Seth Godin has written 13 books – all bestsellers (Purple Cow; Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us; Poke the Box; LinchPin: Are You Indispensable). He earned his MBA from Stanford. He is an entrepreneur. Many describe him as a marketing guru. And he is a voracious blogger – with more followers than any other. He writes about marketing, leadership, ideas, change and execution. He is interviewed in the November 2011 issue of the Productive! Magazine. I have included a few of the key excerpts below on what makes Seth so productive:
Q: You are super-productive guy with one book a year, lots of daily blog posts…how do you get this done?
SG: I don’t go to meetings, I don’t watch television and I focus very much on things that have leverage and try very hard to avoid things that are stalling.
Q: You don’t engage with users on Twitter or other social networks…are they a waste of your time?
SG: I’m not sure they are a waste, all I’m saying is that I can’t do it very well and also do the other things that I want to do. So I go focus on things that I can do well and do them with leverage and passion and don’t let the resistance slow me down.
Q: You start many things. What kind of tricks do you use that help you follow through with these things?
SG: I’m not sure it is a trick. I think that the approach that I have is that the resistance to lizard brain is a compass. If it tells me that something is uncomfortable, if it tells me that something is scary, then that is exactly what I’m going to do. I look for it as a clue that I’m on the right track.
Q: On blogging. Many people blog…but then they stop…how do you manage to post so regularly?
SG: Well, I think the most important thing to understand about blogging is that if you are blogging for other people you are going to be disappointed. Even if no one would read it, I would still blog. And the people I know who blog passionately, all of them say exactly the same thing. So that is the way you have to look at it, you can’t say: “I’m not getting enough comments – I’m not going to blog. I’m not getting enough money, I’m not going to blog”. You have to say: “this is a great chance for me to clear my thoughts and put them into the world, what an opportunity.”
Q: If you are so busy and have so many things to do, how do you balance your family life and find time for the ones you love?
SG: You know that it is funny. People never say “how do you find time to have lunch or dinner?” or “how do you find time to sleep?”. We are not talking about life-lunch balance. So I’m not sure I’m interested in conversation about life-work balance. I think you have to have the discipline to have the life you want to have. And if you are stealing from one part of your life in order to make the other part work, you are going to pay for it.
