My gift to you – Seth Godin

In a world that contains a lot of useless information, Seth Godin is a voice of calm, reason, and inspiration to me every day.

We’re all information junkies of some sort. Some of us get our information from Youtube. I’m married to a history junky who is currently deep into a video series that talks about the hidden secrets of American history. Just so you know, Rockwall Texas wasn’t built on an ancient ruin. That rock wall that was found by three farmers in the 1800s is a geological formation. That’s the video Toby watched last night, and in my late evening search for information, I watched over his shoulder.

We love information and it’s at our fingertips. At the moment that an argument breaks out around the dinner table about an event or a movie or a public figure, someone grabs their cell phone and does a quick search to get the supposedly accurate answer. It sort of takes the fun out of arguments these days. I used to love being certain I was right for at least a minute longer than I do now. My certainty is frequently dashed on the rocks of Wikipedia.

But for all my love of information, I’m grateful for the rational voice of Seth Godin, someone whose blog I read every day. I suggest you follow him as well.

Today his blog was about publishing and algorithms and how so many creators tend to write to the algorithm. For instance, if I really wanted to pump up my followers on this blog and thus my algorithm on Google, I might write about a current event. I might tailor my words to whatever the algorithm is going to recognize as most important to the masses in this moment.

I’m thinking winter, weather, vaccines, pandemic, strains, snow, climate change, electricity, oil and gas, politics. Almost anything would probably be more important to the algorithm than what I’m saying right now.

But I’m not writing for the algorithm. If I were writing for the algorithm, I’d be writing a paragraph or two of drivel every day, hoping that the fresh content I created would catch the eye of the Google worms or whatever they are that decide who ends up on top of the information heap today.

The craziness of the algorithm is what gets you those clickbait videos at the bottom of some of the information sites you go to. You know, the ones that you can’t resist with the photos of child stars or winding bridges or the prettiest twins in the world? That trash is what trying to feed the algorithm gets you.

I’m not writing for the algorithm. I’m writing for you, the twenty or thirty loyal friends/fans I may have at this moment who want information that means something to them. Who want a voice that helps them see their own creativity and life in a new and hopefully more effective way.

I’ve been reading Seth Godin for at least twelve or thirteen years. Every day like clockwork. His feed shows up in my email without fanfare. It’s like getting a note from a friend. Sometimes he simply says something about business, information you might not deem helpful in terms of inspiration.

But sometimes he writes such truth that I have to then write it down in my notebook of the day so that I’ll retain it (my old brain works that way. What about yours?).

In 2012, this was one of my favorite Seth blogs – Learning How to See. I had always prided myself on being alive and aware, but 2012 was proving to be a hard year. My boyfriend had ugly dumped me and moved his new girlfriend down the street. I was financially devastated. I had been recently diagnosed with cancer. Stage IV no less.

It appeared that 2012 was not going to go down without a fight, without showing me who was boss.

What Seth said on December 25, 2012, was this:

“In our best possible future together, I hope we’ll do a better job of learning to see one another. 

Some people see a struggling person and turn away. Others see a human being and work to open a door or lend a hand. There are possibilities all around us. Not just the clicks of recycling a tired cliche, but the opportunity to be brave. If we only had the guts.”

I needed to be brave. I needed to have some guts. And at the moment I read that, I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with my life. The idea that there were “possibilities all around us,” was something I needed to hear.

There’s an entire book on the ways Seth Godin has helped me and how this type of information is so much more helpful than Wikipedia (or clickbait!). I first thought I was following him because I was a marketer. Now I know I’m following him because I want to be a more creative, more helpful, more insightful human.

By the way, his new book, The Practice, has been essential in getting me kick-started with my next book. I’ve stopped thinking so much about outcomes and started focusing on what I can creatively give to the one or two or thirty people who might need it most.

Seth doesn’t write to the masses or the algorithm, and I don’t want to either. I want to write for you. If I can, hopefully every day, give you the tiniest bit of inspiration that I’ve gleaned from my surprisingly successful life journey so far, if only one of you feels a small glimmer of more hope, then this is well worth it.

Because Seth did it for me. Along with a few others.

Yes, I have other “inspirers” in my life as well. I’ll share them from time to time. If you’re reading someone on a daily basis who makes your world shine a bit brighter, I’d love to hear about that inspiration. We can become a center of good information, helping one another to see possibilities everywhere!

Have a great day. Stay warm, wherever you are.

(Today’s photo is from Haikudeck.com)