Seth Godin

I’m posting this conversation today because Seth just launched his book, This is Marketing, already a #1 bestseller. As he points out, his marketing is close to what I call leadership: how to influence people, to discover your passion, and such. Helping people change is what this podcast is about.

We recorded this conversation months ago, so you get to hear previews of his book. We talked a lot about marketing, leadership, and the environment.

I saw a new side of Seth in this interview, partly because I was in his home. He met me at the train, coming from his farmers market. We talked about CSAs, volunteering, and such.

I’d seen his TED videos and read a couple of his books but speaking to him about my topics revealed something special. A lot of people teach and coach leadership and management. Some are excellent at it.

Few speak with his experience leading and practicing teaching leading. His experience shines through in everything he says. Listen carefully and you’ll hear him several times anticipate and answer the next question I am about to ask. That anticipation comes from experience — having answered and lived that question before.

I’m touched and motivated by his sensitivity and thanks at the end.

Since this conversation, I reread and rewatched his work in his voice and it came alive more. I’m more interested in persisting and persisting and persisting, working on making ideas spread, and accepting and embracing what he calls hypocrisy. These aren’t new interests, but renewed from hearing his story.

I want to clarify that I’m not doing this podcast to use celebrities to influence. It’s to build community, as I describe after the conversation.

I found him thoroughly genuine and authentic, acting out of passion and caring.

I believe the conversation will help lead you to speak up about what you care about.

Read the transcript.

This short recording is a teaser for my full interview with Seth Godin, who needs no introduction. It begins and ends with messages from Seth, sandwiching my top-level impressions from meeting with him at his home and talking at length.

He talks about his new book, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See, in our conversation so the full recording will come out when the book does, in November.

I prepared by reading Linchpin and Purple Cow, and watching hours of his video and reading dozens maybe hundreds of his blog posts. Then since talking to him, I’ve reread, rewatched, and read Tribes in his voice, and his work came alive beyond my expectations.

Because of hearing him speak on a topic I’ve spoken to others on so much, I found he answered in unique ways, at least ways I hadn’t heard before. Several times I thought he was off track but as he clarified, I realized he was steps ahead of others, anticipating and staving off arguments and excuses.

I learned a lot about leadership and the environment—my topic.

If you haven’t heard Seth on the environment, you’ll love his application of marketing and leadership to it in the full conversation. You’ll learn about leadership, marketing, education, personal growth, and all the things you expect from Seth, but from a new perspective.

Some things I disagreed with or thought he missed, so I’m not blanket or blindly praising him.

He and I connected when he wrote a blurb for my book and he was generous enough to meet me at his home. He met my train on his way back from his farmers market with two full bags of vegetables. We spoke about volunteering, CSAs, and salt-of-the-earth, community supporting things. I saw they letters and cards of gratitude from people he’s helped and how touching and heartfelt they are.

Catch you in November for inside scoops of Seth’s next book, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See.