Podcast appearances and mentions of Seth Godin

Seth Godin returns to explore the problem with going viral, the truth about influencers, why you don't want to play the game of gaining more and more influence online, how status and affiliation drive everything, and why you should avoid the race to the bottom in AI.

After visiting a witch, Jen shares her experience with Pete, and together, they noodle on the power of a reframe.Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about:What is the gift to be found out of some of our hardships?When is a gentler approach important to solve a problem? And a more firm approach?Why is important to seek help or feedback from a trusted mentor or colleague? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Seth Godin, bestselling author of more than 20 books, visionary, friend of the pod and the inventor of email marketing, returns to The Remarkable Retail podcast to discuss his new book, The Knot. Seth reframes the Gordian Knot legend: Alexander didn't cut it, he pulled out the hidden pole at its centre and then untied it. The lesson? Every place we feel stuck has hidden entanglements, and the way through is to name them. Seth explains how wanting two incompatible things at once keeps people and companies frozen, and why struggling retailers are often defending real estate rather than embracing their purpose: creating delight worth more than what customers pay.Drawing on Kodak, Netflix, Blockbuster and Google, he tackles the sunk-cost fallacy with a memorable first-class-to-Dubai analogy, explains how status, affiliation and fear shape boardroom decisions, and offers practical advice for anyone whose boss won't let them change: run small experiments, share the credit, own the blame. Seth also warns that AI is turning every remaining employee into a manager, an identity shift for people trained since childhood to ask for the right answer. His challenge to retail leaders is to trade golf for surfing, tell the truth about where their time actually goes, and get close enough to customers to rediscover the empathy that makes great merchants.Before we get to Seth, Steve Dennis and Michael LeBlanc celebrate Steve's hat trick as an NRF Top Retail Voice, then it's into the tail end of earnings season. Costco is Exhibit A for retail's great concentration, posting net sales up 11.2% and a 9.4% comp, with digitally enabled sales up nearly 20%, though higher fuel prices flatten the numbers by a couple of points. J.C. Penney illustrates the collapse of the unremarkable middle, with sales down 8% and net income cut by more than half. And in a return of the Wobbly Unicorn Corner, Stitch Fix's turnaround looks stalled as active clients slip and weak guidance sinks the shares.We finish with Steve unpacking Adobe's forecast of 6.7% growth in November and December online spending, and why margins, not comps, will be the real holiday story. He also marks the closing of the storied Neiman Marcus downtown Dallas flagship, home of the Zodiac Room, and shares a fun fact: Home Depot is the top-returning S&P 500 stock of the past 45 years. On the radar screen, Steve examines AI's mood swing as data-centre pushback grows and consumer adoption slows. At the same time, Michael looks at the halt of Canadian beer and spirits exports to the U.S., and at U.S.–China retail, from Luckin's rise to Walmart's roughly $30 billion business in China. About UsSteve Dennis is a strategic advisor and keynote speaker focused on growth and innovation, who has also been named one of the world's top retail influencers. He is the bestselling author of two books: Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption and Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior retail contributor and on social media.Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the NRF as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2026 and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Get the 200+ Page Optimal Living Daily Workbook (PDF) - Free. Want to turn today's episode into an actionable plan? Join the Optimal Living Weekly newsletter and I'll send you our 200-page digital workbook immediately. It's packed with the best takeaways from the show, formatted for easy reading and implementation at home. Get your free PDF workbook here: https://oldpodcast.eo.page/join Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com Episode 2188: Seth Godin explains that advertising comes in two incompatible forms: brand ads, which are unmeasurable and pay attention to culture, and direct ads, which are measurable and pay attention to yield. He traces how new media almost always attracts brand marketers first and direct marketers second, and how the pull toward measurable clicks quietly degrades the medium itself. His concern is that as digital marketing becomes the main driver of culture, more media companies are chasing the advertisers least suited to fund it. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://seths.blog/2015/11/direct-marketing-and-the-other-kind/ Quotes to ponder: "Brand marketers don't do math. They pay attention to the culture instead." "Just because you can measure clicks doesn't mean you should." "the media that shapes our culture was not invented for or by direct marketers" Optimal Work Daily is a daily career advice podcast where we narrate the best articles on productivity, entrepreneurship, and work-life balance, read to you by a professional narrator so you can grow your career a little more every day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus Episode with JamieToday I am joined by the incredible Seth Godin. This feels like a real pinch me moment for The Good Glow. Mel Robbins calls Seth her mentor and it's easy to see why. So what's waiting for you in this 30 minutes with one of the world's greatest thinkers? Take a look...... Feeling stuck? Seth Godin says this could be why. Are you working harder and harder but still not getting where you want to go? Wondering whether it's time to quit, make a change or stop caring so much about what other people think? Seth Godin joins Georgie for a powerful conversation about why we get stuck, how to know when to walk away, the trap of chasing more, and why clarity, not courage, might be what you actually need to change your life. This one will make you rethink where your time and energy are going.

Another week, another acronym, as Pete and Jen noodle on the fear of the atrophy of the brain, due to reliance on AI.Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about:How might we limit and monitor our usage of AI?How might we find more joy in the usage of our brain?What is the importance of having a human coach, and relying on peers rather than a robot? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

The Remarkable Retail podcast turns six. Steve Dennis opens with the macro picture: inflation remains stubborn, driven largely by fuel. U.S. diesel just hit an all-time high, regular gas is up 36% year over year, and retailers absorbing higher freight costs say they're nearing their breaking point. Michael LeBlanc adds that diesel is almost perfectly correlated with food inflation, and that Canadian retailers expect fuel surcharges to persist into early 2027.The hosts review the first holiday forecasts. Deloitte projects 4 to 4.8% growth for November through January, with e-commerce up about 8%; Bain sees 4.5% growth and roughly 9% online over November and December. Steve wonders whether high fuel costs could push more shoppers online.At Macy's Inc., Bloomingdale's posted its highest comp ever at 11.3%, while the Macy's nameplate managed just over 1%, in line with Dillard's. Coresight's mid-year data shows store closings down 44% against an unusually heavy prior year, openings at their lowest since 2020, and a widening gap between scarce A-quality space and struggling B, C and D properties. Toys R Us is betting big, planning 120 more small-format U.S. stores before the holidays, though Michael notes the concept stumbled in Canada.The centerpiece: Steve's Pardon the Disruption post arguing that "the race to the doorstep is escalating." With Amazon rolling out sub-same-day delivery in as little as 30 minutes and holding roughly 40% of e-commerce, most retailers can at best match the offering through store fulfillment and gig partners like Instacart and DoorDash, at far worse economics. The smarter play: reach delivery parity where it matters and compete on reasons beyond ultra-convenience. Both hosts agree traditional grocers sit squarely in the bullseye as Amazon moves from the everything store to the everyday store.In earning news Inditex posted a 9% August sales gain, Zara plans 20 new U.S. stores, and sister brand Bershka is expanding fast from Miami to New York, India and Brazil. Kroger's sales were flat and guidance was cut, with retail media (up 24%) the lone bright spot.On the radar screen: Target Beauty Studio replaces Ulta shops in about 600 Target stores, and Michael shares insights from his quarterly retailer conversations on AI's ROI, including a McKinsey finding that change-management costs run roughly three times the technology itself, plus the shock of seat-based bills and exhausted token budgets. About UsSteve Dennis is a strategic advisor and keynote speaker focused on growth and innovation, who has also been named one of the world's top retail influencers. He is the bestselling author of two books: Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption and Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior retail contributor and on social media.Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the NRF as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2026 and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Why do some problems yield to effort while others only tighten into knots? In The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, Seth Godin reveals the invisible assumptions, borrowed scorecards, and sunk costs that keep us stuck. Meanwhile, Amy E. Herman's Fixed: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving turns the artist's process into a practical toolkit: embrace the unfamiliar, ask why, look carefully, and know when to stop tinkering. Together, these books suggest that solving a stubborn problem isn't always about pushing harder. Sometimes it starts with seeing more clearly—and deciding which baggage you can finally put down.

Dealing with price shoppers in the home services industry often feels like an uphill battle, but contractors, plumbers, HVAC techs, and electricians might actually be creating the very behavior they dread. Instead of automatically blaming lost bids on low-ball competitors or assuming homeowners are just tire kickers, service professionals need to examine how their own attitude, demeanor, body language, and option presentation shape the customer's mindset. Drawing on the classic principle of selling how the client wants to be sold to rather than using the golden rule, this episode explores why homeowners really buy—focusing heavily on Seth Godin's philosophy that people purchase relationships, stories, and magic rather than raw goods and services. Listeners will learn how to spot the subtle cues that cause a client to entrench as a price shopper, how to stop making excuses after losing a dispatch, and why checking your ego at the door is the ultimate tool for improving conversion rates. Listen to this episode to discover how to shift your approach in the field, dismantle price objections before they start, and make your value completely incomparable. Presented by Trainual Build a better-trained home service team with Trainual.

Today, we're talking to Seth Godin, author of This Is Strategy. We discuss why strategy is a philosophy of becoming rather than a plan to execute, how status, affiliation, and freedom from fear quietly drive almost every decision people make, and why one of Seth's biggest professional failures came down to having a good idea and then walking away from it. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

Built For Life, Not Just Wealth is the podcast from Ryan Burklo and Alex Collins of Quantified Financial Partners in the Greater Seattle area. Earlier episodes were published as Beer & Money and Holistic Finance. In today's episode of Built For Life, Not Just Wealth, what if the thing blocking your financial progress is just one tiny word? Ryan Burklo reveals why the difference between saying "but" and "and" can expose the real tension behind your money goals - whether you want to build wealth, retire earlier, help your kids, or keep your lifestyle exactly the same. If you've ever felt stuck trying to want two good things at once, this episode gives you a better way to name it. Ryan breaks down how "and" changes the conversation from wishful thinking to honest trade-offs. Instead of forcing yourself to pick one goal too early, you'll learn how to identify competing priorities, test whether both can actually be true, and understand what has to change if they can't.   Check out our website:  https://www.builtforlifenotjustwealth.com/ Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@builtforlifenotjustwealth/ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.quantifiedfinancial.com/subscribe-now Check out our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanburklofinance?igsh=ZTJzN3Jnajd5M2Mw Ryan Burklo's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanburklo/ Alex Collin's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandercollins/ For a quick assessment of your current financial life go to: https://www.livingbalancesheet.com/lbsVision/lite/RyanBurklo     #BuiltForLifeNotJustWealth #goalsetting #financialplanning #lifebalance #SethGodin #mindset #personaldevelopment   Takeaways Using 'and' instead of 'but' reveals competing goals that need reconciliation. Recognizing your 'and' helps create more realistic and achievable plans. Asking three key questions can clarify whether goals are possible and what trade-offs are involved. Understanding the tension between goals can lead to better decision-making. Writing down your conflicting desires makes it easier to address them intentionally.   Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the 'And' Concept 02:02 The Role of Tension in Planning 04:33 Building a Plan for Multiple Goals 05:19 Practical Steps to Clarify Your 'And' 06:13 Key Questions to Ask Yourself 07:03 Final Thoughts and Takeaways  

In this episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, I sit down with Katelyn Bourgoin to unpack what it really takes to become unignorable in today's crowded content landscape. We explore how marketers, creators, consultants, and founders can own an idea, build compound authority, and turn strategic content distribution into long-term brand equity. Key Takeaways and Insights: 1. What It Means to Be UNIGNORABLE - Katelyn explains why great content alone is no longer enough in a saturated market. - The real advantage comes from owning a clear, memorable idea in the minds of your audience. - We break down how repetition, positioning, and trust help brands stand out over time. 2. How to Own an Idea in Your Market - The conversation highlights examples like Cody Sanchez, James Clear, Simon Sinek, and Seth Godin to show how ownable ideas spread. - Katelyn shares the difference between catchy language and the deeper argument underneath it. - Learn why the strongest personal brands are built on revelatory ideas that change how people think. 3. A Practical Framework for Thought Leadership - Katelyn outlines a five-part framework for shaping an ownable idea: aspiration, problem, lens, revelation, and directive. - She emphasizes aligning your message with what your buyers need to hear, not just what you want to say. - This section is especially useful for digital marketers and business owners looking for a repeatable content strategy. 4. AI, Content Creation, and Better Judgment - AI can speed up drafting and ideation support, but it should not replace real learning or strategic thinking. - The key takeaway: use AI to amplify your process, not to shortcut the development of judgment and expertise. 5. Building Authority Through Experience and Consistency - Katelyn shares why credibility matters and why doing the reps often comes before becoming a thought leader.  - We discuss the "messenger effect" and why who says something can matter as much as what is being said. - The episode reinforces a strategic truth: consistent publishing compounds slowly, then pays off in a big way. 6. Entrepreneurship, Resilience, and Finding Your Path - Katelyn opens up about startups, bankruptcy, burnout, and the lessons that shaped her current business model. - She explains why founders need to get honest about what they actually want instead of chasing someone else's version of success. - This part of the conversation offers encouraging guidance for anyone navigating uncertainty, reinvention, or early-stage growth. Resources & Tools:

Seth Godin invented Modern Marketing. He's written over 20 bestselling books, including Purple Cow, which grew from 5,000 copies to a million through word of mouth. In this episode, he explains how to build a brand, not just a business, in the age of AI. Use Granola in your next meeting (for free!): https://www.granola.ai?via=calum Head to https://yt.link/fBQ35H6 to experience Rabanne 1 Million Black today! Subscribe to our newsletter, New Era: https://calumjohnsonshowlinks.lovable.app/ Follow Us! https://x.com/calum_johnson9 https://www.instagram.com/calumjohnson1/?hl=en https://www.sethgodin.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:03 Why your ideas aren't selling 11:13 How to get your DREAM customers to trust you 20:02 How To Win In The New Era of AI (Will AI work for you?) 26:57 How to find a MAGIC business idea 38:39 You can get high-paying clients (do this now!) 46:07 How to never stress about getting more customers 49:19 How to become the TOP brand in your category 01:00:26 You don't need to go viral! 01:07:06 How to get customers to buy again and again 01:19:19 The key to getting referrals 01:22:27 How to build a timeless brand in the age of AI

Most school reform efforts claim to be "research-based." But fewer are genuinely built with the people who have to live inside them every day. Building on some of the themes that I explored with Iwan Syahril on a recent episode, this week we're diving deeper into community-based design. Rather than starting with an expert's blueprint, what happens when innovation starts with the community's own convictions about what its children deserve, and why that starting point often determines whether an idea actually takes root, or just gets installed and then quietly left to atrophy. As a fantastic example of that process working really well, we also discuss the Whole Child Model (https://www.wholechildmodel.org/), born exactly that way and now reaching thousands of students across the US and beyond.Cynthia Robinson-Rivers is a managing partner at Transcend (⁠https://transcendeducation.org/⁠ ) where she supports schools as they adopt the Whole Child Model that she developed while serving as head of school at Van Ness Elementary (DC Public Schools).  Before her return to school leadership, Cynthia worked in the DCPS central office as the Director of Teacher Retention and Recognition.  In that role, she developed projects to improve retention of highly effective teachers, including LIFT: Leadership Initiative for Teachers, a career ladder system for teachers.  Prior to her work on teacher retention, Cynthia directed the DCPS master educator program during the inaugural year of IMPACT, the district's teacher evaluation system.  She holds a B.A. in Communication and Art from Stanford University, M.A. in Education from George Washington University, and EML from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She is a fellow with the first class of the Aspen-Pahara Teacher Leaders Fellowship, a recipient of the Rubenstein Award for highly effective leadership, and a 2020 Boulder Fund grantee. Cynthia and her husband live in Washington, DC with their three children who all attend(ed) DC Public Schools.Dr. Jeff Wetzler is co-founder of Transcend, former Chief Learning Officer of Teach For America, and a two-time author. Jeff's career is dedicated to unlocking human potential by helping people learn more deeply and transform their mindsets to realize bold new possibilities for themselves, their organizations, and their communities.In 2015 Jeff co-founded Transcend, a leading organization for driving innovation in the education sector. Since its founding, Transcend has been one of the fastest growing and most diverse organizations in the field of education innovation, working with hundreds of cutting-edge schools and districts in over thirty U.S. states and a vibrant network of 10,000+ innovators. Under Jeff's leadership as co-CEO until 2024, Transcend raised over $80M of investment. Its resources have been translated in multiple languages and have reached communities worldwide, from Estonia to India to New Zealand. Jeff currently serves as Head of Transcend Labs and is a Board member at Transcend.Prior to Transcend, Jeff served as Chief Learning Officer of Teach for America, one of the nation's largest and most respected social impact organizations. Jeff is a Fellow in the Aspen Global Leadership Network and an Edmund Hillary Fellow.Jeff is the co-author of Extraordinary Learning for All: How Communities Design Schools Where Everyone Thrives, with Aylon Samouha and Jenee Henry Wood, and author of Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs In Leadership and Life. It has been widely endorsed by experts and leaders such as Jim Collins, Adam Grant, Kim Scott, Seth Godin, Bill George, and Amy Edmondson, who wrote the book's foreword.More links:Transcend's conditions framework (last updated 2024)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0Ajp5f49Mhttps://vimeo.com/1171159869/fffdc226a8?fl=tl&fe=echttps://vimeo.com/1157422544/2eb1dcf782?fl=pl&fe=sh

You know exactly what compounding does to money. Why don't we apply it to our habits? Ryan Hawk is the author of

After a recent vacation adventure, Jen shares with Pete an experience of falling on her face, and together they noodle on the advantages of failures.Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about:What makes us return to an activity, after we have failed?How can we set others up for success, even in difficult environments?How might we actually seek out more things to fail at? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Inspired by Pete's mum, Pete and Jen noodle on the qualities of leadership that allow everyone in the room to succeed, whether in the back of a car, on a stage, or in an office.Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about:What are the correlations between parenting and leadership?How might you lead by example, as opposed to with words?In what way is behavior and energy contagious to a full team? And how might we consider that in the approach to our work? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

I'm honoured to welcome Jennifer Bicknell to The Debra Shepherd Podcast this week. Most workplace disputes do not start with a legal problem. They start with a conversation someone avoided. Jennifer Bicknell is an employment lawyer who helps businesses fix both. Through Bicknell Law & Consulting she provides practical workplace advice, employment contracts, policies and Fair Work guidance, plus a steady hand when things get messy. Jen also runs Confident Conversations workshops, teaching owners and managers how to plan for and have the hard conversations, so small issues stay small. Jen has practised law for more than thirty years, most of it dealing with disputes, so she has seen exactly how they start and how to stop them. Her goal is to make herself redundant, by giving clients the confidence and tools to handle workplace challenges themselves. In this episode, Jen shares her story. We talk about how to manage difficult conversations with empathy. HIGHLIGHTS  Jen shares what creating a meaningful life and a meaningful business means to her. What attracted Jen to law and how Seth Godin led her to do something different. The risks that can arise if you avoid a difficult or hard conversation in the workplace. The most common difficult conversations leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs leave too long, and what can happen as a result.  The five key ingredients of every effective conversation. Jen's top three tips for managing difficult conversations. Plus, more! SHOW NOTES Get all episode show notes here:   www.debrashepherd.com.au/debra-shepherd-podcast     CONNECT WITH JEN www.jenniferbicknell.com.au Instagram @BicknellLaw Connect with Jen on LinkedIn. Jen's Workplace News   CONNECT WITH DEBRA Instagram @_DebraShepherd Learn more about Human Design and Coaching opportunities with Debra here.    

Taking inspiration from the Disney Map, Jen and Pete noodle on what their own mind maps might look like, and how they might be created in the first place. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What is the Disney Map? How might seemingly disparate projects actually be related? What does the 30,000 foot map look like for Pete and Jen? And what about the sea level map? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

After a trip down memory lane this week, Jen noodles with Pete on the ways in which we reflect, and how we might learn from our past self.  Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What are different tactics for reflecting on the past? Why is it important to notice the repetitions in the problems we face? How might we look to the past for evidence or help with where we are now?   More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

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This episode aired originally on October 21, 2024.Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and one of the most influential thinkers in marketing and leadership, joins the show. He discusses his latest book, This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans, and how to create more meaningful and effective strategies in all areas of life, from career growth and personal development to financial success.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Description:This is a From the Archive episode with Seth Godin.Seth Godin returns to the show for a conversation about making work that matters in a world obsessed with hits, rankings, followers, algorithms, and approval.James opens by talking about Seth's long body of work: Purple Cow, Linchpin, Graceful, thousands of blog posts, and Seth's then-new podcast Akimbo. Seth explains why he had thought about podcasting for years but resisted it because audio creates a different kind of intimacy. In print, the voice in the reader's head is the reader's own voice. In audio, the voice belongs to the person speaking.That intimacy made podcasting powerful, but also something Seth wanted to handle carefully.From there, James asks about the structure of Akimbo. Seth says the key to a strong solo format is assertion. What are you saying that is not obvious? What are you asking people to see differently? If you cannot make the point in 15 minutes, maybe you cannot make it at all.The conversation then moves into hits. Seth explains that platforms benefit from the long tail, but creators can suffer inside it. Amazon, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms need endless creators to show up with work, but they also train people to believe that if they do not hit number one, they failed.Seth's alternative is the smallest viable audience. Find the specific group you seek to serve. If it is 500 people, make something so good for those 500 people that they cannot help but tell someone else. That is more useful than chasing a vague mass audience or gaming a category so you can call yourself a bestseller.James and Seth connect this to Purple Cow. The book spread because Seth gave people a phrase they could use in a meeting. A “purple cow” became a way to describe something remarkable before people necessarily knew where the phrase came from.That is a key idea in the episode: every hit changes the people it touches. It does not simply entertain. It gives people a new belief, a new language, or a new way to see.Seth also explains the deeper forces under a lot of culture: fear and status. Fear keeps people from doing work that might not work. Status makes people compare themselves to the wrong people and measure the wrong things. The creator's job is to notice both, then act generously anyway.The episode closes with the craft itself. Seth says he does not check blog stats, does not read Amazon reviews, and does not shape his work around critics. The question is simpler: Did you change someone for the better in a way you are proud of?If yes, do it again.Editorial Note:This is a From the Archive episode. References to Akimbo as a newer podcast, This Is Marketing as an upcoming book, the altMBA, platform dynamics, bestseller lists, podcasting, and Seth's then-current projects reflect the original recording period.What You'll Learn:Why Seth Godin resisted podcasting for years.How audio creates a different kind of intimacy than writing.Why a solo podcast needs a clear assertion.Why Seth focuses on overlooked, underthought, ignored, or uncomfortable ideas.Why platforms benefit from the long tail more than most creators do.Why chasing hits can distort the work.What Seth means by the “smallest viable audience.”Why a hit has to change people, not just entertain them.How Purple Cow spread by giving people useful language.Why trying to avoid criticism often makes work invisible.How fear and status shape culture, creativity, marketing, and self-worth.Why random events should not be taken personally.Why generosity requires emotional labor.What it means to choose your customers and choose your future.Why second-order teaching matters more to Seth than personal credit.Why being “amazing” starts long before the hustle.Why the best work lives in the territory of “this might not work.”Why Seth does not read reviews or track stats.How to protect the craft from outside measurement.Timestamped Chapters:[03:19] Seth Godin ReturnsJames welcomes Seth back and introduces his books, blog, and new podcast Akimbo.[05:15] Why Seth Started a PodcastSeth explains that he had thought about podcasting for years, but worried about the intimacy of audio.[07:05] Choosing the Right MediumSeth explains why a podcast reaches people differently than writing and why he avoids formats, like Twitter, that do not fit the work he wants to do.[08:17] The Solo Podcast FormatJames asks about Seth being the only guest on Akimbo, and Seth says a solo show needs a strong assertion.[09:24] Overlooked, Underthought, and Hard to ConfrontSeth distinguishes his style from pure contrarianism and says he is drawn to things people have missed or avoided.[10:47] Hitsville and the Long TailJames brings up Seth's Akimbo episode on hits, platforms, Amazon, podcasts, and the explosion of available work.[12:21] The Trap of Platform ThinkingSeth explains how platforms train creators to feel defective if they do not become number one.[13:25] Editors Cannot Pick the HitsSeth argues that people cannot reliably predict hits and that creators should not try to game their way to the top.[15:00] The Smallest Viable AudienceSeth explains why serving a specific small group can be more powerful than chasing the masses.[16:21] This Might Not WorkJames brings up Seth's large limited-edition book and how it was built for a specific audience instead of the broad market.[17:26] Why You Cannot Reverse-Engineer Gangnam StyleSeth explains why many talented people try hard and still do not hit, because hits also involve randomness.[19:14] Don't Bet Your Work on Oprah or BieberSeth explains why waiting for a powerful person to anoint your work is a bad strategy.[20:13] Finding the People Who Must Share ItSeth uses the idea of R naught to explain why a small group of people who must tell others can create spread.[20:35] Why Purple Cow SpreadSeth explains how the milk carton, the title, and the phrase itself helped people talk about the idea.[22:26] Every Hit Makes a Change HappenSeth says the real question is: What change are you trying to make in the people who engage with your work?[23:35] What Akimbo Is Trying to ChangeSeth explains that Akimbo is for people who want to think more deeply about culture and change it for the better.[25:14] Randomness, Fear, and StatusJames connects Seth's episodes, and Seth explains that much of his work is about fear and status.[27:13] Don't Take Randomness PersonallySeth says creators should expect that many launches will not become hits and organize their work accordingly.[28:33] The Craft vs. the Outside WorldJames and Seth discuss how publishers, reviewers, bestseller lists, rankings, and critics can distract from the actual work.[29:21] It's Not for YouSeth explains why broadening a project for everyone can make it average, and why creators should be willing to say who the work is for.[32:29] What Will You Do With the Microphone?Seth says he wakes up thinking about the people he seeks to serve, not how to increase traffic or revenue.[33:30] Why Seth Ignores Stats and ReviewsSeth explains that he does not check blog traffic, book sales, or Amazon reviews because that helps him keep doing the work.[34:43] Choose Your Customers, Choose Your FutureSeth gives the six-word version of audience selection and explains why customers shape the work.[35:04] Thirsty, Dissatisfied, and GenerousSeth describes his ideal audience and explains generosity as emotional labor in service of other people.[37:22] Second-Order TeachingSeth says he wants to be judged not by his work, but by what people who learned from him teach others.[38:18] Be the Person They Want to FindSeth explains why the real work happens before SEO, LinkedIn tactics, or hustle.[40:02] How Do You Become Amazing?James asks the direct question, and Seth says the essence is confronting fear and doing emotional labor.[41:00] Where Art and Innovation LiveSeth says the work that might not work is where generosity, art, innovation, and magic happen.[42:05] Warby Parker and the Risk of Something NewSeth uses Warby Parker as an example of doing something advisors said would not work.[42:49] How Seth Builds an EpisodeSeth explains how a coincidence becomes a podcast: collect stories, find the non-obvious insight, and connect the dots.[45:07] Seth the CollectorSeth describes himself as someone who collects moments, stories, and observations that may become blog posts or lessons.[46:34] Self-Awareness and the CraftJames connects Seth's work to the ability to keep distance between your belief in the craft and society's measurements.[47:04] Jiro, Awards, and the Wrong RewardSeth talks about Jiro Dreams of Sushi and the danger of external validation taking over the craft.[48:40] Marriage, Space, and StoriesJames asks Seth about marriage, and Seth talks about listening, keeping promises, creating space, and the stories people tell themselves.[52:18] Advice for James's PodcastJames asks how to change the show, and Seth suggests making one out of every four episodes a solo episode.[53:08] This Is Marketing and Closing ThoughtsSeth says his next book is This Is Marketing, James recommends Akimbo, and Seth signs off by telling him to keep making a ruckus.Additional Resources:Seth Godin Official WebsiteSeth's BlogAkimboAkimbo on Apple PodcastsThis Is Marketing — Penguin Random HousePurple Cow — Seth's StorePurple Cow — Penguin Random HouseLinchpin — Penguin Random HouseThe Dip — Penguin Random HouseThe Practice — Penguin Random HouseBy the Way BakerySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

→ If you want to learn more about building a digital business, DM me the word ‘Method' on Instagram @JasmineStar. ←↓Why do some businesses stick in your mind while others get lost in the noise?In this episode, I'm breaking down the three elements of great marketing: it's memorable, different, and unforgettable.I'll share the lessons I've learned over 17 years of building businesses online—from starting as a photographer with no camera to creating digital products that generated millions in revenue. You'll hear how a simple PDF became my first six-figure digital offer, why clarity beats complexity, and how to create content people actually remember.We'll dive into: • The difference between having a business online and building an online business • Why memorable marketing gets shared • How to stand out without copying trends • The secret to creating loyal customers through emotional connectionBecause the businesses that win aren't always the loudest—they're the ones people remember.If you want your marketing to create attention, curiosity, and loyalty, this episode is for you.Click play to hear all of this and:[00:00] How the three pillars of marketing shape every successful brand.[01:06] Why this distinction changed the trajectory of my career.[03:46] The accidental digital product that opened my eyes to passive revenue.[05:34] How specialization became my greatest advantage.[06:29] The lessons I learned while feeling completely out of place.[12:28] Why clarity beats complexity every time.[19:22] How audience research creates messaging that converts.[20:26] Why feelings, not facts, create long-term loyalty.Listen to Related Episodes:The Top 5 Marketing Trends You Can't Ignore in 2026Old School Marketing Tactics, New School ResultsBig Business Growth: Strategy Marketing with Seth Godin (a.k.a. Willy Wonka)For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode647

This week, Pete shares with Jen some lessons he has learned from his swimming coach, on how to measure progress...by stopping the measuring. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: Why might our existing tools actually hinder our forward momentum? Where might we be able to rely on ourselves more, rather than searching for external validation?  Why is it important to go slow, in order to go fast?   More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't your circumstances—it's your buts?“I want to get in shape, but I'm too busy.”“I want to get out of debt, but I still want to eat out.”“I want to make more money, but I don't want to do all that extra work.”In this episode, I unpack an idea from Seth Godin that I love: you can either live with your buts and accept the consequences, or turn those buts into ands.“I want to lose weight, and I understand I'll have to track my calories and get up earlier.”“I want to be debt-free, and I understand I'll have to give some things up.”The “and” is the price you're willing to pay for the life you say you want.Your buts keep you negotiating with yourself. Your ands reinforce the commitment. And while the discomfort of changing can feel heavy at first, it's temporary. Regret can last decades.You don't have to change your entire life today. Make the shift, pay today's dues, and keep moving.Which one are you going to live with: and or but?TEXT ME!Support the show

Still posting and still invisible? Here's the real marketing vs advertising for realtors truth, and it's the reason agents either notice you or scroll right past you.For years I confused the two. I thought if I just posted more listings, more personal wins, more "look at me" content, agents would eventually reach out. They didn't. Then I found the framework that changed everything, and it's the same reason I went from a brand new agent to $13K in my first year and now get 15 to 25 unsolicited agent contacts a year without sending a single cold DM.In this breakdown I'm walking through:✅ Why most of your content accidentally makes you the hero instead of the guide, and why agents can feel it instantly✅ Permission marketing explained the way Seth Godin actually meant it, not the watered down version most agents teach each other✅ The exact content strategy for real estate agents that took me to a Top 36 company ranking without gimmicks✅ How real estate lead generation with content actually works once you stop chasing and start earning attention✅ Donald Miller StoryBrand explained in plain agent language, no marketing degree required✅ The full EXP realty attraction strategy behind why agents find me instead of me finding them✅ Exactly how to recruit real estate agents with content without sending another cold message✅ Why StoryBrand for real estate agents works even if you've never read the bookIf you're trying to figure out how to grow a real estate youtube channel or any platform without begging for attention, this framework is what fixed it for me. It's the exact marketing vs advertising for realtors shift that changed how agents see me, and it will change how they see you too.

The career path you were sold is on life support. AI is taking the entry level reps that used to build judgment, and the leaders caught in the middle are the ones who have to answer for it. This one is an audible. A listener wrote in after the last episode and pushed back on Dr. Chris McAlister: if wisdom takes time, experience, and scars, how does a generation get those reps when AI can already do the work? Chris and co-host Mark Stanifer set the notes aside and stay in that tension. Why yesterday's skills go the way of farming. Why the one rep that still matters is noticing your own thinking. Where Chris disagrees with Seth Godin about how few people you can get away with. And the simple one, two, three a leader can bring to their team this week, without pretending to have the answers. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:42 The book, and where we are in the series 1:50 A listener calls a curveball 3:15 You cannot get wisdom without the reps 4:00 His daughter, and the AI that pushes back 6:27 The rep that still matters: noticing your own thinking 7:44 My farming wisdom is worthless now 11:31 The harder question: the team looking to you 17:40 The career, the path, the degree: there is just no way 18:27 AI music, Seth Godin, and the wrong question 20:26 Chris pushes back: efficiency is part of the job 22:06 What a great institution is actually for 23:18 Marketing 101 to CMO: the ladder is gone 24:05 The one, two, three to tell your team 28:40 Send us your question Have a question you want Chris to take on? Send it to connect@sightshift.com or leave it in the YouTube comments. Take the Identity Fear Quotient® (IFQ®), four questions in about 15 minutes, to see the fear that quietly drives how you show up under pressure: https://www.taketheifq.com Get into the SightShift ecosystem at https://www.sightshift.com Find the book, The 3% Shift: The Human Edge in the Age of AI, at https://www.threepercentshift.com

What is the change you seek to make?On today's episode we go back to the Finding Mastery Vault for a conversation with Seth Godin, author, entrepreneur, teacher, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time on leadership, creativity, and making meaningful change. Seth has written more than twenty international bestsellers, including The Dip, Purple Cow, and The Song of Significance, alongside one of the longest-running daily blogs in the world. His claim is that naming the change you're actually trying to make is more than a branding exercise. It's what helps make every downstream decision clearer… what to commit to, what to quit, whose opinion to take seriously, and who you will have to become to pull it off. We first released this one a few years ago, and since then the world has only gotten noisier, faster and more demanding of change, which is exactly why we felt it was worth bringing back.In this episode, you'll learn:What Seth means by the change you seek to make, and why it clarifies everything downstreamLeadership as a voluntary act, and why enrollment and inspiration come before authorityWhy consistency is what makes you trustworthy enough to lead change at allHow to tell a dead end from the dip when you're deciding whether to quitWhose judgment has actually earned the right to shape your workWho to go to for reassurance, and who to go to for insightIf you have ever felt your choices quietly bending toward the approval of people who have not earned it, this conversation offers you a perspective you need to hear. Links & ResourcesSeth Godin Photo Credit: Brian BloomFor More on Seth, go to https://www.sethgodin.com/ Seth Godin's Books: The Dip, Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, This Is Marketing, The Practice, and The Song of Significance. His newest book, The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, is set to be released in September 2026.Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

My new book, Own Or Be Owned, is all about building a business so good it doesn't need you. More profit, less pain. It's out September 18, grab your ticket to the launch event here: https://contrarianthinking.biz/oobo_bigdeal - cs And one more thing for the business owners: stop making million dollar decisions alone! Join the Contrarian Growth Boardroom and get a board of advisors to help with every decision: https://contrarianthinking.biz/bdbr The only thing between you and the life you want is the story you've been telling yourself. Seth Godin is one of the most influential thinkers of our time and the author of 21 bestselling books, including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and The Dip. He survived 800 rejection letters in a single year, has published a blog post every day for 26 years, and has spent decades helping people escape mediocrity. In this episode, he shares the frameworks for getting unstuck, why the best winners know when to quit, and how to untangle the invisible beliefs holding you back. In this episode, you'll learn: The four horsemen of mediocrity: deniability, helplessness, contempt, and fear, and the habits that quietly keep you stuck How Seth turned 800 rejection letters into a competitive advantage by offering value instead of asking for favors Why the best work is made for people who care, not everyone The Jackson Pollock trap, why wanting two conflicting things keeps you stuck, and how to escape it Why great leaders seek responsibility instead of authority, and how to lead yourself first ___________ (00:00:00) Introduction: Why Most People Choose Mediocrity Over Meaning (00:00:55) The Craft Ethic: 26 Years of Daily Blog Posts and Why Habits Beat Willpower (00:03:55) Strategic Quitting: Winners Are Quitters When It Matters (00:05:43) 800 Rejection Letters in One Year: The Truth About Rejection and Iteration (00:09:38) Feedback Loops Are Everything: Stop Measuring What Mark Zuckerberg Wants (00:12:11) High School Is the Indoctrination: How to Tell If Your Desires Are Actually Yours (00:13:49) Thank You, It's Not For You: The Power of Ignoring the Wrong People (00:14:37) Personal Statements Over Mission Statements: Define Your One Thing (00:16:20) The Seven-Year-Old Bully Story: How to Insulate Yourself From Criticism (00:18:48) The Four Horsemen of Mediocrity: Deniability, Helplessness, Contempt, and Fear (00:23:00) Work That Matters for People Who Care: The Mantra That Cures Mediocrity (00:25:03) The Industrial Age Brought Compliance and Compliance Brought Fear (00:27:04) Managers Use Authority, Leaders Inspire Enrollment: Know the Difference (00:29:08) Lead Yourself First: How to Get Yourself to Change Your Mind (00:31:59) Optimism Is a Tool, Not a Personality: Put On the Right Hat at the Right Time (00:33:40) The Conspiracy of Stuck: Short-Term Conflict Avoidance and Misunderstanding Risk (00:37:56) You Can't Spell Rich Without Risk: The 18 Dollar Garage Sale Test (00:39:13) If No One Comes, No One Will Know: Seth's Mom and the Museum Story (00:41:44) Jackson Pollock and the And Versus But Trap: Why Success Can Break You (00:44:19) Create Things Just For You or You'll End Up Like Pollock (00:48:14) The Smallest Viable Audience: 24 Seats, Filipino Pop Songs, and Enough (00:51:13) Entanglements Feel Like Facts But They're Just Invisible Traps (00:52:31) Tell the Truth and Entanglements Wither: The Three Words That Set You Free (00:54:01) Writer's Block Is a Myth and Resistance Is Everywhere: Steve Pressfield's Gift (00:55:27) The Red Wine Story: You Just Don't Have a Big Enough Why (00:57:05) Comfortable Is Another Word for Stuck: Build New Habits, Not Willpower (00:58:54) I Am Playing the Role of Seth Godin: The Yellow Glasses Come Off (01:00:41) Set Up a Life You Don't Need to Escape From: The Alexander the Great Parable (01:03:07) The Four AM Hotel Lobby: Look at Those Poor Schmoes Escaping Their Lives (01:04:45) Problems Can Be Solved, Situations Cannot: The Final Word on Getting Unstuck ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL

After submitting many proposals between the two of them, Pete and Jen noodle on their proposal writing process, and how they might help their clients to write their own. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What are the three key questions to answer when writing a proposal? How might you identify the core problem that your proposal is meant to solve? Why is it important to consider who will be reading the proposal you submit?   More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Ki rendeli a pizzát? Ki kívánja meg a dobostortát? Ki hozza a döntéseket bennünk? Ebből az adásból kiderül, hogy erre a kérdésre már nem lehet rávágni azt, hogy a főnök a fejünkben ül: Kékesi Balázs filozófus, akit sokan Bauxitként ismernek a Bëlga zenekarból, legalábbis arra világít rá, hogy más-más módon, de ma már több tudományterület is megfogalmazza, hogy olykor egy egész bizottság vagy ha úgy tetszik, egy egész erdő dönt helyettünk. Vagyis ebben az epizódban Kékesi Balázzsal beszélgetek kognitív nyelvészetről, durva vagy csak elemzésre sarkalló dalszövegekről, a szokások hatalmáról, a kilencvenes évek buddhista főiskolájáról, kényszerképzetekről és megszabadulásról, az életről meg mindenről.

SparkPlus: https://sparkplus.today你有沒有一件事，堅持了很久，卻開始懷疑自己是否在浪費時間？Seth Godin 的《低谷》（The Dip）給出了一個顛覆性的答案：真正成功的人，不是什麼都堅持，而是懂得在對的時間放棄。這本書提出了一個核心框架，幫助我們分辨三種狀態：

*Original Airdate: November '24 Upgrade to the Ad Free Premium Podcast Experience - https://rachelhollis.supercast.com Get your copy of Rachel's Book Here: Audible, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Millon, Bookshop.org, or wherever books are sold! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices In this Friday Favorites episode of The Rachel Hollis Podcast, Rachel sits down with bestselling author Seth Godin for a wide-ranging conversation about strategy, entrepreneurship, and building meaningful work. Seth challenges listeners to stop chasing everyone's approval, focus on serving a specific audience, charge what their work is worth, and create value by becoming indispensable rather than interchangeable. Together, they explore why success comes from making intentional choices, embracing the discomfort of growth, detaching from outcomes you can't control, and consistently creating work that is generous, remarkable, and true to the people it's meant to serve. *Friday Favorites are a collection of our all-time most popular episodes replayed for the newest members of the community and anyone who wants a relisten. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special compilation devoted to a subject very close to my heart and currently consuming a large percentage of my waking hours: writing. Over the years, I've asked some of the writers I admire most questions like: How do you choose a project and stay with it? How do you begin when inspiration refuses to show up? How do you build a practice that reliably produces pages? And how do you keep going when you fear your pages are terrible? Listen in to some of my favorite authors answer these and other questions. Please enjoy this special compilation on the craft of writing.This episode is brought to you by:ProLon science-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while still eating nourishing mealsAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplementTimestamps:00:00 — Introduction01:52 — Elizabeth Gilbert: Choosing and committing to a project06:25 — Anne Lamott: Shitty first drafts and taking it bird by bird13:04 — Joyce Carol Oates: Don't wait for inspiration15:47 — Jerry Seinfeld: Building a writing system26:27 — Mary Karr: Revision and throwing out 1,200 pages35:08 — Brandon Sanderson: Consistency, word counts, and output45:04 — Seth Godin: Fear of bad writingElizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love; Big Magic; and City of Girls. Her ten books have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. Anne Lamott is the author of 20 books, including Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, and Help, Thanks, Wow, and co-author—with her husband Neal Allen—of Good Writing.Joyce Carol Oates has written more than 70 books, including Blonde and We Were the Mulvaneys, and won the National Book Award for her novel them.Jerry Seinfeld co-created and starred in the sitcom Seinfeld—which ran nine seasons and won 10 Emmys—and later created Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and wrote Is This Anything? Mary Karr wrote the bestselling memoirs The Liars' Club, Cherry, and Lit and her book on writing, The Art of Memoir. Brandon Sanderson created the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series, completed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, and raised more than $41 million on Kickstarter for four secret novels. Seth Godin has written 21 bestsellers published in 40 languages—including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and The Practice—and a daily blog of more than 10,000 posts. *For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Pete brings his sighs and his aha moments around grown up sh*t to Jen, and they unpack it all together. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: Why is adulting so hard sometimes? What tactics might we utilize to navigate difficult situations and conversations? How might we think about finding solutions and take ownership of the problems we encounter?   More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Paul returns from three days at the Garrett Planning Network retreat with a lesson that has almost nothing to do with investments — and everything to do with getting your money's worth from professional advice.Garrett advisors work by the hour, a business model Paul believes eliminates the conflicts of interest built into assets-under-management relationships. For $1,000 to $8,000, he's convinced most families can get extraordinary value from five to ten hours with a thoughtful, trained hourly planner. But there's a catch: the value of those hours depends almost entirely on your willingness to tell the truth. Inspired by a Seth Godin observation — people lie in focus groups, on surveys, and to themselves — Paul explains why the most valuable planning meeting isn't the one where you look financially successful. It's the one where you're completely honest. Paul and his wife are putting this to the test with an hourly planner of their own, and he'll report back in the weeks ahead.Next, Paul shares a private conversation with his longtime friend Rick Ferri, who challenged an idea Paul has taught for decades: that small cap value, large cap value, and international are equity asset classes at all. Rick argues there's only one equity asset class — the total market — and everything else is a segment or style. Paul takes the challenge seriously, does some digging, and explains why the answer matters far more than a debate over definitions. How you think about asset classes shapes the portfolio you'll live with for the next 60 or 70 years.Finally, Paul digs into AVGE, the Avantis globally diversified all-equity ETF, and how it compares to Vanguard's total market approach (VT and VTI). He walks through the meaningful differences: 70/30 U.S./international at Avantis versus 60/40 at Vanguard, and substantially larger positions in mid cap value, small cap value, and small cap blend. He looks at what those tilts have meant historically — including Vanguard's own mid cap value fund turning $10,000 into roughly $160,000 versus $102,000 for the S&P 500 — and why he believes the extra 0.17% in expenses may be money well spent. For investors who don't want to go all-in, Paul offers simple combinations, like a third VT, a third AVGE, and a third AVUV.CHAPTERS00:00 – Introduction: three topics from the Garrett retreat01:56 – Why hourly advisors have fewer conflicts of interest05:52 – The catch: your willingness to tell the truth06:38 – Seth Godin: "People lie... and they lie to themselves"08:04 – What planners can't fix if they don't know about it13:00 – Paul's debate with Rick Ferri: what is an equity asset class?18:05 – Why the definition shapes your lifetime portfolio21:34 – AVGE vs. VT: U.S./international balance23:07 – Comparing value, blend, and growth exposure25:00 – Mid cap and small cap: what history shows30:15 – Expense ratios and what you're paying for31:35 – Simple combinations: VT + AVGE + AVUV33:15 – Stay the course: closing thoughtsLearn more about the Garrett Planning Network

What are the skills AI will never replace and are you building your practice around them? In this episode of the IRH Clinician's Corner, Margaret Floyd Barry is joined by JJ Virgin for a conversation packed with insights for functional health practitioners looking to stand out and thrive in a rapidly changing world. From navigating the rise of AI and what it really means for health professionals, to doubling down on the irreplaceable human superpowers of coaching, discernment, and connection—this episode is all about finding your unique voice and impact in an increasingly crowded market.  JJ and Margaret break down actionable strategies for building trust, sharing vulnerability, and leveraging community, plus they offer a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming, game-changing Mindshare Summit. Inside this episode, we explore: Why AI makes human connection, coaching, and discernment more valuable than ever The new practitioner superpowers that technology can't replicate How to become "niche famous" instead of chasing a massive audience The trusted authority framework for standing out in an AI-driven marketplace Why your contrarian conviction may be your greatest marketing advantage How vulnerability, proof, and real client stories build trust that AI-generated content never will The Clinician's Corner is brought to you by the Institute of Restorative Health: https://instituteofrestorativehealth.com/ Connect with IRH: Upcoming Event: PCOS has a new official name: Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome. The science isn't new. Functional practitioners have understood the metabolic and hormonal complexity of these cases for years. The name just finally says so. On August 12th, Margaret Floyd Barry and Sara Fields are hosting a free live session on what this means for your practice. What shifts in how you assess and talk with female clients. What stays the same. Live Q&A at the end. Free. 60 minutes. Register here! Follow us on IG: https://www.instagram.com/instituteofrestorativehealth/ Join our email list here: https://instituteofrestorativehealth.com/join-our-email-list/ Connect with JJ Virgin: Website: http://www.thehbgc.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthbusinessgrowthcollective/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindsharecollaborative *Get your ticket now for JJ's last and best Mindshare Summit! Go to: https://tinyurl.com/thehbgc and use the code MARGARET500 to get $500 off Want to enter to get a FREE ticket to mindshare? Complete this Business Audit and email us yours at info@instituteofrestorativehealth.com and have a chance to be selected to win! Timestamps: 00:00 Podcast introduction and guest introduction 09:48 Hiring a coach for recovery 14:10 Navigating content marketing challenges 20:40 Storytelling advice with Lisa Nichols 23:20 Crafting a personal story for talks 29:29 PCOS name change discussion 33:09 Finding Your Unique Voice 38:49 Learning from case studies 44:05 Building a personal brand 51:54 Starting the RWS Mindshare 55:22 Transitioning Mindshare Event Model 59:27 Networking and business growth stories Guest bio:  JJ Virgin is a triple-board-certified nutrition expert, Fitness Hall of Famer, and 4-time New York Times bestselling author. JJ is a globally respected pioneer in health, business, and high-performance aging. She's the Chair of A4M's Profitable Practice Blueprint, Chief Metabolic Health Officer for Lindora Metabolic Health and Wellness, as well as the Nutrition & Fitness Speaker for Tony Robbins (Life Mastery and Unleash The Power), and the Founder of the Health Business Growth Collective (the most influential community of health entrepreneurs). She's also on the Advisory Board for the Integrative Healthcare Symposium and the host of the top-rated podcast Well Beyond 40, with over 22 million downloads, and has shared the stage with icons like Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dr. Mark Hyman, and more. Get ready to talk about mindset, metabolism, muscle, and how to age powerfully—this is going to be great! Keywords: functional health practitioners, clinical skills, chronic disease reversal, AI in healthcare, health business growth, Health Business Growth Collective, practitioner marketing, practitioner differentiation, niche branding, community building, client accountability, implementation strategies, practitioner vulnerability, storytelling in marketing, emotional intelligence, superpowers for health professionals, AI vs human connection, practitioner testimonials, building trust with clients, authoritative branding, overcoming failure, business mentorship, practice growth strategies, collaboration vs competition, personal branding, social media marketing, content creation, Mindshare Summit, scaling health businesses, practitioner success stories Disclaimer: The views expressed in the IRH Clinician's Corner series are those of the individual speakers and interviewees, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of Restorative Health, LLC. The Institute of Restorative Health, LLC does not specifically endorse or approve of any of the information or opinions expressed in the IRH Clinician's Corner series. The information and opinions expressed in the IRH Clinician's Corner series are for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. If you have any medical concerns, please consult with a qualified healthcare professional. The Institute of Restorative Health, LLC is not liable for any damages or injuries that may result from the use of the information or opinions expressed in the IRH Clinician's Corner series. By viewing or listening to this information, you agree to hold the Institute of Restorative Health, LLC harmless from any and all claims, demands, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with your participation. Thank you for your understanding.  

Author Casper ter Kuile on transforming everyday writing into a sacred ritual, drawing on rest and reflection to fuel creativity, and moving past self-doubt to write as a gift for others. You'll learn Why the point of the work week might be the rest, not the other way around. How to turn an ordinary daily habit into a ritual using three simple ingredients. What a weekly tech sabbath can unlock in your most creative thinking. The reframe that turns a dreadful first draft into something you can build on. A piece of advice from a mentor that dissolves the pressure to say something new. How reading writers you love can quietly refill the tank when you're stuck. Why treating your writing as a gift changes the way you handle criticism. The practice for staying humble and kind toward yourself in equal measure. What sacred reading traditions can teach you about going deeper into any text. Why the smallest groups, not the biggest audiences, are where meaning actually forms. Resources & Links Casper ter Kuile's website The Power of Ritual by Casper ter Kuile The Nearness Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (podcast) Sacred Design Lab "How We Gather" report The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel Seth Godin About Casper ter Kuile Casper ter Kuile is the author of The Power of Ritual and the co-founder of The Nearness: a space to explore life's big questions with like-hearted others. Casper holds Masters in Public Policy and Divinity from Harvard University, is the former cohost of popular podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, and loves harmony singing, the London Review of Books, and arriving at the pub after a long country walk. He lives with his husband in Brooklyn, NY. For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.For free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com.*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

How can building an audience in advance help your stories reach the people who make movies? And how can you prove there's demand for your book or screenplay before you've written it? Brooks Elms shares his advice after more than 20 years as a WGA screenwriter. In the intro, what doesn't work for book marketing and what does [Amy Chan SubStack; Unsingle; Rephonic]; Goodreads giveaway for Bones of the Deep; FutureVision XPrize. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Brooks Elms is a WGA screenwriter with over 45 scripts, over a dozen sales, and he has directed two indie features. He is the creator of the Answer the Call system and has trained over 1,000 writers. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How to see the opportunity in AI when others only see the threat How to test a story with samples, and what a 16-second movie can do Building the trailer before you write the screenplay Letting your audience finance the film once they have validated the idea Why Hollywood still wants existing IP, and what makes them pay attention Feeling safe enough to write the truth, and finding a concrete path forward You can find Brooks on LinkedIn or email him at brooks@brookselms.com. Transcript of the interview with Brooks Elms Jo: Brooks Elms is a WGA screenwriter with over 45 scripts, over a dozen sales, and he has directed two indie features. He is the creator of the Answer the Call system and has trained over 1,000 writers. So welcome to the show, Brooks. Brooks: Thank you. It's awesome to be here. Jo: Fantastic. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into screenwriting. Brooks: I started filmmaking first. A buddy came up to me in high school and said, “Hey, we're making a karate movie, do you want to help us?” I was like, “Oh my God, yes, that sounds amazing.” So next thing I know, I had this karate outfit on, and we were just making this completely ridiculous and totally fun movie, and it was amazing. It was so fun. Then it went to a whole other level when we shared it with a friend, this guy Jay Sharon, and he watched the movie and he laughed so hard he literally fell out of his chair. I was like, “Oh my God,” the fun I had making it could actually transfer to somebody else. I was hooked. So from there I went to NYU film school, and then made a few independent feature films which were good but not great in terms of how they were received. They were great for me in terms of enjoyment, but I knew I needed to iterate faster at that point. So then I was like, “Well, it's expensive and it takes a long time to make a movie,” at least back then. So I pivoted to screenwriting, and pumped out two, three scripts a year, got signed at UTA, got writing assignments, and basically launched a screenwriting career. Then I still tried to get some stuff going, but it's hard when movies are so expensive. It's not hard, it's just that it takes a lot of precision in the marketing, and a lot of conversations to find the right matches to finance something, and you're either interested in doing that or you're not. I just was like, “Well, I'll just mostly write screenplays.” Then I started teaching at UCLA Extension and then coaching after that, along with writing. Then all the way up to the future. What's great about moving forward is that with AI, shot-making is becoming very close to cinematic quality. You can actually match cinematic quality in moments in some genres, but probably by next year. Right now you could actually do a really good horror movie all AI for 10, 20,000 bucks, depending on how much you're doing yourself or getting other people to do. So the economics are going to absolutely explode. So I'm sitting on dozens of scripts that didn't get through the Hollywood packaging bottleneck because they're too expensive, and I now have this giant slate that's ready to go, and I'm just absolutely thrilled. It's been a lifelong dream for me. Jo: Oh, so much to come back on there. Where to start? I do want to talk about what you just said there, sitting on dozens of scripts and now seeing the opportunity. I actually wrote down in my journal about a year ago, I see what's coming with AI, and I think that the best thing I can do is create as much original IP as possible, so that I can make the most of the opportunity ahead. So let's just get into the AI, because a lot of people feel it's a super bad thing. Talk about the opportunities and the attitude that you've got [around AI], and that you've seen others have around this, for what is ahead in a positive way. Brooks: It's fascinating to see how people respond to AI. I wonder, when the printing press rolled around, if there was some sort of backlash. Books must be handwritten. They can't be mass-produced. Here's one of my theories. At a deep psychological level, it's so profoundly powerful that I think the default setting is, “Oh, crap.” When I was a kid, some things were hard, and that power imbalance, when something big, new and powerful comes along: I'm going to get screwed, and so this is somehow a bad thing. I think that's the base psychological thing going on with most of the noise. Obviously there are some legit problems, in terms of copyright infringement from learning models, or from some of the environmental situation. So I'm not saying it's all rainbows and butterflies, but I think 90% of the noise around it comes from a fear of change. Here's the other one—a fear of, “Oh, yikes, I'm going to get taken advantage of somehow by either robots, or the corporations are going to use the robots against me,” or something like that. I have real empathy for me when I feel that way a little bit, but I don't feel it much, and for other people that do feel it. The other thing is, you know what it is? I think they fear their own empowerment even more. I had a therapist who was really good. He said, people aren't so much afraid of failing as they are afraid of succeeding. Because if we fail, we're stuck in act one and we don't go anywhere. The fear is answering the call and going to act two, when everything effing changes in the new world. So I think people are afraid of how goddamn powerful they're going to be when they can have a team of AI agents helping them do everything they want in business or life or whatever. I think it's the same thing with the internet. People are like, “Oh, I don't like social media, blah, blah, blah.” And I get it. There's a lot of noise and a lot of crap. Yet we have access to billions of people, and the algorithms in social media right now I think are level three out of 10. They're just going to get better and better. Even as it is now, if I do a post about something and it gets ignored, that's on me. The algorithms are trying to match me to my people. So if I'm not unique enough and authentic enough and aware enough of how virality works, that's on me, and it's a learnable skill that I can embrace and then change and then get better at. So I think people then resist that change. They resist the empowerment of learning the art of virality, or learning the art of some sort of social media stuff or whatever. The last thing I'll say about this rant is, I don't want to act like I'm the guru on the hill that has all the answers. I refuse calls all the time. I'm scared about all sorts of things. I'm certainly not perfect. I feel frustrated when I'm trying to put my big ideas into action and I can't get this technology thing to work or that one, and I throw tantrums. I'm trying to come at it from a real human perspective, but by and large, I've got stars in my eyes. I'm like, “This is amazing. This is going to be so powerful.” For so many people, you just have to be ready to embrace it and just go along for the ride, because there's going to be some big-ass changes. There already are, and that's going to accelerate. Jo: You mentioned there learning the art of whatever it is. One of the things is, I've spent 20 years, and so have you, learning our craft and our art, and now it can be done very easily. I'm generating video, as you mentioned, which is a craft I haven't spent 20 years on, but now I can generate. So things have definitely changed in that way. Just coming to the screenwriting side. Probably about a decade ago now, I did my first screenwriting course. I've written screenplays. Then I looked at the game you have to play and, like you said, the conversations you have to have, the events you have to go and network at, all the things that you have to do to put a screenplay in front of the right person at the right time. I was like, “I cannot do that. It's just not going to happen. I can't do that along with everything else.” So I put it aside, but now I feel maybe it's time to bring it back because things are changing. So can you maybe talk about, if someone has a screenplay now that they've written, or some IP like a book that they have now— What would you recommend people do in terms of wanting to get that [IP] in front of somebody, or doing something with it themselves? Brooks: It's such a good question. By the way, not even a screenplay—you could do the same things with a novel. Let me try to be succinct here, which is a good challenge for me. A simple way to look at it is, you're giving samples. Let's say it's a lemonade stand, and you give out a little shot of your… maybe you have cayenne pepper lemonade, some sort of fun lemonade. If you give out a sample and people are into it, they're going to come back and they're going to tell friends. If you give a sample of the lemonade and they're not into it, then you go back to the kitchen and you mix up a different flavour. So that's some basic business, but the internet allows us to do that at scale. So what I like to encourage people to do when I coach them is come up with the minimum viable material. It can be a 10-second clip. There's a writer in my community who made a really beautiful 16-second movie. It's one shot. I love it so much. It's two wine glasses. There's a lipstick smudge on one of the wine glasses. They're half full, and it's just that shot. It's sitting there, and all of a sudden you hear this thundering, thumping down these stairs, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Then you see out of the corner of the frame one person runs by, and then the other person behind her runs by and goes, “Wait.” That's it. That's the whole movie. It's 16 seconds. He did that with his phone. So there's so much going on. There's a couple of basic elements, but he just did it with his phone, and you can evoke enormous emotional impact on people through social media, whether it's just words. You guys have a big advantage as novelists because you're so good with words. Whether it's a little bit longer, like sudden fiction, that's a couple of pages or whatever. Even just copywriters are really in a good position for the future because they're super potent with two words or three words or 10 words. Then novelists are probably really advantageous because it doesn't cost anything to just put some words out on the internet. The point is, if you put something out, it's a signal, and you're talking about billions of people who could find that signal. If you do it and then you look at the response, and then you try again, you look at the response, we can do this iteration infinitely for free. So you can do it already. You've been able to do it for 10, 15, 20 years, just with words. But now you're going to basically be able to do that with movies or clips or trailers. So the thing that I'm leading in my community of writers is having people build trailers in advance, or clips. When a book or a movie is done, how the heck do we get people to see it? One way is a trailer or some sort of behind-the-scenes material. You can just do that stuff now before even writing the screenplay. I saw that you were doing this project, a trailer for this competition. And then you mentioned, “Oh, I've got to write the screenplay.” Not really. You have to develop the story enough to know what you're referring to, and then it's about studying the craft of either trailer construction, or whatever the clips are, or viral clips. They all have a structure, and then you just test it. If you enjoy that testing process, which I find absolutely thrilling, it feels like the filmmaking version of a stand-up comedian. If I did stand-up, I say a joke, they laugh or they don't laugh. It's really beautiful feedback from the universe. Nerve-wracking, right? But we can do that now as storytellers. We put a story out there in any format, and the audience responds. Just like you have to read any room, you have to learn how to read the engagement on social media. What do likes mean? What do shares mean? What do comments mean? How do you deal with trolls? All that is just part of the new art. Once you get good at it, holy smokes, that's the key to the kingdom. You can build audiences in advance, and for movies you could even have them finance your movie in advance, if you've built an email list of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 people because you kept putting out all these viral clips around your story, novel, or screenplay. Then you go, “Okay, now 30,000 people are on my email list and I tell them about me and my perspective and my world. We're going to make this darn thing with AI for 20,000 bucks. You guys have got to pony up some money. Put in a dollar, five, 10, or you get the VIP $500 experience.” It's like crowdfunding, but much more sophisticated, because most crowdfunding was like begging friends and family to donate to your crazy dream. What I'm talking about is going to the audience directly, developing enough of the story, then going to the audience second, and then only when they validate the idea, to the extent that you're happy with. You could do a crazy idea that's going to have a small audience, and you don't have to have a blockbuster audience. You get to pick the audience size that you want, and then put the samples out there and see if you have a relevant audience size for this next project. Once the audience tells you, “Yes, we want this,” then you go make it. So you're ultimately reducing risk to almost zero. It takes time and you have to learn how to do this stuff, but it's thrilling to me because we just have the capacity to test the material and listen to the audience upfront. The last thing I'll say, and I've rambled a lot, I'm sorry. When I made a movie in 1994, a feature film right out of NYU, it took me three years to find out what the audience thought about that movie. I had to make the damn thing, and then I ran out of money, and that took me years to edit it, and I finally got it, blah, blah, blah. And again, I loved it. I loved every facet of it, and it was fine, but it was super inefficient. Today, I could take those same elements, create an AI trailer this weekend, put it in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and they could tell me right away, “This sucks,” or, “This is interesting,” or, “Holy smokes, this is amazing. I want this.” If it's not, “Holy smokes, this is amazing, I want it,” I can go ahead and re-edit the whole damn trailer, and just keep reiterating at almost no cost. Then once the demand is there, I can take that demand and that audience and go to Hollywood, and that's when they're going to want to work with me. Then it doesn't take a million conversations and finding the needle in the haystack, because Hollywood sees the numbers and they go, “Oh, you're the people we do want to do business with. You've proven demand. We want to do business with you.” Jo: Yes, it's so interesting. I can hear people listening and they're like, “Easier said than done, getting an email list of 40,000 people.” And in fact— It's exactly the same as building up a career as an independent author. This is as a filmmaker, as a visual person, and the industry is visual, so doing a visual trailer is the obvious thing. And as you say, the tools I use just to do this one, I use Midjourney, and I've used Seedance as the main video model. It does take a while, but it is pretty fast now, if you have a visual image of what you want in your head, which obviously you're a visual person as well. But is it… Brooks: Hold on. I want to push back on that a little bit, because I think it's really important. So yes, that's true, but underneath that, my friend, it's a relationship. It's the relationship, and the media is secondary. You have been prolific in connecting with your audience, and that's why I think a lot of people like you, because you share and they get to know you in that sort of cadence. I saw you in another podcast, you mentioned Seth Godin, who just said, “Hey, I want to be the type of person that has this relationship with my audience. I'm going to share some of my thoughts every day.” He happened to do it with words, with his background in marketing, but you could do the same thing with still images. You could do the same thing with a five-second movie clip once a week. It's the relationship you want with your fans. I'm not saying you snap your fingers and you have 50,000 people on your email list. What I'm saying is, what else are you doing? If we're artists and our impulse is to create and share, and if you do it in this way, if I can create and share and inspire trust in this relationship with a stranger because they like my genre thing and they like the way they felt when they experienced my media, words, images, movies, it doesn't matter. They just like the feeling, and they go, “Ooh, I want more of that feeling. How do I get more of that? Oh, this person has this email list or community.” If I can do it with one, then I can scale it out. So getting the first one, or the first 5 or 10 samples, that is a whole process. But then once you do that, scaling up is more of a mechanical thing. It's not even that hard, especially when you can do paid ads. So you can scale up very quickly if you have the sauce. If you don't have the sauce, it doesn't matter who you're related to, you've got to get the sauce right. Jo: Yes, and again, it's so parallel to the indie author community. I've just got to ask you, in the olden days, an author might write a screenplay, or a screenwriter write a screenplay, and then they would send it. They'd find an agent. They'd pitch an agent, and I guess then they'd hope that someone would turn that into a movie. So is that just dead now? Is it realistically that you need to get yourself out there, build the audience in the same way that it often is for authors? Brooks: So, no. I've got two screenplay deals going right now. So here's how it's going to work. Think about Broadway, or the theatre district in Britain. It's like West End or East End or whatever… Jo: The West End. Brooks: Sorry for my American ignorance. West End, okay. So every town on the planet has a stage, but there's only one Broadway, there's only one West End, right? And every town has its own festival, but there are a few significant tastemakers. There's Cannes, there's Sundance, there's Toronto. Hollywood is always going to be a tastemaker in our lifetime, for sure. What they don't have anymore, what they enjoyed for the first 100 years of the industry, is that they had a stranglehold on basically the equipment, the financing, and the audience, and that's all going away. Do you want to hear a fun story about the birth of cinema? Do you know why Hollywood started in Hollywood? Jo: No. Brooks: So Thomas Edison invented the camera, or the type of model camera that they were using in, I don't know, 1910 or something around there. They didn't want to pay his patent. They didn't want to pay the patent to make these movies, so they went all the way across the country, a bunch of outlaws, and they set up shop in California because he couldn't enforce his patent that they were basically stealing. And reason number two, LA enjoys amazing weather almost all year round. The weather here is either nice or really nice. You have mountains, you have beach, you have desert, you have all these different locales. So when it was really important to be on location, LA was the perfect place. Anyway, that is all going away. For many decades, more people could make movies. In the early '90s, Robert Rodriguez made a movie for 9,000 bucks. There was a book in the '80s that I bought that I loved, it was Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices. This guy, Rick Schmidt, I think his name was. There were the independent filmmakers really in the '60s and the '70s. So the cost has been going down and down and down, and now it's less than ever. Once social media came along, now you have access to the audience, so why do you even need Hollywood? That being said, there are tons of people. There are 400,000 people already working in the movie and the TV industry here. And they're voracious. We have a voracious demand. Humans need stories. We need big stories, long stories. We need stories, and Hollywood is so good at giving them stories. And so they have a need for these things, and they're still spending a lot of money on those budgets. So yes, there's still a demand for turning books and optioning them and turning them into movies. Books are great. Any sort of existing IP is great because there are marketing efficiencies there. People already know that stuff, know the vibe of it, and so it's easier to market than something that's totally creative and new. When you're spending that much money, you want those marketing efficiencies. They're really important. So the point being, the power is shifting away from Hollywood. Hollywood will still be a tastemaker, but you and me can reach anybody on the planet now. Almost. Billions of people. If it's making a movie, right now you could make a movie that most people wouldn't realise is an AI movie. If it was a horror film, I know a handful of people that could make a feature-length horror film right now with AI and 99% of the audience couldn't tell, if it was professionally written. Jo: I think the point here though is, I'm an author, the people listening are authors, and we don't want to make movies. We want to license our IP to people who want to make movies. Brooks: Yes. Great. Okay, good. So then you could, if you wanted, build an audience. Hollywood loves when something's already proven, so that's that IP thing, right? So if you just have a great book, then it's all about the sales. You guys have Dragons' Den, we have Shark Tank here. And what's amazing about that show is these are people or entrepreneurs pitching an idea, and there's an amazing rhythm that happens. They say, “We've got this great idea. It's this sort of company.” And the sharks, or the dragons, will listen. And there's a huge turning point when they reveal sales. They're either really excited about the idea and then they go, “Well, how are the sales?” And the person goes, “Well, we don't have any sales yet.” And they go, “Uh,” and they're not interested. Or they might even be like, “Eh, it doesn't seem like a good idea.” And they're like, “Well, how are the sales?” And they're like, “Oh, well, we've sold through the roof.” And then all of a sudden they perk up. So it's all about the sales. So step one is writing something that you want. Step two is making sure other people in your target audience are also loving it as much as you do. Step three is proving in some way at scale that there's real demand for it. So you could do that with trailers, you could do that with clips, you can do that as an indie publisher. There's all sorts of things that you can do. Humans are much more persuaded by concrete data than they are by just vibes. So if you can bring Hollywood concrete data of any type, like viral videos, like audience, like obviously bestsellers. Awards mean something, but not quite as much as sales. Then you're going to get Hollywood's attention because that reduces risk for them. So even now, when Hollywood's definitely shrinking and contracting, there's still very significant money being spent because it's a huge demand. If you ever walk around a studio lot, those things are opulent places. It's stunning. Like, how are they paying for all this stuff? These lots are enormous. It's because humanity is voracious for stories, and movies are one premium type of storytelling. The demand for stories is steady if not going up. It's just that we have a wider variety of types of stories that we can do, whether we're an indie author. So anyway, did I answer the question? You get me too excited with these questions, Jo. It's a problem. Jo: Yes. I think there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of ways in, but the parallels with being an indie author I think are quite clear. One of the things I found interesting about your profile and what you do is that you help clients who are already accomplished but not quite breaking through, and that sounds like a lot of mid-list indie authors, probably a lot of mid-list screenwriters, mid-list filmmakers. This is a hard place to be because, on the one hand, we are grateful for what we have achieved and what we can do, and yet wanting more, wanting that big Hollywood deal or the Netflix deal, or wanting the massive bestseller or whatever. So if someone wants to get to that next level, what are some of the ways that they can perhaps try and get there? Brooks: It's a great question. Coaching is a really wonderful way to learn anything of this sort of complexity and challenge, especially if it's a hyper-competitive business. We need two things, I think, to write a great novel or screenplay or both. A, we need to feel profoundly safe in our space. If we can't really feel deeply authentic about the things that are embarrassing, or that we feel shame about, or just our shadows, or anything that we don't feel completely comfortable saying and sharing in public usually. We need to be able to touch those things, and be articulate about those things, and that's one part of it. Then we need a concrete path forward. Maybe you're thinking about some tragedy that you had in childhood, and how you dealt with it and how difficult that was. So you need to be able to be real precise in those observations about what it felt like, and how you tried to compensate for it, and that didn't work and it made it worse. Whatever your observations are about your life journey, you need to be really specific and really deeply felt. A good coaching relationship allows you to be in that space, to be really honest with yourself and authentic. g Aood coach will push you back and say, “You know what? That sounds interesting, but maybe not quite as true to you deeply.” So that's one piece of it. Then there's a concrete path forward. You need to have the emotional access to that truth, and then you need to know what to do with that truth in a step-by-step way. Because most people, the ones that you're talking about, they're accomplished in something else. What happens is when we first start writing, and maybe this happens with novelists, but for sure it happens to screenwriters, you just start typing words. But you haven't really thought through the theme, the concept, the structure, the character, all the deeper questions that really matter. The milestones, like a North Star: winning a major award, or getting a publisher. That's the direction that we're heading towards, and then you set it and forget it, but you want to keep checking it every week, every month or whatever. But you want it very specific. “I would like to sell a book, or sell a book to Hollywood, or write a screenplay, or get a producer attached to a screenplay.” Whatever the milestone is, make it really specific, really concrete, and then reverse engineer. This is what I do on the concrete path. I reverse engineer every step to get there, starting with a really tiny one we can do today, and I make sure they feel really safe, and then we just walk through. Then what happens is, if you do that, if you feel safe, if you're showing up authentically and you have a process that's repeatable, not just willy-nilly, it's got to be something that's proven to work. It wasn't an accident I wrote 45 scripts. I've got a whole system. But by the way, the first five scripts took me forever. The last movie that I made took me three years to write that script. I can write a better script with those same elements in three months now, because I know I have a concrete path. So if you want to do something new, whether it's playing the piano or getting six-pack abs or writing a screenplay, work with somebody who's got a system that's already proven, and make sure you relate to them, and then just follow the system. Then when the doubts come up, and they will, that's where the feeling safe is really important. Because, oh, I want the six-pack abs, but I don't feel like going to the gym. I want the extra donut. If I'm working with a really good trainer, they go, “Dude, do you want the six-pack abs or not?” And then you go back and forth, and I go, “Okay, now I can make peace with myself and say I can take one tiny bite of the donut and then still do my workout,” and then I'm moving towards that North Star. Does that make sense? Jo: Yes. I think, like many independents, I resist anything that is systematised. I'm a discovery writer, and I follow the muse, and all of that kind of thing. I think I would say something in a similar vein, which is sustainable creativity for the long term, because your 45 scripts are also years of work, and my books are years of work, and we get better at what we do. So my system, I do have a system really, because— My system is that I do the work, and I write my stories, and I get them out there, and I do the marketing. So even if it's not as systematised as such, it's still a process that I have repeated over and over again. Brooks: That's fascinating to me. Would you consider yourself a pantser? You're like, “I've got an idea,” and you just start writing? Jo: I don't use the word pantser. I guess I call it discovery writing, which is… Brooks: That's a better term. Jo: Yes. What I'm writing for this prize, for example, I know the characters, I know now what's happening. When I had the idea, it was very much a vision and a theme, and the competition has a theme: a positive future with AI and technology. But the things that came around that, I then started playing with ideas around the treatment. I haven't written the screenplay yet. I don't do a plot, or I don't follow Save the Cat or any of that kind of thing. When I write a novel, I just explore and I never write in order. Then at some point I stop and then I have to think about the structure and putting it all together, so the edits are quite big. But my fun is in that discovery, really. Brooks: Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so let me ask, that's really fascinating. And by the way, that doesn't, to me, negate the system that I use. The one that I use is ultimately… the thing is, these questions, the audience is wanting your unique answers to. You don't necessarily need to do it in a certain order. I think that's actually really cool that you write out of order and you have a few elements in mind. All that stuff sounds awesome. The only thing that then makes me curious is, how's your pace? Are you actually completing novels at a pace that feels good, or do you feel like you go too fast, too slow? Jo: I do one or two a year at the moment. Well, two a year, really. But I would say I'm not as successful as I'd like to be, so I'm not saying that my system is the best. I'm saying I want to be better. It's just that my fun is this sort of creative chaos, which I then try and control later. One of the things I really like about screenplays and treatments and doing this kind of thing for film is that it is much more structured, I think, than a 70,000-word novel. You can go in all kinds of directions, whereas with screenwriting you do have to be more disciplined really. Brooks: Yes, so this is going to be fun probably, to hear my view for your audience, and the differences as I see them. For starters, you're talking about what, 10, 20, 30 hours reading a novel sometimes, or maybe less, whereas a movie's a 90-minute experience, right? So that's different. Or if it's a TV series, you might see an hour and then an hour. So that's a very different experience. What happens is when it's condensed like that, you're loading up layers. So every scene is stacked with exposition beneath the drama, and done in a certain way. So specifically, movies are only what you can see and only what you hear. Whereas novels, if you can think it, you can write it, it can be in there. So you don't need to have a plot, but if you want to sell your book to Hollywood, it helps. So I was very resistant about structure. I went to NYU film school, where we really just made short films. It was funny, I had friends that were in the dramatic writing department, and I was like, “You guys are wasting your money. You're just learning to write scripts. We learn to write the scripts and make the movies.” What I hadn't realised is it's a different skill set to hold somebody's attention across an hour-long play, or a 90-minute movie, than it is to make a movie that holds their attention for two minutes or five minutes. I found out years later when I made a feature that was like a lot of shorts patched together, and people were not… They liked it, but they didn't love it. I was like, “Well, what's going on?” And so then I learned to really love Save the Cat in particular. It completely changed me. What happened was, I got a big old slice of humble pie. I had made my second feature, and I put everything I had into it, and it had loose structural beginning, middle, end, blah, blah, blah. But I was still, “Eh, Hollywood BS. What do they know? It's all fake.” So I was very anti-Hollywood structure. Then I was like, now I've got two independent films out there, people saw them, liked them, whatever, but it wasn't getting me consistent work. It wasn't really advancing my career in the way that I wanted. And I was like, “Well, maybe there is something to the Save the Cat.” So I went to the Save the Cat workshop with Blake when he was still alive, and he was delightful, a really awesome guy. He's got this kind of cutesy style, for people that don't know. For context, Blake Snyder was a working Hollywood screenwriter, and he had this system called Save the Cat, which actually has some really interesting ideas. He's got this very light, breezy sort of style. A lot of people don't like him and some people really love him, and everything in between. But I took his weekend seminar, and it completely changed me, because at that point, like I said, I took three years to write a script. Then once he had a process and he had a way of thinking about craft that was just much more screenwriter-friendly, I was like, “Oh my God.” It was so much easier, because I was just focused on the right thing at the right time. So it just sped everything up. After that, I was banging out two to three scripts a year, and better and better quality. So for me, because I went from winging it and wrote five scripts in 13 years, and then wrote two to three scripts every year, I became a huge proponent of system and process. Then my own system really came from that, but it's modular. I have a nine-step system, but you don't necessarily have to go in that order, other than the last three steps, but I won't get into the details. Sometimes you kind of jump from two to three and then back to two and then back and forth. So I love that you get the feel for those elements, and then you just felt your way through. But writing screenplay pages doesn't make sense until you really understand concept, you get a deep sense of beginning, middle, end, character arcs, and these other threads. There are just way better tools for those jobs than screenplay format, because it's a really weird format. It's got these weird slug lines at the top that are all in caps, because a screenplay is a blueprint for somebody else to make the movie. It's not an end-user document like a novel. I don't let my clients even go to that format because it just gets them focused on the wrong things. What they really need to know is, what is your perspective about this theme? What happened in your life that you're fascinated with, that you'd even want to write about this? And tell me what your real life lessons are. So we go into… again, I go back to relationship. What's your relationship to the universe? And what's your relationship to your best friends, or where you got your heart broken, or whatever you want to write about. And then we get that clarity, and then I show you how to express it in terms of developing a screenplay. It's really long-form storytelling, and then the structure just makes it build on itself. But with the structure, because you're talking about so much money and people involved to make it, at least traditionally, what ended up happening was narrative structure that was not so much rigid. Because here's the thing, you can look at 50, 100 years of European cinema and you can look at Hollywood cinema, and Hollywood laps them. When I taught at UCLA Extension, I had lots of foreign students. Let's say there'd be two or three students… if there were 12 people in the class, two or three people would be from America, and everybody else would be from other countries. I would go around, I'd be like, “What movies and TV shows have you been watching?” Almost in every single country, they watch half from their own country, half from Hollywood. So Hollywood storytelling works, that's just the data, and they're dominant. The reason it works is what Aristotle was saying thousands of years ago.. There's a way of thinking about beginning, middle, end that just deeply speaks to the psyche, and you can ignore it if you want. I think Godard said, “You need beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order,” right? Which is great. Just the way we experience life, there's a beginning, a middle, an end to this podcast interview. There's a beginning, middle, end to the day, a beginning, middle, end to me eating lunch. So if you don't lean into the beginning, middle, end psychological aspect of your story, you're going to bore your reader. But to your point, you don't necessarily have to sort that out in the beginning. It's more efficient probably if you do, but you don't have to. Go into it wherever the muse tells you to go, and then at some point, like you do, then you go, “Okay, now I go back and I edit.” If you're saying there's another level, you have another gear in you, then yes, I'd be curious to slowly go through how you're making those decisions. Because what's happening probably is there are ways you're holding back a little bit. There's maybe something you're afraid of being vulnerable about. That's usually where me or other writers are holding themselves back, and we can take a look at that. There are different ways I show writers to do it. Then you can go, “Oh, I was doing it here, and now I can do it there.” And it could be with process, or just a certain creative choice. With story, it's clear and compelling. Those are the simple things. So, is this clear enough? Is it compelling enough? And there are almost always ways to up-level on any facet, whether it's one sentence, or a sentence that describes the whole concept of the book, or a chapter. Each one of those can be looked at with that lens and we can just say, “Hey, this is 70%, 80%,” whatever, and then we say, “Well, how do we get a little bit more?” And then when you do that enough, it piles up. Then especially if you bring in an audience and people are flipping out for your work, they'll tell you. Jo: Yes, I love a challenge, so thank you for everything you've shared today. So where can people find you and everything you do online? Brooks: Well, one way you can find me—if anything I said seemed helpful for you, if you have questions about Hollywood or you have a screenplay in your heart—you can just email me, brooks@brookselms.com. You could look me up on LinkedIn. I'm at Brooks Elms. I also have a Skool community called Screenwriter Marketing, but it's really for any sort of storyteller, and it talks about my favourite way to engage an audience and get through it. So anybody can jump into that if you like my vibe. If you really think anything I've said, or the way I said it, seems like it could be helpful for you, just reach out. Let me know what you're up to, and maybe there's a way I can help you. Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Brooks. That was great. Brooks: You're welcome. It was a total pleasure. It was lots of fun, and I really appreciate you.The post How To Prove The Demand For Your Stories And Get The Attention Of Hollywood With Brooks Elms first appeared on The Creative Penn.

After a recent episode on packing, Jen and Pete spend this week mulling over the idea of its opposite: unpacking. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What are some tactics we might use to make it easier to manage change? How might we assess what everyone on our team needs before making a plan? What surprises might we find when we take a different path than planned? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Bestselling and award-winning writers Seth Godin (The Practice), Amie McNee (We Need Your Art), Mason Currey (Daily Rituals) and Bec Evans & Chris Smith (Written) on choosing yourself before anyone else does, protecting the hour you actually have, and why the writing rules you were handed were the rules that worked for someone else.   You'll learn Why "grow a thicker skin" is the wrong advice for a writer facing rejection. What shifts when you notice the harshest rejection you face each day is your own. The case for lowering your standards if your ambitions are big. How an hour that doesn't look like writing can still be an hour of writing. What the word discipline shares with the word disciple, and why it changes how a project turns out. A quiet argument for half an hour a day over the perfect routine you can't sustain. Three questions worth asking at the end of every writing session. Why the writing rule that failed you was probably never yours to begin with. When a good outcome hides a bad decision, and what that means for your practice. The difference between talent and skill, and why only one of them applies to writing. Episode Links #150: Seth Godin — Obscurity Is the Enemy, Here's How to Stop Seeking Validation, Find Your Audience and Build a Creative Practice #158: Amie McNee — Creating Without Permission, Overcoming Self-Doubt, Facing Rejection, Building a Life on Your Own Terms, Embracing Social Media as an Artform #177: Mason Currey — Daily Routines and How Artists Work, Focus Time and Protecting Your Best Hours #046: Bec Evans & Chris Smith — Overcome Creative Blocks, Get It Written About the Guests Seth Godin is the author of twenty-plus international bestsellers that have changed the way people think about work and have been translated into 39 languages – among them Unleashing the Ideavirus, Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, Tribes, The Dip, Linchpin, Poke the Box, and All Marketers Are Liars. He writes the most popular marketing blog in the world and speaks to audiences worldwide. He is the founder of the altMBA, the founder and former CEO of Squidoo.com, the former VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, and the founder of the pioneering online startup Yoyodyne. Amie McNee is a trained historian turned creativity coach, writer, and speaker best known for her popular Instagram account, @InspiredtoWrite, and The Unpublished Podcast. She's self-published two historical fiction novels: The Rules Upheld by No One and Regrettably, I Am About to Cause Trouble. Her book We Need Your Art: Stop F*cking Around and Make Something is a manifesto on the vital, human importance of creating. Her most recent novel, To Kill a Queen, a queer historical mystery set in Elizabethan London, was published in 2025. Mason Currey is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles and the author of the Daily Rituals books. In addition to compiling the Daily Rituals books, Currey was a design-magazine editor for ten years, working as the managing editor of Metropolis, the executive editor of Print, a senior editor at Core77, and the programming chair for the 2015 Core77 Conference. His freelance writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, and Slate, and he has delivered talks on the creative process to high school and college students, writers' groups, and the partners of the design consultancy IDEO. He sends out a fortnightly newsletter on routines, rituals, and wriggling through a creative life. His latest book, Making Art and Making a Living: Adventures in Funding a Creative Life, was published by Celadon Books in 2026. Bec Evans and Chris Smith are the co-founders of Prolifiko, a coaching business that helps people build productive writing habits. They met while working together in a bookshop more than 20 years ago and have spent a lifetime writing and working with other writers. Prior to Prolifiko, Bec worked in publishing, led teams of writers and managed a writing centre for Arvon. She's also the award-winning author of How to Have a Happy Hustle. Chris has a background as a ghostwriter and content consultant to global business brands, charities and the public sector. He worked as an agency director before setting up his own communications consultancy and has written for national newspapers and magazines. He is also an award-winning comedy scriptwriter. The authors live in Yorkshire with their dog, Peggy. Their book Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit That Lasts was published by Icon Books. For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.For free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com.*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

After thinking over and over about the concept of strategy, Pete turns to Jen to help him unravel what strategy actually is and how it can be best utilized by individuals and companies. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What even is strategy? How might we move from our goals to a clear strategy? What are some tactics to stay focused on the things we actually have control over? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Ian sits down with Asher Bykov, Head of Growth at USVC, AngelList's newly launched publicly accessible venture fund, to talk about how they took USVC from a hundred and fifty investors to tens of millions of impressions on launch day. Asher shares why the biggest marketing lever wasn't a campaign but years of owned audience-building through Naval Ravikant's podcast and Ankur Nagpal's Silly Money newsletter, how a great offer beats great copywriting every time, and why he thinks about brand as a promise you keep rather than a logo you design. Key Takeaways: A great offer beats great marketing. Asher ranks the sequence as offer, then copywriting, then design, then media buying - no amount of clever positioning saves a weak offer. Owned audiences compound for years before they pay off. Naval's podcast, Ankur's Silly Money newsletter, and AngelList's own network turned USVC's launch into demand capture rather than demand generation. Brand is a promise, not a logo. Borrowing from Seth Godin, Asher argues that consistently delivering on what you tell your audience matters more than any campaign, rebrand, or design choice. Sponsor:  Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more. Links: Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/ Connect with Asher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asherbykov/ Learn more about USVC: https://usvc.com/ Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caspian-studios/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Seth Godin said "choose your customers, choose your future" and he couldn't be more right! Today I talk about the massive importance of indeed choosing who you want to serve and how affects the success of your business. READ MORE HERE

As Jen prepares for her summer travel, she and Pete noodle on the activity of packing, and the sometimes difficult decisions of what to bring and what to leave behind. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: Why is making decisions so hard? How might the usage of constraints and rules be beneficial when making choices? What are some tactics to deliberately carry less around with us? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

Today on Getting Unstuck Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. This summer, I'm periodically releasing mini-episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini-episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. At some point during the summer of 2019, I was walking in our nearby forest preserve, listening to a podcast with Tim Ferriss in conversation with Seth Godin. Tim Ferriss always asks his guests during the wrap-up what they're reading that they find fascinating—books that have truly impacted them. Without hesitation, Seth Godin replied, The Art of Possibility. I thought, if Seth Godin found the book worthwhile, I had to look into it. The authors of the book are Benjamin Zander, who at the time was the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and served on the Faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston. That's an important distinction, as you will hear. And Rosamund Stone Zander was a family therapist and a landscape painter. Sadly, Roz died in September 2023 in a tragic accident. The idea The book's central premise is that life is a story and we are its author. Many of the circumstances that block us from leading a deeply satisfying life are assumptions and interpretations of our own making. We can, therefore, write better ones. Supporting that idea are 12 practices, which, if followed, promise to transform our thinking and the way we walk through life. The book, then, and this is important, is not a self-improvement book that results in merely tweaking our undesirable habits or making only incremental changes. The 12 practices are powerfully disruptive. Not surprisingly, because Roz was a psychotherapist, the practices call for a completely different way of looking at the world and our behavior. I purchased the audio version of the book because the authors narrated it and Ben infused it with rich musical examples. If I had been asked to write a back cover blurb, I might have offered something very erudite like, "I was blown away by it." It sits on my bookshelf with only a few other titles that I can grab in case of disaster. At the time, I thought I had little hope of securing Ben and Roz as guests on our fledgling show, but they could not have been more gracious in their response and participation. Episode 100, which I'll link in the show notes, has become one of my top 5 downloaded episodes out of more than 400, and for good reason. I'm going to feature two of the practices in this mini-episode: One is "It's all invented," which is really the capstone practice, and Two, Giving an A. In both cases, the authors will explain the practice in an excerpt from the original interview, followed by my brief commentary. It's all invented. Here is Roz touching on "It's all invented." Everything we do or say is really embedded in an interpretation, and we don't notice that, and when slide back and forth between the interpretation and what we say is real, and most of the time we are saying that what we, how we are interpreting things is reality, and that's how you get Republicans, Democrats, and all sorts of people in conflict because they don't make that distinction, so we are saying everything that you do and talk about, aside from something that everybody agrees is just happened or is true, is a story, and if you, if everything is a story, you can retell the story, and it'll make a different life for you. Enormous power of realizing that, and then saying, "Okay, let me just take the same circumstances I've just dealt with and make up a new story about it that helps, that is enlivening to me and enlivening to you and enlivening to everybody else. This practice has always taught me that I have the power to reframe and interpret what I've seen or heard about something, whether it's external or internal to me, so that whatever it is becomes more meaningful. I don't see this as putting a glossy coat of paint on something. It's challenging me to look at an aspect of life for what can be gleaned from it. This practice definitely calls for me to pause, step back, and refrain from immediate judgment. And that's not always easy because it runs counter to how our brains seek immediate clarity. As an exercise, take a situation and see if you can look at it differently so that it is, as Roz suggests, more enlivening. Sometimes you might have to do this through gritted teeth, but remember, you are the author of the story. Give yourself an "A." OK, here is the second practice: Giving an A. We'll hear from both Ben and Roz in this excerpt. The giving of the, which was Ross's idea, came out of my class, and the reason is that the students were living under such fear of competition and failure, and so I, we came up with this idea, Ross came up with the idea, and I practiced it, which is giving the A the beginning of the year before they've done anything. This is right in the very first class, they get the grade. The condition is there to write a letter at the beginning of the year describing who they will have become by the end of the year, and that to justify this thing, and so they're describing themselves at their very best at being successful and effective and wonderful musicians and people, and that's the person I teach when I go into the class, so that there became a way of approaching all teaching or conducting, I walk into an orchestra and give everybody an a instantaneously before we've begun, and the orchestra players feel that sense of confidence, of trust, of joy, of shared love of the music, and it creates an atmosphere. Oh, and then very important, if they make a mistake, we go, how fascinating. That has to be seen. How fascinating. I encourage people to go out and try that on the golf course, because what we do is we live under such fear of failure that we become very cautious and anxious, fearful, and looking all the time to see if other people are making the mistakes, and so it's not an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, and if you create an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, then, and everybody who makes a mistake gets to say, "How fascinating, then you've got a chance to people to learn more effectively, giving something here about transformation, because if we don't give an A and hope they'll live up to it, right, you see them as an A, and that means that I, or Ben, as the teacher or therapist, or whoever's given the giving the A has to do the work themselves, that becomes the relationship of an A. It isn't just the student that we hope to help along, because they feel loved and everything, and now they, they're not afraid. It is the relationship that changes, and that is the transformation. So, teachers transformed, students transform in the process, and transformation means that you're living in a different world, you're living in a world that doesn't operate by the same physics as the world we live in. It's very hard for people to get that the A is not a judgment Giving an A is my favorite of the twelve practices because, as Roz pointed out, it carries responsibility for both the giver and the receiver. We can give anyone an A, and that calls for us to see and treat them differently because our intent is that the A becomes, to quote from the book, "a possibility for the receiver to live into." I saw immediate application in my lifelong vocation of education. The key, as the authors point out in the book, is for the receiver to "place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report on all the insights they acquired and milestones they attained during the year as if those accomplishments were already in the past. Everything must be written in the past tense. Phrases such as I hope or I intend or I will must not appear." As an exercise, give a server in a restaurant an A the minute you sit down. How might doing so impact your behavior toward them? The key point here is that you're not trying to get the server to live up to a standard you've set, but to have them look more carefully at their own behavior and how they want to conduct themselves. Connect / Referenced Book: The Art of Possibility Benjamin Zander Center Video: Ben's TED Talk Video: Ben on "Giving an A" Rosamund Stone Zander Book: Pathways to Possibility Original episode: Creating a Life of Possibility: "How Fascinating!"

Two simple questions can change the way you make decisions, spend your time, and build your future.  In today's episode, Mel sits down with Seth Godin, one of the most influential thinkers of our time and one of Mel's most trusted mentors.  Seth has written more than 20 bestselling books, taught millions of people how to think differently, and shaped the way Mel thinks about success, confidence, purpose, business, and making an impact.  Today, Seth is sharing the advice Mel wishes everyone could hear, particularly when it comes to business and success.  His wisdom will make you rethink how you spend your time, what you say yes to, what you keep avoiding, what you need to quit, and what kind of future you are building.  You can use this advice for anything:  Your goals. Your career. Your business. Your creative ideas. Your next decision. The thing you keep talking yourself out of. The life you say you want, but have not started building yet. Seth will show you how to stop chasing the wrong things, stop measuring the wrong things, and stop trying to be everything to everyone. In this episode, you'll learn: -The 2 questions that will help you make better decisions immediately -How to know what is worth your time and what is not (this works for everything!) -Why trying to please everyone keeps you stuck -How to stop hiding behind being busy, perfecting the plan, or waiting to feel ready -Why the right decision and the right outcome are not the same thing -How you know when to quit and when to keep going -Why criticism from the wrong people can pull you off track -Why doing work you're proud of changes the way you feel about your life -How to build a future that feels more honest, meaningful, and aligned This is not just advice about business or career. It is a masterclass in how to think. By the end, you'll know what habits to cut out, what to start doing, and where to focus your energy so you can build a better future. For more resources related to today's episode, click here for the podcast episode page.   If you liked the episode, you'll love Seth Godin's first appearance on The Mel Robbins Podcast: How to Build a Life That Matters & Get What You Want Starting Today Connect with Mel:     Order Mel's product, Pure Genius Protein Get Mel's newsletter, packed with tools, coaching, and inspiration. Get Mel's #1 bestselling book, The Let Them Theory Watch the episodes on YouTube Follow Mel on Instagram  The Mel Robbins Podcast Instagram Mel's TikTok  Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-free Disclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Pete shares with Jen a perfectionism trap within an AI model, and together they noodle on how to get their work unstuck and shipped. Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about: What tools might we use to gauge when our work is good enough? What are the signs and symptoms of looking for perfection? How might we use AI to ship our work more frequently? More from us in your inbox. Subscribe to Box O' Goodies. A weekly email with the books, podcasts, quotes, and other noodles Jen and Pete are mulling over.Listen to all episodes and read full transcripts at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Reach us: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.comPete's work: humanperiscope.com · Jen's work: jenwaldman.com

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