Espresso: Seth Godin Marketing Lessons From Britain's Famous Rock Bands

0:00What is the art like just creating consistently and for a long period of time? because I've had periods of time where I just feel like my creativity is kind of zapped or zonked out. Does that make sense? Miles Davis made 50 records, and the Rolling Stones, I think, have made 50 as well. Half of the Rolling Stones records are below average. I am going to have a blog post tomorrow on my blog. It won't be because it's my best blog post. It'll be because it's tomorrow. and once I stop debating whether I'm going to have a blog post tomorrow, now the only question is how can I make it better? And the same thing is true for Mick and Keith.

0:46They don't have a debate, maybe now they do, because they don't have a debate as to whether they're going to make a record or record an album. They're going to. So what's the best thing you got? And that's what it is to be a professional. You're not waiting for divine inspiration. You're here to serve other people. what's the best we got when the creative juice is zapped out what do you do to sort of invoke not not the divine right but you know some people say to me change your inputs change your outputs like is there anything you do specifically around that if you're feeling a bit like oh well there's two parts to it the the easy answer is do lousy work don't ship it but look at it and say is that really the best i can do because improving it is easier than just starting but The second thing is you may have a systems problem.

1:32It may be that you're trying to push something uphill when you should be doing a different thing that will roll downhill. And it may be that, like, if you want to be a rock star today, my best advice is don't be a rock star today. Yeah. Because we burn down the system. Radio stations don't matter. Billboard doesn't matter. All that stuff. The things that would make Van Morrison a rock star today do not exist. So go find a different way to accomplish. DJs, if you go to Ibiza, DJs are the new rock stars. I've interviewed a few DJs and it's because the whole system's changed. Beatport, SoundCloud, sharing on Instagram.

2:11One of my favorite quotes of all time, David Bowie, the only art I'll ever study is the art I can steal from. And I love that because I think what he's saying with that is you can get these ideas and then you make them your own. And I think that's another part of the creative process of creative act is you get inspiration and then you sort of amalgamate and jumble and mold them into your thing. I know you've talked about Zig Ziglar a lot. I think he was your friend, Danny Mayer. What are some of the big ideas that you've kind of used as inspiration and then melded into your own thing? Well, why don't we reverse David's quote and say, the only art I'm going to be able to steal from is art I study.

2:56So when you send me the world's best peanut butter, or I walk into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or I hear a jazz musician I've never heard before, I'm inspired. It doesn't matter what it is. I can steal something from all of those people. Because I chose to look for something to steal. if something is working you're watching a strategy that succeeded figure out why it worked now you can steal from that and you know i give my heroes and mentors credit all the time the list is really long because i've learned so much from patty smith i've learned so much from Danny Meyer and a hundred people in between, because I'm looking for things, systems that are working that I can explain and maybe I can borrow.

3:50What's the, what's, did you say Patty or Patty? Patty Smith, you know, the woman who sang Gloria and who wrote Just Kids. She used to be with Robert Mapplethorpe. What did she teach you? Yeah. Well, her book, Just Kids, will change your life. The audio book is magnificent. And I learned about soul and poetry and the liminal state between here and there. I learned about heartbreak and magic and showing up when you have no right to show up. She has lived an unapologetic life of an artist for a very long time. What did you find hard about, originally, about showing up without having the right to show up before.

4:31Because I'm a fraud. I have no proof that my next idea is legit. It's new. I've been starting to ask this question to a lot of guests and it's like formidable foibles, I call them. And it's stuff when you were growing up, I think people who do great things or interesting things, often at the age of like 16, zig, zig when everyone else zags or zag when everyone else zigs. And I'd love to know, I asked this to this publican over here called Oshon Rogers. He's got the best pub in London. I was like, what were you doing differently when you were 16, mate? Like, how are you doing things differently?

5:04And he was like, he grew up in Ireland, massive rugby culture over there. And he was like, you know what? I'm just going to sing. And he went against the grain and he was kind of ostracized, a bit of ostracized, but just was slightly different. He was like, that gave me the courage as I got older to then just look at the world slightly differently. What were you like at 16 to 18? Like, what sort of stuff were you doing? How did you zig when everyone zagged? Dan, this is a bit of a trap. And I just want to warn everyone about this trap. I know a lot of creative people. I know a lot of people who have changed the culture.

5:36And the only thing they have in common is they've changed the culture. Some of them were bullied. Some of them were bullies. Some of them were unpopular. Some of them were popular. Some of them decided to sing when they played rugby. Some of them just played rugby. When you hear stories that are interesting to me about my childhood, it's a trap because they didn't happen to you. So it's easy to say to yourself, well, that's never going to work because I didn't have that experience. And I work very hard at not looking back on something that isn't productive. Everybody has an origin story and it's a story we repeat to ourselves.

6:13So Spider-Man's origin story was a bit by radioactive spider when he was in high school math class. If your origin story is, there it goes again. People are always ignoring me. There's your origin story. There it goes again. I always blow my chance. Well, don't be surprised if you do it again. Go build an origin story. That's just as true as the other one, where when you get in a jam, you tell yourself the story of that time you were 12 that you were in a jam and you figured it out. That's the secret. Find a productive origin story. Don't worry about other people's origins. Find a productive origin story.

6:48What did Zig Ziglar teach you you could boil it down into a couple of sentences you can get everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people get what they want don't be a wandering generality be a meaningful specific they're called stop lights but they should be called go lights because if they're not there the traffic stops you