struggle in implementing them. It was a grand experiment: would people want to spend two days talking about the laborious and despised process of turning ideas into action?
The 99% Conference sold out, and a truly diverse audience from multiple industries attended. One of our featured speakers was the exceptional y productive author and marketing guru Seth Godin, known for his prolific blogging and numerous books on marketing and leadership.
Godin consistently executes. Aside from his bestsel ing books, he has created products, started companies, and founded a rather unorthodox six-month MBA training course.3 Godin’s abundant success has garnered a significant fan base that considers him a genius. However, Godin has a different take on his success. He agreed to speak at the 99% Conference to shed some light on his real track record and how, as a creative professional, he became regarded as successful.
His presentation had one slide—a col age of images representing al of the products, books, and other things he had created over the course of his life. He motioned to the slide and explained to the audience that the vast majority of the products or organizations he had built failed. “But,” he explained, “the reason that I’ve managed a modicum of success is because I just keep shipping.”
“Shipping” is when you release something—when you put a new product on sale, when you debut your latest piece of artwork in a gal ery, or when you send your manuscript to the publisher. Shipping is the final act of execution that so rarely happens.
Godin made the case that shipping is an active mind-set rather than a passive circumstance. “When you run out of money or you run out of time, you ship. . . . If your mind-set is ‘I ship,’ that’s not just a convenient shortcut, it’s in fact an obligation. And you build your work around that obligation. Instead of becoming someone who’s a wandering generality—and someone who has lots of great ideas and ‘if only, if only, if only,’ you are someone who always ends up shipping.”
The reason Godin has failed so many times is because he has shipped so many times. At the same time, due to this mind-set, Godin has also shipped some marvelous work—trendsetting books and new businesses that have captured the imagination of the masses. But to ship with such frequency, Godin has had to overcome some of the major psychological barriers of the creative mind.
Godin believes that the source of obstacles to shipping is the “lizard brain.”
Anatomical y, the lizard brain exists in al of us—it is known as the amygdala, a smal nugget of our larger brain that sits at the top of our brainstem. “Al chickens and lizards have is a lizard brain,” Godin explained. “It is hungry, it is scared, it is selfish, and it is horny. That’s its job, and that’s al it does. . . . It turns out that we have one too.” Of course, through evolution, the human brain has evolved into a complex system capable of thinking much more expansively—and creatively. But the primal tendencies of the lizard brain to keep us safe by avoiding danger and risk are stil potent.
After the biology lesson, Godin explained that “every single time we get close to shipping, every single time the manuscript is ready to send to the publisher, the lizard brain speaks up. . . . The lizard brain says, ‘They’re gonna laugh at me,’ ‘I’m gonna get in trouble . . .’ The lizard brain [screams] at the top of its lungs. And so, what happens is we don’t do it. We sabotage it. We hold back. We have another meeting.”
The lizard brain interferes with execution by amplifying our fears and conjuring up excuses to play it safe. Suddenly the responsibilities of our ful -time jobs or our personal lives wil support our lizard brain’s cal for retreat. While the lizard brain stays quiet when we have monotonous jobs with a paycheck for doing what we’re told, it becomes riled when we start to chal enge
The 99% Conference sold out, and a truly diverse audience from multiple industries attended. One of our featured speakers was the exceptional y productive author and marketing guru Seth Godin, known for his prolific blogging and numerous books on marketing and leadership.
Godin consistently executes. Aside from his bestsel ing books, he has created products, started companies, and founded a rather unorthodox six-month MBA training course.3 Godin’s abundant success has garnered a significant fan base that considers him a genius. However, Godin has a different take on his success. He agreed to speak at the 99% Conference to shed some light on his real track record and how, as a creative professional, he became regarded as successful.
His presentation had one slide—a col age of images representing al of the products, books, and other things he had created over the course of his life. He motioned to the slide and explained to the audience that the vast majority of the products or organizations he had built failed. “But,” he explained, “the reason that I’ve managed a modicum of success is because I just keep shipping.”
“Shipping” is when you release something—when you put a new product on sale, when you debut your latest piece of artwork in a gal ery, or when you send your manuscript to the publisher. Shipping is the final act of execution that so rarely happens.
Godin made the case that shipping is an active mind-set rather than a passive circumstance. “When you run out of money or you run out of time, you ship. . . . If your mind-set is ‘I ship,’ that’s not just a convenient shortcut, it’s in fact an obligation. And you build your work around that obligation. Instead of becoming someone who’s a wandering generality—and someone who has lots of great ideas and ‘if only, if only, if only,’ you are someone who always ends up shipping.”
The reason Godin has failed so many times is because he has shipped so many times. At the same time, due to this mind-set, Godin has also shipped some marvelous work—trendsetting books and new businesses that have captured the imagination of the masses. But to ship with such frequency, Godin has had to overcome some of the major psychological barriers of the creative mind.
Godin believes that the source of obstacles to shipping is the “lizard brain.”
Anatomical y, the lizard brain exists in al of us—it is known as the amygdala, a smal nugget of our larger brain that sits at the top of our brainstem. “Al chickens and lizards have is a lizard brain,” Godin explained. “It is hungry, it is scared, it is selfish, and it is horny. That’s its job, and that’s al it does. . . . It turns out that we have one too.” Of course, through evolution, the human brain has evolved into a complex system capable of thinking much more expansively—and creatively. But the primal tendencies of the lizard brain to keep us safe by avoiding danger and risk are stil potent.
After the biology lesson, Godin explained that “every single time we get close to shipping, every single time the manuscript is ready to send to the publisher, the lizard brain speaks up. . . . The lizard brain says, ‘They’re gonna laugh at me,’ ‘I’m gonna get in trouble . . .’ The lizard brain [screams] at the top of its lungs. And so, what happens is we don’t do it. We sabotage it. We hold back. We have another meeting.”
The lizard brain interferes with execution by amplifying our fears and conjuring up excuses to play it safe. Suddenly the responsibilities of our ful -time jobs or our personal lives wil support our lizard brain’s cal for retreat. While the lizard brain stays quiet when we have monotonous jobs with a paycheck for doing what we’re told, it becomes riled when we start to chal enge
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