#AskGaryVee Episode 185: Seth Godin on Thought Leaders, Psychics & The Future of the Internet

thought leader the question you don’t have to think
about you know you can pick up semantics semantics matter a whole bunch here what
does authority given me and I think the currencies of anybody who wants to make
change happen right now our attention and trust and they’re in a virtuous
cycle you don’t get attention unless your trusted you don’t get customized
you get attention there are other kinds of attention you can you know like
yourself on fire in the street children trust doing that so this attention trust
cycle goes around the question then is how do you get there I don’t think you
get there by saying how do I hustle content media player to figure out how
to get in front of people never heard of me and somehow seduce them I think you
do it by being generous I think that people tend to trust folks who step up
before they have to they trust people who keep their promises especially when
it’s not convenient they trust people who tell them the truth and if you do
those things they’re prob gonna tell someone else you’ll get more attention
and more chances to be generous and the cyclone goes it goes good and guess what
it probably never ends at a moment where you say ok now it’s my turn to take take
take we left the take take take part out mostly you don’t feel like you own hinds
00 hines anything you don’t feel like you owe TWA anything you just are in
this environment where you know your attention is precious you know your trust has been abused if
someone shows up and treat your attention with kindness and earned your
trust every day well then one of the byproducts will be they will want to
hear what you have to say next super easy to figure
out why this guy and I get along if you’ve been watching this show is that
just wrapped up a hundred eighty four episodes in one statement I think it i
know i think im trying to play along here I think what would a super
interesting about that answer and this question is that’s right and I think
it’s good I think one of the reasons that iPad personal success is because I
think about things in such a long period of time that that answer spoke to me
because it’s my natural state when you think about things that a 10 or 20 or 40
year kind of cycle in your behavior matches that and so you’re not worried
about their one week one day one month even one year results and then I also
think the market gets to decide there’s one thing that i very much believe I
just put a little asterisks please because you’re you’re about to sell
yourself short here he’s scared that glacial strategy which says I’m a
glacier and make it all the way down the Hudson to the ocean and it’s obvious
we’re going to take a long time yes I would say that the strategy you’re
talking about which you have done consistently is that at any given moment
the short term thinker thinks you’re an idiot because you are not treating and
that the key is that you were doing things that are so generous and so trust
earning that people look at you and say why aren’t you doing that other taking
thing and it’s that feeling that the people around you think you’ve lost your
mind that’s what makes it scares me a little bit weird and you know this
because of my purse because my personality actually on stage and style
makes people think I am in short-term game you know I I recognize that my vibe
at times comes across as the worst version of the things that you’re
referring to and so it takes people a little bit of
time to completely figure me out a lot of fact I would tell you one of the
interesting things about how I live my life the reason I so deeply you know
you’ll infection toward Jews I was surprised myself how quickly you like I
can’t judge people based on how quickly they get me or not and and it’s and it’s and I always
wonder if it’s I am never sure if I do it on purpose if the stick is almost
clearly on purpose or was it always natural I think it’s not going they’re
based on what happened in school long before I thought about these things but
that’s right at the end of the day the thing that really really matters to me
is whether step said that whether I say it whether the president of the bottom
line is the market gets to decide you know when you make book when you write a
blog post when I feel like you know at the end of the market is the judge and
so when you think about who’s the peacemaker who the authority in today’s
world we clearly of mediums today and look what’s going on here right now you
know you talked about this that’s fine but that would basically I mean it’s
incredible don’t live and production TV here think about this twenty years ago
you and through the whole everyone on their own media company its create one
thing we need to amplify here though there isn’t one market there are many
market yes so you can sell to a market that wants you to be a pickup artist yes
there whatever but just please understand that’s your market don’t call
me cause I’m not your market and my argument is that most people especially
the people you want to be trusted by don’t like to be hustled percent and I
wish that a whole bunch of people call themselves the attackers were right on
the wall most people I care about don’t want to
be hustled because being hustled makes you feel bad agreed but I got india price he’s got a
candidate right where do you see the

– So, what’s the next big thing? My argument is this is the next big thing. That, if you are waiting
for something beyond a billion people connected
online with mobile being the driving force, with a fight for attention, and with constant froth around the edges. If you’re waiting for something else, you’re gonna miss out on a
big chunk of opportunity. This is our revolution. There was the industrial revolution. There was the mass media revolution. There’s this. And it will keep changing it’s flavor. The names of the public
companies that run things are gonna have to change. But please don’t wait for the next thing. This has been the next thing since 1991. And the people who ask me at
the newspaper conference in ’93 when I told them what was coming said, “Oh, well. We’ll just wait for that.” No, this is it. This is what we got. – I totally agree with that. And the one thing that’s on the horizon that I think a lot of people
are paying attention to is VR. And I say to a lot of people, “Look. That’s a ten years away.” In 1998 I thought by the year 2000 everybody would come into my wine shop and know the price of everything. And, so, I think the thing I’ve learned, my version of that same exact answer is there’s a long way away. If VR is truly contact
lenses, sitting at our home, If VR is truly contact
lenses, sitting at our home, being in places, we’re talking
about 15 to 25 years away from the scale. We’re just hitting the maturity. Let’s not forget. 15%-17% of
all eCommerce done in America is done online. It’s nothing. If you told me in 1998 that
only 15% of all things bought would be online by the year 2016, I would have sat there and said, “Shit. Do I even want to do this? That’s forever from now.” This stuff doesn’t go as fast
as we all think it’s going to. – 30 years ago today,
1986, sitting in my office at 215 1st Street in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. – As like, literally, literally today? – I’m making that part
up, but it’s 30 years ago, sitting in my office in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Do you know who walks in? I’m 26 years old. Guy named Guy Kawasaki. – Telling you Apple’s the greatest? – Well, I was already a beta tester. We did a deal with him, right? The point is, if Guy had
waited for the next big thing, he wouldn’t have become Guy Kawasaki. If I’d waited for the next big thing, I wouldn’t have become me, and you wouldn’t have become you. This idea that there’s always
the froth around the edges, there are people who
are working in VR today who are gonna go off and
do something interesting, but it’s not gonna be because
they’re right about VR. It’s gonna be because
they’re right about being a trusted person worthy of our attention. That’s the arc of the people you trust and the brands you trust. Not that they got the
product right the first day or the iteration right the first day. It’s that they made a
commitment to show up in a certain way, in a certain universe in front of certain people. – What’s crazy about that is when I think about the thought leaders in marketing, and names
that people throw out there, and authors in this space. 30 years ago he walks into your office. It’s unbelievable that
when you have the chops: A. How long you can keep the
attention of the end consumer. B. How long this all plays out. Like, I just got fired up. The level of domination
that I’m gonna have in 2037 just dawned on me. And I’m really excited about 2037. – You should be except football will be against the law by then. – Don’t even start with me. Let’s go.

– Well, she already
knows the answer, right? – Go ahead. You go. – No, that’s the thing with
psychics, they already know. Why are they asking? Next. – Yeah. I mean, look. You guys know where I sit on this one. I won’t meditate. I don’t
need to see psychics. – Whoa. It’s not okay
to put those two things in the same sentence. – Yes, it is. I’ll tell you. – No, it’s not. – Well, you don’t get to say. – I do, because one is science,
and the other one is not. – Okay. – Science is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to mankind. – I hate science, Seth. Seth, I’m telling you
the truth about this. I mean, you know I hate disappointing you. – You don’t have to like it, but you can’t deny that it works. – I don’t deny science. – So, it’s not okay to start conflating things that are based on science– – Versus things that are not. – Correct.
– Okay. – Thank you. – So, let me ask you a question. What do you think about
emotional intelligence? Seriously, like can I tell you something? Can I tell you something
that weirds me out. – Go ahead. – Help me here, because I trust you. Why is it that often, not always, and I understand brain
tricks and all that shit, but I get weirded out when
I think of random shit like somebody I haven’t
talked to in seven years, and then the next day they call me. Or a million other things. Tell me about intuition. – That has nothing to do
with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is
Daniel Goleman’s semantic take on what we need from people. The ability to look people in the eye. The ability to not eat the marshmallow. Emotional intelligence
is an important concept that people should understand. You’re talking about instinct, intuition. Okay, let’s have conversation about that. – Can’t they be cousins? – They’re not related things, no. They’re just not. – I believe you. You’re probably right. I don’t look this shit up. – Think about the people you know, who you’ve hired here, right? The ones you like the best aren’t the ones who are better at typing
than someone else. They’re the ones who have
the emotional intelligence to bring tension to bare
to cause change to happen in a way that benefits others. – 100% – That has nothing to do
with a friend calling you. – No. No question, no question. – Coincidence is super easy to explain. – Please. – We, as humans, are
story telling machines. We notice things, but we have
to make stories about them. You, yesterday, thought of
more than 300 different people. – Probably more than that. – And one of them called you. You paid attention to the coincidence, but you didn’t say, “Holy smokes, 299 people
didn’t call me today.” – That’s right. – The reason that coincidence works is as story manufacturing humans, we’re always looking for that correlation. And that’s why people buy lottery tickets. Because they think that
there’s some sort of weird cosmic numerology thing going on, because we’re wired to look
for weird coincidences, but there aren’t actually weird
coincidences in the world. We just think there are.
– It’s all science. – I didn’t say that. – That’s what you said. – No. There’s plenty of
things that aren’t science, because we make up stories
that are irrational. What I’m saying is there’s
a good reason we evolved to make up stories that are irrational, because they kept us alive. Because sometimes there’s a correlation between the stick breaking and the lion jumping out of the woods. And then when we listen
for sticks breaking, it might keep us alive, and
we’ll have grandchildren and other people will
listen for sticks breaking. Where it breaks down is
now there are no lions, but we’re still listening
for sticks breaking. We’re looking for broken windows. We’re paranoid about
certain things because– – It’s hippos and sharks. – Hippos and sharks, sure. – I love that. Look it up if you didn’t understand that. Go ahead, India.

which conditions is advisable I think
it’s advisable under several conditions condition number one where you want when
he started a blog really it was eighty-nine as an email newsletter yep
so do the math a long time ago then I met Joey dough
and switch to TypePad you know what some blogging before that but I can’t find a
where it is and then after I met you ito I’ve been doing it as relentless as I
could there was a period was five bucks a day and then I realized it wasn’t
helping me where the reader so now it’s been one today for a really long time so
the if you want to develop to get to the deputy the best at something you gonna
have to say no to a lot of things you know it’s super important super
important and so on Twitter came along I thought I could be pretty good at this
cause I’m early but I would have to use my blogging time to be pretty good at
this so better well I spend 10 hours a day thinking
about the next blog post a bunch but you don’t see most of them when he just like
kill him know stick around you might like when you’re spending 10 hours a day
in four weeks we spent hours in a ship and recall that’s why I think every
image double block even if you don’t put your name everyday write something that you
willing to put in the world so that a week from now on a month no new year
from now you can look back at it I said this I predicted his little as a
youngster you like writing and I like talking
about ideas I like helping change happen there was a time in the middle of the 18
books when the thought of sitting down and going to the practice of writing a
book really engaged me but I’d rather look someone in the eye and talk to them
then what about public speaking we’ve got to do a couple of months I hate
flying there love being a major on and then you’re off their rules can’t bring on you know chimpanzee
marching band you can you let you slide rules go beyond that can throw things
into the audience and stuff but that’s too many variables so back to India’s
question yes let me go see president in his book The War of our talks about the
resistance in Lebanon yeah I do ya like how many books do you read well I get
two or three a day in the mail and I read them until I get the joke and then
I stopped at 2000 she says but sometimes you don’t need to be there may be asked
for it gives you don’t mention that sounds a little pre ordered that book
will probably take me more than 15 minutes to get the joke it’s just rich
and layered in a lifetime ago insight you don’t say yeah but there are
other books like if the other did a good job in five pages you get the point you
trust that the rest of it is proven and now you can go on to the next thing I’m
not going to last for you fictionwise there was a book of whiskey
Tango Foxtrot hysterical brilliant funny science fiction and it’s about you
you’re in it you don’t like the devil character yeah he’s a handsome yes yeah but the best thing to say but that’s all
i care parts of that I’m in any way and then there there’s a really great book
about novel about Marcel Duchamp’s work called the bride was stripped bare by
her bachelor’s even yeah that’s really juicy book is fired up to go and then
but non-fiction wise I’m just constantly amazed at how generous authors artists
authors no you can’t make a living writing books but they do it anyway question I’m real money out of town on
Sunday as it shot shot at the way to the punch line is this piece than 20 years opposite course did you say you can be a
meaningful specifically said when your have ever walked out of the show yes cause I could go second I have
something important to adhere go ahead I just you know what I’m just glad he was
my friend generality and the problem with most social media is your not the
customer you were the product it was optimized to make you anxious and to use
it to get with optimized to extract from you nervous energy not productive output
so most people fall into it are checking one less time checking this posting that
liking this why to keep them from doing important work which I was watching
television but here’s where we disagree a little bit I mean like like they’ll
stick here for a second India who thought that all of a sudden MySpace and
Friendster Facebook and Twitter came along and took us away from all this
mass important or so let’s start with Clay Shirky Clay Shirky pointed out up that Wikipedia got built a decrease
in television viewing billion hours invested in building Wikipedia came from
GV it could have come from reading know he can show that it is great book came
from TV you put it shipping everybody’s who talked about this with me but you
can’t deny this scholars work without examining it is a wait yeah i know i
think thats fair and I think you’re right about that I do believe an
enormous amount of internet behavior at the at the television so what my point
is television’s dying because we’re giving people more choices channels are breaking down its rhetoric
masses going away what do we want people to do with the time they’re not spending
watching Happy Days just watching TV which is stunning to me but my argument
is that people who are watching you and I talk by Bryce and John at then end the
cycle already knows I’m about to say they have the ability to make a dent in
the univers hundred-percent we gave them a platform they can use to 200% and they
think that they’re advancing their cause by using various social media networks
the way that they are optimized to be used in my argument is there not that
I’m super glad that the musicians of the sixties that went way out on an edge
worried seduced by just sitting there listening to people’s records all day
they decided to make pitches before they decided to make so train coming or
whatever it is they went outside thing to say this is my work and the problem I
have with the people who are just saying me too plus plus they think they’re
doing their job they’re not doing their job they’re hiding from their job their
job is to create a body of work that are into trust you know that that’s
interesting but let’s let’s let’s go a little bit deeper sort of like this don’t you believe when
you’re saying plus + and this other thing don’t you believe that that is
exactly mapping the people that didn’t just like not everybody is going to make
great bodies of work a true ok go ahead you think they’re born that way know the people everyone who makes great
work was born naked unable to read and proven in their diapers right somewhere
along the way you make a decision you make an investment you go forward and if
we look we see that it used to be that John Hammond would pick you and you
would become a famous recording artists yes I saw the pictures are gone and so
now the building number of people who are picking themselves going up what im
saying my only point in this case is this if you find it at the end of the
day you could say I did a really good job and my social media universe is
clean and taking care of and that’s all you have to point to today I don’t think
that’s a good day and what i’m saying is that we pimps Magee who has that 2.2 in
1974 had that same thing to point him better she had the chance to do better
so what you’re saying is that everybody can go to Yankee Stadium today hit the
bat on people and take a swing which is different than giving up just yet just
let it can’t ever heard that from a political numbers are different the
intellectual endeavors for sure so when you’re saying is everybody has the same
capacity to learn you know what i’m saying is what we define as athletic
endeavors he is one axis but I could say for example if your caregiver for senior
citizens are struggling with alzheimers yes you were capable of looking at
person in the odds with empathy and infection in a way that changes that
tell me how you develop empathy tell me well you change the topic with you
because you just said I can teach me how to be a caregiver that’s gonna any
conduct we meet on los Mande and the and the you can teach the teacher I can
teach Andy yes to do I can’t ever teach him to hit a home run ok I can teach introduced something with
his voice as hard as you can teach them at home running at the same but you can
teach him to be the best version of a baseball player that he can be in the
same way that you can well that’s a whole different conversation that’s
coming up trying to have no not true not true because what’s what’s most
interesting to me is there is no economic situation that Sally pence
McGee could be focusing more time on something else besides liking buttons on
that ok do you agree with me that silly pants McGee would probably likely in
1984 to be sitting and watching well that’s what I’m say right now I’m saying
nothing changed the places that people are deploying their energy my family
liking something Instagram Facebook is a way to hide from
the productive thing she could be exposing yourself to productive thing is
scary you think you think she’s she’s gotten
to a place where that makes her feel better and that we’ve tricked people and
people drink themselves to be a part of something versus when they sat on the
couch know when they sat on the couch the entire culture was in on it and it’s
similar what i’m saying is we didn’t build the internet so that YouTube
videos we built the internet isn’t on capitol videos escapism for somebody just like a
reading a good book escapism for you seriously I’m asking I know people
around the world have something they really need to escape from the people
who are watching this much less fine I would argue and agree with you that
people have much bigger headaches then but the reality is that somebody’s
watching this has their micro version of what they think they’re skipping from I
sit here everyday and yell and say look if you’re white male in america Jesus
Christ you want about winning the lottery you want so I’m with you on that what what I’m fascinated entertaining
there’s nothing wrong people think cats just just acknowledge
you’re entertaining yourself you’re not doing your job that’s the only thing I’m
trying to put the question to India was what I’m doing my from India was when
I’m doing my job why are they using the other forms of
social media the answer is a quote you find what you want job but Neil Gaiman
has said is the way he deals with writers block has written a book in need
to do is he makes himself super bored he eliminates all input and so into you so
bored the only way to entertain himself is to right are you saying that one of
the big KPI’s for you just think the blog was not getting all that stimulus
in allowing you to create more forcing me to say either I did nothing today or
make something worthwhile that there are days when I will answer nothing but
email and I feel horrible at the end of the day cuz I don’t believe that the
product meets let me tell you what the most interesting part of this last 45
minutes was for me self-awareness for himself and I think
that to me is the most interesting part of what just happened like to me that
speaks to really understand yourself and positioning yourself in the best
position to succeed based on the successful contributors / artist I know
are similar so for me I need chaos like I just walked here I just walked into my
office lol laugh it was so quiet I started yelling at everybody I can’t get
into my place without all the employees are aware this is key it is but if we
look at most of the people who are showing up in my box and you’re about to
say what I do know what I do they’re copying pattern yes social media without
being aware of the tribes well I’m the question without being aware that
those patterns are sabotaging their mother pushing for you when a winner
when is it right when it arrived in that first try nothing see what happened if
you were forced to eat level up not by getting in but to level up by standing
out by saying something important 25 just sitting at home thinking it’s one of the funniest things about how I
go about things is I don’t want to read anybody else’s things I don’t consume
anything else because it puts me in that it’s really not even like I’m crazy that
way but I don’t want to consume anything cuz I just like observing people in
whatever format the real world digital world to be able to just do my thing cuz
that’s what makes me comfortable in analyzing it so it’s a little bit of
like it’s interesting so the way to the way we built the author MBA which is
cool I guess is it’s 28 days and there’s an enormous amount to do yes with your
name on it in public and commenting substantially with your name on it on
other people’s work like a repeat cycle repeats 1314 assignments before we do
some people struggled with that system everyone does that’s what it’s for you
if you if I sent you to Ranger School you’re going to struggle if I send you
to tightrope circus school you’re going to struggle that learning is hard that’s
why the dropout rate on online courses at 98% yes and the reason is because as
soon as it gets hard and it has to have you learned something you quit when
people are mad at watching my content because I talk about hard work and they
don’t want to hear that they want to see what the secret Asst you know what’s funny about that India
thank you brother because that’s what it is referring to I need to be accountable
to somebody I think about what triggered that game I needed to be accountable
somebody else besides myself India last one John asked what does
something we both disagree on i mean i

(blows raspberry)
– Most things. – I think that that’s now self-evident, but mostly it’s he is a
superstitious troglodyte who wants to deny that science exists. – Not true at all. – And I had Charles Darwin write the forward for one of my books. – I believe in science tremendously. – It believes in you, too. – More than I believe in it. – The thing is gravity doesn’t care whether you agree in it. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. – It’s just like, science
is just like the market. It is what it is. I mean, I’m super fine with science. I don’t understand it. I don’t know what it is, but I’m super cool with it. Listen, Seth. I’m super pumped you’re on the show, man. – It’s a pleasure. How can
people find you online? – They know how to find me. What I want to do is, let’s link up make sure everybody
starts reading Seth’s blog on a daily basis. It is massively, very
much knowing my audience, for the few of you that don’t do it, it will be a tremendous
addition to your world. – Please don’t send me email. Send him email, do not send me email. – Right. Because I just like
people more than Seth does. – It’s true. – It’s just true. That’s what we disagree on. I like human beings, Seth doesn’t. Seth, you get to ask
the question of the day.