November 12, 2020
Writing Every Day with Seth Godin on the North Star Podcast with David Perell
Check out Episode Page and Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- The Imposter Syndrome is when you feel you’re about to do something important but don’t feel worthy
- Ways to quiet your inner skeptic: acknowledge that you are an imposter and accept it!
- The only reason to do creative work is to ship it, to create change
- “Don’t write because you’re inspired, write and become inspired”- Seth Godin
- If you feel you don’t have any good ideas, you may actually be afraid of your bad ideas
- Home Schooling is scary because you’re accepting responsibility for something you have no training for
- Online education is a factory mindset – it’s regurgitation – but it can be good when it’s collaborative
Intro
Seth Godin (t:@sethgodin) is the author of The Practice and nineteen international bestsellers that have been translated into more than 35 languages. He has published an article every day now for more than a decade.
Book Structure
- Writing a book is different than blogging on the web
- Editor’s want a beginning, a middle, and an end
- Even if you architect a collection of blog posts into a book, it reads differently than a book
The Imposter Syndrome
- The Imposter Syndrome is when you feel you’re about to do something important but don’t feel worthy – what am I doing here?
- Ways to quiet your inner skeptic:
- Acknowledge that you are an imposter – what you plan to create or do may or may not work – accept it!
- Human evolutionary instincts are wrong when your fear is focused on the fear that someone across the world won’t like what you wrote
The Evolution of an Idea
- Seth’s new book, The Practice is about shipping creative work
- If you want to put a good idea into the world, blog
- But if you want to get under people’s skin and help them see things and change the world, write a book
How to Measure Success
- Traffic doesn’t equal audience
- “Don’t be a wandering generality, be a meaningful specific” – Seth Godin
- The point of creative work:
- Ship your work to people who might benefit from it
- The end goal: the only reason to do creative work is to ship it, to create change- but some people don’t want that responsibility
- If you’re writing for your own pleasure = artful hobby
- Social media has created mob environments because it’s so easy to say something
- “Social media’s mess has been created by their aversion to boundaries”- Seth Godin
- But people need to take responsibility for what they write
- “Don’t write because you’re inspired, write and become inspired”- Seth Godin
Learning Writing Habits from Isaac Asimov
- Isaac Asimov published more than 400 books
- He wrote every morning from 6:30 a.m. until noon with a typewriter and wrote whether he thought what he was writing was good or not
- The motivation: if you’re going to write anyway, you might as well write something good
- If you feel you don’t have any good ideas, what you might really fear are your bad ideas
The Movie Edit Trick
- Professional movie editors do not switch cameras when a different actor speaks up, the same goes for writing
- It keeps watchers in the flow
- Seth uses metaphors to tell a story
- “Go to bed knowing the next day you’re going to contribute something”- Seth Godin
Why Isn’t Home Schooling More Popular?
- Home Schooling is expensive – because someone has to be home to do it
- It’s scary because you’re accepting responsibility for something you have no training for
- It’s also socially costly because it breaks from the norm
The Disaster of Online Education
- Interaction is where children learn – they learn problem-solving by engaging with each other
- Online education is a factory mindset – it’s all about regurgitation
- But online learning can be good when it’s collaborative
- Classes should be discussion-driven, not someone reading notes on Zoom
- Students should consume baseline information at home, and then have collaborative discussions the next day in class- online or off
- Education should be about learning and possibility, not tests
- Education should be output driven
- Learning is about transforming yourself
- Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis – rising through the wreckage on Wall Street
