to be a board certified dermatologist in the United States, almost a million minutes. It only takes two minutes for a dermatologist to make a patient feel seen. It's one thing to write them a prescription and walk out the door. It's another thing to spend an extra 90 seconds in the room, leveraging those 900,000 minutes you spent to help that person feel
like they're going to get better. And in our system too often we forget about that and we waste the million minutes we already invested. To go off topic for one second just because I'm a huge Wizard of Oz fan and it sounds like you are as well. What's maybe one thing that you think most people don't know that they should or something really interesting that just goes unnoticed about that whole Dorothy and Wizard of Oz that would be kind of interesting for us.
I go deep. I did the computer game version of Frank Baum's novel. So I lived inside the Wizard of Oz world for months and months and months. You know, the beginning and the ending were added to the novel. That's not what happens in the book. It just happens in the movie. And it's so profound that she comes back to Kansas and she's surrounded by the people who were in this make-believe world that she dreamed about.
The fascinating character for me is the wizard. In Kansas, the wizard isn't a bad guy. He's selling pussy bows. He's selling snake oil, but he has a heart of gold. He helped Dorothy. Whereas the original wizard in the movie is a horrible person. We are surrounded by people like this in our politics today. And only one total pulls back the curtain and we see who that person really is is the wizard freed.
He is freed to become who he always wanted to be. So if we're in a system that is pushing us to be that hyping, hustling, lying, arguing, evil wizard, we can get out of it. That's the first thing. The second thing that's more practical is this. When Dorothy shows up for the first time, the wizard says, if you bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, I will get you home. But the thing is, the wizard doesn't need a broomstick.
The wizard just wants her to go away. And often when we're making a sales call, particularly in a B2B space, the client will say, bring me a broomstick and then we'll do business with you. So we run around looking for broomsticks, but that was never what was on offer. Basically, someone who sends you off to get a broomstick is saying to you, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of going forward. I'm not going forward until I'm not afraid anymore. And that's your cue.
to highlight the fact they don't need a broomstick. What they need is scaffolding and reassurance and connection.
Seth, that is fascinating, no shocker. In Fire Nation, we have so many more value bombs coming up at no shocker as soon as we get back from thinking our sponsors. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it? Not only do you brainstorm new campaigns, create compelling copy, dream of landing pages that will actually convert and generate leads. You also have to gather all the data to make sure it's even working. And tomorrow you'll do it all again.
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So I want to move on to number two, two, three, which is the thing about cheaper. Oh boy, we could talk about this one all day long. You know, either you're going to race to the bottom or you're going to race to the top. And what it means to race to the bottom is simple. If you race to the bottom, you're saying I'm the most convenient. I'm the cheapest and basically you can pick anyone and I'm anyone. This is what it is to be.
on Fiverr or Upwork. This is what it is to worry about SEO, that if you get all the clicks for locksmith in your town, you'll be busy all the time. Sure, that would be great, but you're not going to get all the clicks for locksmith. The alternative is to race to the top. And that slogan is, you can pick anyone, not is the opposite of you can pick anyone. That race to the top is,
You'll pay a lot, but you get more than you pay for. This is the chance we have to be distinct, to be on fire, to be the one and only. It's much harder in the short run, but in the long run, you earn something. You gain an asset. You are the one and only. And all the pressure around us, all the systems, all the forces are pushing us to fit in and race to the bottom.
but you care enough to resist that in Race to the Top instead.
Seth and the 4,491 episodes that I've recorded over 12 years, I've attributed this one quote to you many, many times. So I just want on air right now. I just want to know, am I quoting you correctly? Because it's right on topic here. And I just remember you saying this. It was either on my show or other shows or multiple, but I loved it. It made so much sense, which is the problem with the race to the bottom is that you just might win.
Yep. That's word for word. Yes. Okay. You know, if you win that race, then you got to live at the bottom. And I know people who run enterprises where they're under so much pressure for speed and cost that they can't possibly do the work they want to. There is one giant exception here. If the scale that you get from winning the race at the bottom enables you to actually be cheaper. So Walmart, for example,
sells items that other stores can't even buy from the manufacturer cheaper than Walmart sells them. It's cheaper for them to go to Walmart to buy batteries to put in their convenience store than it is to buy them from the battery guy. So Walmart has a system in place that allows them to be happy and be cheaper at the same time. But for most of us, the race to the bottom is a trap.
Number 289, what does wrong mean? Yeah, so this one has a lot of pathos to it because we think about quality, we think about good, we think about, I did a good job, et cetera. And maybe not. When you engage with a customer and they want something and it's not something you want to make, you're not wrong, you're just not a good fit.
You are measuring one proxy, how many people are following you on the internet, and it's pushing you to make work you're not proud of. You're making a mistake. That the right thing for you to do is to make work for the people who want it, who need it, who you can serve. So we should be very clear about what a good job looks like and not base it on whether in the short run we got some applause from people who are never going to be there for us.
One thing that I read from this was the sunk cost fallacy. Is there anything within that? Particularly if you're a small enterprise, sunk costs are punishing you all the time. What is a sunk cost? A sunk cost is anything you invested in or bought in the past. So if you're 34 years old and you're a dentist and you hate being a dentist, it may be that you go back to work tomorrow because you're saying to yourself, well, spend all those years at dental school and all that money. I got to keep doing this.
So basically to defend a decision the U of 10 years ago made, you're going to sacrifice the next 50 years of your life. That's ridiculous. The alternative is to realize that a sunk cost is a gift from your former self, that the U of yesterday saying here, want this dental degree? And you don't have to say yes. You can say, no, thank you.
So if your little enterprise has a division that is wearing you out and not making you any money, it doesn't matter how hard that division was to build, you can say to your former self, thanks for building that division. I don't need that anymore, but thank you. And I know that in my career, the things I've walked away from, those decisions have been some of the most important and beneficial I've ever made. Number 115, everyone is elusive. Right. So this is part of the curse of the internet.
Here you're listening to 4,000 episodes of an extraordinary podcast, and 99% of the people on Earth have never heard it. That's fine. The goal is not everyone. You can't reach everyone. Back in the 70s, there was a TV show called Mash. When it went off the air in the US, 70 million people watched the final episode. Last year, in the US, there was a TV show called Succession.
When it went off the air, it was in every single media that you could find, and it only had 3 million viewers. That's what's happened. The mass market is gone. The center is empty. If you're going to try to reach everyone, you will fail. You need to reach someone. The key is activation, not attention. What do you think of the quotes, love me or hate me. There's no money in the middle.
I don't like that because I don't think it's important to be hated. I don't think you need to set out to be hated. I think that notoriety and controversy and punching people in the face is something that might work on the internet. But you don't want to live that life. What you want is to say there are a few people who love me and everyone else doesn't even know I exist. That's terrific. I'd go for that.
Well said, my friends, your book, This is Strategy Make Better Plans. It's your 21st book. What inspired you to write this? You don't get tomorrow over again, right? And all of us have something to contribute. If you have an intuitive strategy, maybe it got you this far. But if you don't say it out loud, you don't find other people to talk about your strategy. If you can't have the conversation like the two of us just had, you're stuck.
You're stuck with whatever your intuition was left with. I think we can do better than that. I think if you've got something to add and something to say, you might want to find some peers and have a thoughtful conversation about what kind of strategy could help you get to where you want to go. If Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more about how they can access this book, what is your call to action for Fire Nation today? So I built a page at sefts.blog.ts
with some videos and all the links that you need. If you visit Cess Stop Blog, there's 9,000 free blog posts. I hope you'll check them out. But mostly, the call to action is go talk to somebody. Encourage them, challenge them, and they'll do the same for you, because the work is worth it.
Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with SG and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Seth in the search bar. The children's page will pop right up, his URL that he mentioned. There'll be a link right there. And of course, our prior two episodes will be linked up there as well, one in 2020, one in 2012.
Seth, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. What a treat. Thank you for everything. Keep making a ruckus.
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Seth for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. What can 4,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a revolutionary 17 step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about.
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