Weaponise Your Creativity - Seth Godin - #241

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. Welcome back. My guest today is none other than Seth Godin, 20 times bestselling author. That sounds ridiculous. What an insane title to have, 20 times bestselling author, marketing hall of fame member, and one of the most popular bloggers on earth. Obviously, reached out to us, didn't he? One of the fastest growing podcasts in the UK. Hey, Chris, what's happening? Wanna come on your show, talk about a new book, the practice? Get yourself in, Seth, have a coffee, mate. So today we are talking about how to weaponize your creativity. Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions. We do not want to lead an unintentional life. We want to have action that moves us towards our goals. We want to overcome our creative hurdles and Seth fully delivers on this episode. So today expect to learn what learning to juggle can teach us about how to achieve goals, how to deal with criticism, what we can do to get past imposter syndrome, how we can avoid becoming a hack and why intentional action helps you to be accountable. There's absolutely tons to take away from today. So if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. It's only a short one, only 45 minutes or so. Share it with a friend who is struggling with some creative obstacles. And perhaps this could be all of the advice that they need to get past them. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Seth Godin.
I am joined by Seth Godin. Seth, welcome to the show.

**Seth Godin** (1:51)
Well, thank you for having me, Chris. It's good to see you.

**Chris Williamson** (1:54)
Pleasure to have you on. Talking about your new book today, The Practice, what is The Practice?

**Seth Godin** (2:01)
Well, there are only two kinds of successful people in the world. What they have in common is that they've solved interesting problems, that they've shown up and made something better, that they did something original, something important. Maybe they did it by waiting for the muse to touch them by getting picked, by somehow getting permission. But more likely, in my experience of talking to lots of people from every line of work, is that they have a practice, that they show up on the regular, that they have a way to see forward, to produce this work, even when they don't feel like it, especially when they don't. And so I wrote a book about this process of shipping creative work, and it counters so many of the myths that people have about what does it mean to even be creative? What does it mean to do this work you're proud of?

**Chris Williamson** (2:49)
What are the biggest misconceptions or the things that most people get wrong about creativity?

**Seth Godin** (2:56)
Well, they think that you need to be in the mood, that it happens when you find flow, that all criticism is the same, that writer's block is real, that the muse can be summoned.
A whole bunch of things that put it outside of you, that turn it into some sort of gift or talent. No one talks that way about plumbing. No one talks that way about most of the things in our life. Why do we talk that way about this important thing? It's because we're afraid.

**Chris Williamson** (3:28)
Yeah, I recently had your friend, Stephen Pressfield on the show, and I see a lot of parallels between the practice and the war of art and turning pro. Is that, were you influenced by him when writing this book?

**Seth Godin** (3:40)
I don't think it's fair to call them parallels. I think it's fair to say I'm stealing from him.

**Chris Williamson** (3:46)
I was trying to be so diplomatic, Seth.

**Seth Godin** (3:50)
Steve is a dear friend, and he and I differ about a couple of things. He actually is more spiritual about where does this stuff come from. But what I tried to do was share my personal experience. I discovered the War of Art 10 years ago when I was writing Linchpin. I can't believe no one told me about it beforehand.
What I believe is that we are not involved in an epic battle against resistance. I believe we are dancing with feelings that exist to protect us. You can't win the battle, but you can learn to dance with them.

**Chris Williamson** (4:31)
It's a really lovely way to frame it. I have to say, of the stuff that Stephen puts forward, the more esoteric metaphysical stuff that's there. For me, as someone who's quite salt of the earth, is a little bit more challenging, but by hook or by crook, I think the outcome is correct.