Book Review & Rating 8/10:
I imagine this book will be a hit or miss for readers depending on who they are, why they picked the book and where they are at in their journey. This might be a universal truth with most books but I think the specificity with which Seth Godin writes will alienate many that don’t seem to fit into the core audience mold he seems to have written the book for.

Though this book didn’t meet my ’time test’ as I purchased it the year it was published, I imagine it will be one of the books I frequently flip through when I need an experienced voice to will me along. With its 200+ short chapters, the book could easily be a manual one reads through for specific questions but I decided to read it from cover to cover with a broader question in mind. Questions around my own work. What I was really hoping for were questions I hadn’t asked myself yet and/or a different way of thinking. I think I came out with a bit of both with the ‘oomph’ I was looking for.

Like other Godin’s books, there are various passages that fit to the author’s opinion that I didn’t agree with or rather questioned but I took that to mean I had thoughts of my own as I engaged in a dialogue with the author through the marginalia notes. This isn’t really an answer book that some would hope for but rather one of perspective. A set of perspectives from Godin, the people he has worked with and observed. For creators, I think this is valuable food for thought, as long as the creator puts the book down to think through his own set of thoughts.

Book Notes:
Creativity is the result of desire. To find a new truth. It’s a choice.

The practice is the output. The only thing we can control. The process sets you free.

It’s not about what you would knowing you can’t fail. Rather, what would you do even knowing you will fail? The thing that is worth pursuing despite near-guaranteed failure.

“It is better to follow your own path, however imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s perfectly.” - Bhagavad-Gita

Godin refers to art as doing personal and self-directed work to make a change we can be proud of. Something you care enough to do it again and again.

Look at your heroes and find the pattern. The pattern the independent thinkers, creatives and explorers I admire. What’s worked before?

Leaders are imposters. That’s the default. It’s proof that one is creating and innovating. Of course, you don’t know. What you’re creating didn’t exist before did it?

Remember that there is no guarantee of results for doing creative work. It’s supposed to be that way. We aren’t supposed to know if it’ll work or not. That’s the beauty of it. It’s suicide to focus on outcome over process in such a scenario.

It’s about doing the work knowing there is no answer but the journey makes it worth the effort. The journey is the point. Not winning by some arbitrary metric that you can’t control.

We become what we do. Flow is a symptom of what we do.

Passion is a choice. We can have multiple passions. We just choose the ones we want to pursue and we won’t know whether it is a calling or whatnot without struggling through it. It’s only through action we know. How else would you gather feedback? The thing you find compelled to do and you find worth going on the journey for. You’ll learn by committing to the journey.

Judging your work by metrics outside of your control will inevitably lead to burnout. It’s fine to hope for great outcomes but remember you can’t control that. You can improve a process though. Focus on that.

Change someone and ignore everyone. Make someone better through your work. If it’s not resonating then make better work. It’s not working (yet).

“The future is already here - it’s just not very evenly distributed.” - William Gibson

Strive to produce work that can be admired by the specific group of people you are making it for. At the least, be proud of it so you’d still have the work itself if all else fails. One state to aspire to is to have the work be loved by a few and hated by many. Then you know what you’ve made is idiosyncratic.

Easy clients leave quickly. Easy in, easy out. Make a stand and earn fans somewhere. Consistently show up to the same audience. The best companies seek the best shareholders, same for investors with LPs and same for all creators with fans. Lousy clients don’t want better work. They want popular, cheap commodities. Paying clients care more and demand more. The more they pay, the more they’ll demand you to produce better work.

Ask the self: Who are you trying to change? What change are you trying to make? How will you know if it worked?

Find the group you wish to focus on. Then empathize. Figure out what they believe and want. Who they trust. You’re creating work to change others to leave them better off. Not for your own ego.

What’s the work for? Where are you hoping to go with it?

It’s not about doing work you only feel like doing every day. Remember Pressfield’s Resistance? We do it even if it don’t want to do it in the short term but to make long-term changes. Of course, you don’t want to do it every day. But you do it because it has purpose behind it. You know the change you seek to make in the long term. That’s what it’s for. For the people you’ve selected.

The only way to build something new is to be wrong a lot on the way to being right. Look at the companies you’ve mocked consistently for trying new and weird things until it clicked and made sense to you. Remember how you made fun of Apple for the first iPhone or Amazon for Prime.

The years in accounting are sunk costs. Same for the hundreds of hours on writing. These are gifts from the past to you today. You can accept the gift or not. Use the gift if it works to help the self today but if not, just regret the sunk cost and move on.

You are not your work. What you’ve made are the result of choices from the past. You can make better choices tomorrow. Don’t get tied to the past. It’s like admitting you can’t improve or change. Rather, that you will regress.

Go first. Everyone wants to be a critic. It’s safer. Look at the number of people who want to advise entrepreneurs rather than be an entrepreneur.

Have a genre. Pick a genre. Something that gives your audience a clue as to what you are creating. Make it easier for the audience you are creating this for. The genre presents the box you think outside of. How can you be on the edge of something without having a set of constraints to be on the edge of? The genre helps with that.

Plenty of time to make something better later. For now, focus on shipping. Without that, all is meaningless. Build a streak of shipping and maintain that.

Avoid shortcuts but seek out the direct path. They are different.

Don’t wait until you are sure you’re right. That certainty is probably hubris anyway. Make an assertion first. Test it and find out.

The difference between the great and merely good athletes isn’t the number of hours spent training. The researcher Danial Chambliss found what separates them their skill level and attitude. The winners have a different attitude to practice. This attitude can also be formed with the help of a cohort. A group of people who are aiming for similar great heights. Find them with intent. They won’t just come to you. We can’t do it alone. As for skills, they are earned by doing the foundational stuff. Read everything that sets the domain knowledge for your field. That’s the minimum. Creativity rhymes and you need an understanding of the domain knowledge to know this.

The ultimate goal is to be the best at the world at being you. To create useful change. Something idiosyncratic. Something people you wish to serve find useful and will pay for because you are the best in their world.

“If you have to ask ‘should I keep going?’ The answer is ‘yes’” - George Ferrandi