Change Your Mind, Choose Your World & More Genius Advice | Seth Godin

25:38Well, let's think about this completely differently. If you want to build a bridge, a little, literally a figured, not a literal bridge, like the Tappan Zee Bridge. Everything in the bridge has a purpose. You don't put something on the bridge for the hell of it. That that bolt holds up this beam. This beam holds up that trellis or whatever it is, right? What's it for? What is Steve Martin's work for? What is this podcast for? What is this blog post for? What is the pavement of that street for? If we get to the what is it for question, it becomes much easier to be honest with ourselves about what we're doing.

26:19What is it for? Is it to be popular on Facebook? Because you know who wants that to happen? Mark Zuckerberg. But there's no evidence that being popular on Facebook changes the culture. So if you're really trying to change the culture, don't keep track of something that isn't measuring what your work is for, right? So for Steve Martin, he was an amateur magician. He, you know, busked his way up and did a different kind of work because that was his narrative in his head. But along the way, he decided he needed the power of a big live audience to propel him forward. So when he adds something to his routine, what is it for?

26:58It's to make the people in the stadium happy. Now, you can't have it both ways. You can't say, I want stadiums full of happy people, and I don't want to do work that's for that. They have to go together. Well, once you've got stadiums of happy people and you're making millions of dollars, Steve was mature enough to ask this question. Okay, my work now, what is it for? Is it to make more money pretending to be the Steve Martin I was yesterday? Or is my life, my work, my trajectory to explore frontiers? because if I'm in the business of exploring frontiers, I can't do that at the same time I make a promise to 18 ,000 people in a stadium because there's a mismatch.

27:41So he decided to dig in deep and go back to being an artist, not be an entertainer. You know, this is going to segue into your book. One of my favorite books of yours, written in 2007, The Dip, which was, I think that was sort of in the middle between your slightly more marketing-oriented books and your kind of more, hey, how do I create the greatest impact on society books? And I don't know if you distinguish those two eras in your writing, but I'm just going to do it for the sake of right now. So The Dip has this great, simple concept, which is that if you're going to do anything hard, you're going to have this steep learning curve where it's going to be all exciting.

28:25Then there's going to be the hard point where things aren't going to always go your way because you're developing taste or there's extra education or you're just going to start getting rejected. And then finally, if you get through the dip, you've survived where most people didn't. So there's scarcity. So now you're noticed again. And now you're actually creating impact and you have the skills and so on. So Steve Martin went through that dip of, am I just filling stadiums? No, I want to be an artist and have impact. So he went through this excruciating period where he gave up doing this thing that was giving him so much short-term relevance.

28:59And, you know, I'm just curious, there was so many questions that that book leads to, which is, and you start to answer them in the book, but, you know, how do you truly identify in the middle? And I'm sure you've been asked this before, but how do you truly identify in the middle that, okay, this is a dip and not failure. Right. Or that I should go into some other area. and then the psychology of getting through the dip is very difficult because when you're at a low point, let's say you have a business that fails, you don't automatically think, okay, this is this necessary phase I have to go through to build a successful business.

29:33You think, this sucks. I just failed at something I put my all into. And so, but this is such an important concept for people to get through. I think it's maybe one of the most important concepts. It's definitely a great life lesson. So just for readers at home, as Terry Gross would say, if you're just joining us, the Steve Martin arc is he had a first dip, which was how does he get on stage? Then he had a second dip, which is how does he become the Steve Martin? Then he had a third dip, which is giving up the thing he was already good at. Most entertainers stop after they become the Steve Martin.

30:13Right, and I think that's difficult. That's why most artists have this five-year period where you remember all that stuff from their five years, and then for the rest of their lives, all you remember is the stuff from those five years. Well, no, actually, I think it's the opposite. So I would say that the Rolling Stones figured out a shtick and they've just been doing the shtick consistently for 30, 40 years. Right. Joni Mitchell figured out how to be the Joni Mitchell and then she intentionally made Hegira. She intentionally made Blue. She intentionally went to jazz so that the audience that was counting on her to be the Joni Mitchell would leave.

30:49And so she's made many albums since then. So she went to the audience that could hate her, and she did her thing. I'm not ready to say hate her. I think that what she did instead was say, if you're used to the old Joni Mitchell, here you go, six albums, take them. But there's now this new person, and I'm not inviting you, I'm not tricking you into having the haters come. I mean, that's what Dylan did, right? Dylan tricked the folk audience to come so they would boo him. And it's in Chronicles. Sure. Great book, by the way, Chronicles Half of which is not true You just don't know which half Oh, I didn't know that He makes stuff up all the time He's such a beautiful writer, by the way In that book And I'm not even appreciative of his music But as a writer, that book is an excellent book What a great art But he says to the promoter I need to come to the same cities three times For three years First year, my fans will come They'll hate it But they'll have brought some friends So the next year, just their friends will come and it's the third year with my new work that I'll have a new audience again, right?

31:50So we intentionally went through a new dip that might not have worked. So what I didn't do in the book on purpose was answer the question, how do I know it's going to work? I did not answer the question, how do I know if it's a dead end or a dip, right? Because I can't answer the question. All I can do is turn on the lights. Turn on the lights and say, once you see this pattern, once you see that it is possible for a comic to go from living in a van to being on Saturday Night Live. Once you see that it is possible for an entrepreneur in Georgia to go from playing with email to running MailChimp, you discover there is a valid path.

32:30And you can look at 100 people or 1 ,000 people or 10 people who have been through it and you can smell the difference between the person who's just dreaming because they like being stuck whereas the person who's facing a dip. It's not always going to work. Hardly ever, but you know it could work. And that's why it's the work of going through that dip that separates us from people who are just looking for a job. So it's almost like you have to diversify some of your endeavors at creating impact so that you're going to be experiencing dips all the time. And then the ones where you really start to see, oh, there's, I love doing this and there's light at the end of the tunnel.

33:10That's the dip you could survive through as opposed to like, oh, I'm in a dip, but I've got to keep, I don't enjoy myself right now, but I got to keep going, even though that might be, you know, a cliff or a cul-de-sac or whatever. I mean, the best tactical strategy I can think of is not to live a life of deprivation on one thing, but instead to find an audience of people who will happily pay you for the value you create in whatever minimum amount of time you can spend so that you don't have to worry about starving to death, which then frees you up to actually do the craft of getting through a dip that truly matters.

34:02I'm going to, you know, I know you just said, I don't like talking about myself because this is I like talking about the listeners, but it's all related. Like how we individually solve our problems helps everybody solve their problems. So I have a problem. Okay. I'm in a dip, right? So for six years, I've been writing my personal story in a way that's really heartfelt to me. And people have resonated with it. And for better or for us, some people haven't resonated, some people have. But there's only so many years in a row. Right. And I write every day. There's only so many stories I have. and so I am going through that experience of feeling a little burnt out on my own story and being honest about it here and don't know how to show up for the next thing don't know how to find that next voice what advice would you have for me?

34:58Well, there's all sorts of questions nested within that question so there's the tactical question but then there's the more philosophical one So I'll first answer the tactical question, which is that your real work currently is for the audience of people you have permission to talk to, can you change them in a way that they seek to be changed? That's what you do. That's what people are attracted to. You're not there to entertain them with vulnerability porn. You're there to help change them from where they are to where they desire to go. Now, there are lots of ways you can do that. You have used one tactic that is particularly successful in that setting.

35:42And it may be unsuccessful for some people, successful for others. But no tactic lasts forever. And so what you can say is my mission is still the same. My audience is still the same. I want to change those people in a way they trust me to change them. But I'm not going to be able to keep using that tactic. I have to use a different tactic. Because I can't just keep changing them by telling my story. because it runs out after a while. So there are lots of ways around that. So what Zig did was he said, I only got 50 stories, but I'm going to keep telling them over and over and over again until it becomes a mantra for you.

36:17And so I can tell you six of his stories right now, word for word, because I heard each one 140 times, right? That's a different tactic than, oh, you never heard this one before about the prostitutes at three o 'clock in the morning. I'm going to drag that one out, right? So if what the real issue is, is you're running out of the tactic? Well, yeah, that happens to all of us. Annie Leibovitz, right? Annie Leibovitz had a tactic when she was shooting rock stars. But how many different ways can you put snakes on a naked person? So you go in a different direction. Jill Greenberg, the brilliant photographer, goes in a different direction.

36:51Jeff Koons has done it five times. Totally different set of tactics, all aimed at the same audience, right? How do I wake up the art world? But what you may be hearing in your head is this audience, this promise, that might not be yours today. It was for a while, but it doesn't have to be. You've done many different fascinating projects, all for different audiences. And there's nothing except pop culture that says we have to keep doing the same show. So you can say, you know what? Here's my work. Take it. I'm going to go over here and start over with a different audience I'm trying to change in a different way.

37:26Maybe I'm just trying to turn$5 into$10. Maybe I'm trying to work for social justice. Maybe I'm trying to become a surgeon. These are all valid choices because you only get to do this shtick once and you should find dips that thrill you, dig in and own that. The mistake so many people make, including me, everyone I know, is wanting one thing, but doing something else that isn't likely to get us the thing we said we wanted. Like when did you do it?

37:59Well, when I was busy trying to sell books to book publishers, I didn't say to myself, what do book publishers want to buy? I said, what is it that I need to write? And I insist that the book publishers pay me for it. Well, when they don't want to pay you for it, it's not their fault. You didn't bring what they wanted, right? So I then made the choice to say, you know what? I care more about the book than I do about the publisher. So I'll just publish my own book because I want to make the book I want to make. And that's different than ranting and raving about the fact that these idiot book publishers don't want to publish what I want to publish.

38:37There's a mismatch there. And that's the way the world works. You're not allowed to force people to take what you offer. You just have to go to the story they tell themselves and bring them a story that resonates with their worldview. And so in some sense, the complaining is draining. Like rather than complain about the publishers, well, how do you know what the world wants to hear? You just said you want to write the story that the world wants to hear. How do you know that? So you, first of all, never the whole world, but you pick your world. And within that world, what it means to have good taste is to understand what other people will look at with good favor, right?

39:15So if you want to own a restaurant that serves the Illuminati and the Intelligentsia in Vancouver, Well, looking at where they're currently eating will give you a whole bunch of hints as to what they seek. Now, is it possible that they also want to go to a roadside brisket barbecue? Yes, and you could take that huge leap. That's super leadership. If you do it, it might not work. And accept that it might not work. But as artists, we are required to understand what will resonate. So Goya lived 200 years too soon. If you look at the work of Goya, you will think he painted in 1890. He painted in the 1600s.

39:56And that's why Goya isn't as famous as Van Gogh. Because the audience in the 1600s said, what? You're not supposed to make paintings like that. So is there an absolute painting? Of course not. There's just the painting that resonates with the people who want to look at paintings right now. And if that's your goal, understand what that resonance is like. That's why Jeff Koons is a genius. Jeff Koons doesn't make the giant dogs and the bushes. He just tells people what to do. He's not a craftsman. Jeff Koons is a genius in the sense that he says, I know how to make an icon that people who are looking for an icon will wait in line to see.

40:34So, I mean, right now, when you were talking about books, you're about to launch an incredible book project. I mean, you're a real artist with books. And yes, you blog every day and you write every day. but there's something about the publishing of a book that is an event. And you view a book as not just kind of a collection of pages surrounded by two covers. I really feel like you make a three-dimensional object that's beautiful to look at and read. What's the title of this next book? Because I always try to remember and then I forget. Thank you. So the new book is, What Does It Sound Like When You Change Your Mind?

41:08It almost has this koan-like, you know, sound type. And it's not new because it's the best of the last four years of my work. And it's illustrated with hundreds of photos by Thomas Hawk, who's the most prolific and talented internet photographer. And it weighs 18 pounds, 18 pounds, and it's 800 pages long. It's so big, there are only six or ten printers in the world who were even interested in printing it. And it just left China on container ships 10 days ago. One of them coming to me, by the way. I'm very excited about it. But here's the key thing that I would say. First of all, thank you for those kind words.

41:48I am almost done wrestling with infinity. And here's what I mean by that. I only printed 5 ,500 copies of the book. And I'm not going to print anymore. There's not going to be a second printing. There's not going to be, oh, how do I make more of this? That's all there is. By having it be all there is, I'm not promoting the book. I'm not hawking the book. I'm not telling everyone, go, go, go, go buy the book. I'll do another couple blog posts about it because I don't want people to feel left out. And when it's gone, it's gone. That's so freeing. It is freeing. It's a whole relief to not worry about that whole angle.

42:20Because now there's not an infinity of upside. I already broke even, and it'll do okay. But I got to make the book I wanted. And that's enough. And then I get to do it again. So, and this is related to another, I mean, all of your books are excellent, but The Icarus Deception is also a particularly special book where you kind of make the statement that there's a before and after, that the before was education, job, promotions, death, so on. And then the after is we live in this connection economy where you can find your tribe and deliver to them whatever it is you want. Everybody is an artist.

42:56So it's not just the Goyas of the world. It's the entrepreneurs. It's the people who support their neighborhood. It's a good family member. So to some extent, you've done that in many different ways. Like you've created your alt-MBA program. You write these books. it's all art to you. And so how would you define the difference between, so two points. One is reinvention is a must because there is no steady path from birth to death. For sure. So now more than ever, you kind of have to look for, okay, there was five years of Bob Dylan's schtick here and now he's got to do five years here and then five years in the next thing.

43:31I don't know what five years I'm making it up. It could be three years, whatever. But But how have you seen your shtick change through the years? And how do you define when to go from one to the next? So here's my definition of art. Art is what we call it when a human being does something that might not work in the service of connecting or leading somebody else. How do you know in the service seems subjective? Yeah, of course it is. How do you know when you're in the service? Well, what I mean by that is that when we look at something that touches us, we feel different than if we look at something that's just there.

44:12That architecture can touch us. It's not just a roof, right? That a cop who talks to a scared four-year-old girl in a way that makes her feel more safe is doing a form of art because there's a human-to-human connection that's not in a playbook. You can't do it the same way every time. right? He's not merely exerting authority. He is actually building a bridge. And so there's plenty of other definitions that one can use, but that's mine. And so for me, there have been companies that I have built. And the purpose of those companies, what are they for? Well, they had three purposes. One, change the people who work for me so that I can create an environment where they will grow and remember it later as an important thing.

45:00Two, change my customers so that they will say, I'm glad I interacted with that thing that company did. And three, figure out how to do it in a way that makes a profit to return on the risk that was taken by me and the people who invested. So a properly built company feels like art to me. So when I look at the arc of a company like Apple, it's really interesting because for, I was a beta tester of the Mac in 84 and I had an Apple II before that. So from all the way back there, the idea was always, is how do we explore the frontier of technology to change our users into people with better taste, to change our users into people who have more power in the space that they're working in?

45:43So this is where it's art that might not work because they didn't know the answer. Right. And so if you think about the fact that every single major Mac product that was launched and iPhone and iPod was criticized by almost everyone when it came out. Almost everyone said, That's not going to work. That's too expensive. That's a silly idea, et cetera, et cetera. And then what happened five years ago was they're the most profitable, highly valued company in the world. That means there's 10 ,000 or more employees who are waiting for the stock price to go up because that's their compensation. And you're no longer in the business of exploring.

46:22You're no longer in the business of connecting. You're no longer in the business of enabling people to go forward. what you're in the business of is incremental, predictable profit increases that please the shareholders. And that shift is palpable because they're not exploring any of these fringes anymore. They're not seeking to meet, to say to the tribe, and I'm one of the founding members, yes, this is something that will not only change you for the better, but that you want to talk about. Instead, they're saying, well, this cost reduces for us, or this helps us reach a slightly larger audience.

46:59Now, they're entitled to do that, right? This is the profit-taking part of the purple cow cycle. The thing that makes me sad is some people are holding that out as a role model for what we ought to do next. I don't believe that. I think most of us don't get to be Tim Cook. Most of us don't even get to be Peter Thiel. The idea of building a billion-dollar company, I'm not so interested in that. I'm really interested in helping one person change 20. Because if one person makes the lives of 20 people better and we spread that idea, then everybody ends up living a different, more nuanced and connected life.

47:35And that feels to me like something that's in the service of why we're here. So in your podcast, you did an excellent podcast on, it came out September 20th with Brian Koppelman. You mentioned how because now there are, the gatekeepers are down and we have so many choices about how we can get our own message and creativity out there. so many books are self-published that many of them are almost or could be unreadable. Oh, yeah. And a lot of people don't even don't have the self-reflection to say, oh, I just created something that's unreadable. So what's your technique for improving when you're starting something new or when you might have and you're not sure created something that's not so good?

48:21Like what's, and again, this is for the listeners. It's a great question. How do you improve? How do you personally improve? So there's a lot of danger here. And the danger is that, you know, when I was, after I sold a book to a publisher, almost every time the publisher made it better. Because what the publishers are good at, the thing they are the best at actually, is saying back to the author, yeah, we got this joke, but this part isn't what you meant. And that idea of the generous editor, the person who knows actually how to do this, not to protect themselves, not to sand off the edges, not to make it safer, but to actually push you to make it better is a priceless gift.

49:02It's really difficult to find. So now that we've given everybody the publish button, what we're seeing is that everyone's using the publish button and 99 % of what they're publishing is dreck. It's just they shouldn't read it, no one should read it. Just because they could publish it doesn't mean they should have published it, right? That's really different than the person who is afraid to publish. The person who's afraid to publish is a perfectionist making up all the reasons not to publish because they're hiding. And we need to be really clear with ourselves about which one is which, right? That deep down, all of us are capable of inspiring someone, connecting to someone, making a difference.

49:43And most of us hide from that. So when you feel that feeling, that, which Steve Pressfield calls the resistance, is the moment you must publish. because that's the moment when your amygdala is trying to hide, but you need to push forward to explore what happens when you put your art in front of people. On the other hand, when the tantrum part of your brain is going, when the rage part of your brain is going, when the angry part of your brain is going, you must not publish because in those moments, you're not trying to hide. You're trying to hurt. What's an example? Well, Twitter. Yeah, I guess so.

50:17I guess people that you have this gut impulse and like, oh, 140 characters, I'll just put it out there. Right. And our culture started for a couple of years after this happened saying, how dare you? We don't do things like that. People like us don't say things like that. But over time, particularly because it's anonymous, that social sanction gets corrupted and falls apart. And then you end up with just cesspools of hate and trolls, right? Trolls are trolls for a reason, and they're not trying to cause positive change. They're just trying to vent their anger. That's not art, right? That this act of trolling is a little bit of a cry for help, but mostly it's a mistake about what would help you go forward.

51:01That just because you can put it in the world and hurt somebody else doesn't mean you should. So I guess part of improving is to kind of, let's say, shift that tantrum side of yourself to more kind of positive impact or I don't know, like what, how How do you, again, start to improve when you— So who are you trying to change? If you think about the job of a receptionist, what does he do? Right? Is he really guarding the building? I like how you did the gender thing there. I always try to flip it. My initial thought was a woman when you said receptionist, but you're right. You're totally right.

51:32Right? He's not guarding the building because you could just have a buzzer. So what's his actual job? His job is to be a receptionist, which means to change the person who walks into the office into someone who is more enthusiastic, more likely to tell their truth, more likely to be open to engagement. That is a huge thing for a receptionist to do. That's your job, right? They're part of checking people in. Anyone can do that. But a great receptionist changes the person who walks in. Okay, are they changing? If they're not, then you're not serving your audience. Then you're not doing your work.

52:11Try something different tomorrow. Bring in some brownies. Try something else. Talk to the person while they're waiting in the lobby about the person they're going to go meet. Oh, you're going to go meet Bill? I know, Bill. We played softball on Sunday. Ask him about what happened in the third inning, right? What happens when you do that? What happens when you do this? And over a week, a month, a year, you're going to become the best receptionist anyone has ever encountered. And I think that's worth something. You know, you mentioned earlier your book, Permission Marketing, which was a great title and kind of defined a movement in marketing.

52:43I've kind of stolen your phrase and applied it to networking. Like a lot of people say, oh, can you introduce me to so-and-so? And I always make sure I get permission on both sides before I do. So I call that permission networking. But it feels like even showing up, like and you've been writing a lot about lately the importance of showing up. There's probably a notion of permission showing up. It's not like you can just show up at a party you weren't invited to. You kind of have to sort of feel out where you should show up. where you're allowed to show up. And so again, how do you, a lot of these things are so subtle and subjective, like, and people don't know, psychologically don't know, where do I have permission to show up?

53:21And what will help me the most and help my audience the most and so on? Right. So human spam, we don't need more of it. And clearly there are people whose only job all day is to be human spam, bothering people, doing this networking thing that's not welcome at all. In New Hampshire, the last time I was there, I noticed that the house, I was canvassing a bunch of years ago for a politician. The houses that where I visited on block after block had no doorbells. So what does that mean? What it means is if your friend come in and if you're a stranger, go away. And I thought that was profound, right?

53:59That what it means to have permission is to not knock on a stranger's door, but instead pay something into the community to the point where the community asks for something more from you. That's how you earn permission. That you contribute and you contribute and then one day someone says, wait, I missed you. What else you got? That's what permission looks like. And we see it all the time in the real world that somebody puts up a video on YouTube. That's not spam. You have to go find it, right? That video of YouTube is so touching, so human that... The comments come in, the email comes in. They say, what's your next one?

54:38So now the door is open for you to make another one. And that's how it grows bit by bit. I think that's really important, that notion of the next one. And you've written about this as well. It's not, everybody says, how can I market my new novel? And I always respond, write the next one. Because that's the best way to market the first novel is to write the next novel. And then you also improve as well. I think people think, oh, I just made this great post. Can you share it because it's going to have so much impact? Or a Kickstarter. Yeah. And usually the answer is no, like just keep on going. And that's really how you show up.

55:12Right. But what about, I mean, people always say the importance of persistence. And, you know, when I see this doing a podcast, I have to do this all the time. I have to keep being in front of potential guests. Hey, I'm still here. You know, you're promoting something or whatever. Do you want to come on my podcast? When do you know that persistence is too much? You know, when am I knocking too much on the door? So here's my version of persistence. The number of people you care about who are actually going to buy from you, and this podcast is buying from you, merely because you annoyed them into saying yes is very low.

55:52That the people you annoy with persistence who say yes, you don't want to interact with anyway. I hope I didn't annoy you by asking. You didn't. Because I never say yes to people who are merely persistent. as a matter of principle, never. Because it just encourages people to be annoying. That's different than earning the standing as a known quantity, right? That what we know is that no business, no project, no novel ever started big, ever. It always starts with three people or 10 people or 20 people. That's the curve, right? We know what the curve looks like every time. So instead of saying, I need to leap to the middle, you say, I'm going to start with people who want to engage with me.

56:35But the other thing I'm going to do, this is where the dip comes in, is Mark Maron's podcast, WTF, wasn't popular for months and months and months and months, maybe years, but he kept making the podcast. And as a result, when he sends an email to Steve Martin saying, you want to be on my podcast, look at who else has already been on it. That list is the sign of persistence. Sending 50 emails to Steve Martin isn't the point. The point is, I'm not going away. I'm serious about this. I'm real. That is what people miss. So I wonder if, you know, as we're talking, one thing I noticed about you is you're so calm.

57:14And I'm sure other people have said that to you. But you've written also recently, like you had this one great post maybe a week or so ago where it was just line after line, like care for other people, contribute what you can. I mean, I'm paraphrasing the lines. But like when we got in here, you got me a water, like I should have gotten you a water. Like, is your default, like whenever you feel or recognize anxiety inside yourself, do you say, okay, I'm going to switch from anxiety to how can I contribute a little bit more? Because that will kind of fade the anxiety. Do you have like a default thing going on in your head?

57:48Well, let's talk about authenticity for a minute. You know, I think the last time most humans were authentic was when they were 90 days old, lying in a diaper with poop in it. Right. Everything since then is a choice and it's work. That we put on clothes, even if it's not cold out, right? Because that's our job. That's the only way we're going to interact with other people. That we smile at a stranger, even though we might feel like running away. Because we know that smiling at a stranger makes it more likely that we'll have an engagement with them that moves things forward. Is that inauthentic?

58:20Is that manipulative? No. It's the work of being in a civilized society. It turns out that if you adopt a pattern of positive connection toward other people, not only do doors open for you, but you will be happier. We know this. There's plenty of evidence that shows that this is correct. That every time we have a chance to indulge our amygdala, indulge rage, indulge anger, and we take it, we don't end up blowing off steam and feeling better. We end up worse. So there's a practice. And for me, part of the practice is if I'm engaging with somebody, well, then engage with them, right? And this idea that you're hiding in the corner and you're going to the cocktail party because you don't want to and you're afraid to raise your hand at the end of class, all that stuff, that's just hiding.

59:11And it's not productive and it's not generous. So for me, the daily practice is reminding myself why I'm here at all, right? Because if it's not to make things better, then don't go. Well, Seth, this has been such an enlightening conversation. I'm so glad. Oh, we're done already. You're awesome. Thank you. Yeah. No, I don't want to. I know you have things to do. You're so great coming down in here. Of course, as I've said before too many times, I'm a huge fan of all your work. I learned you gave me a great therapy session right here. So, and thank you for the water. What's, okay, let me just ask you this.

59:48what's next after this massive 6 ,000-pound book and your Alt-MBA course that's coming up and your constant blog posts? What are you going to do? What's your next thing? You know, the— Why don't you write a movie? I'm just throwing it out there. Me and Brian. There's a lot to be said for chopping wood and carrying water, of doing the craft. And the Alt-MBA is now entering its ninth session, and we're going to do that throughout all of next year. there's a lot of people who are hoping to turn some lights on. And as long as I can be of service doing that, that is my practice right now. Excellent.

1:00:27Thank you, Seth, once again. A pleasure. Thank you.