Book Review: Marketing Ideas by Seth Godin

When we talk about success, we inevitably talk about personal development. And when we talk about personal development, inevitably we talk about business or marketing success [1]. When previously we talked about Six Pixels of Separation, this time we talk about another marketing thought leader worth following: Seth Godin.

Seth Godin is a highly prolific author who has published many books on marketing (and most of them best sellers too). Besides writing books, he also writes in his blog [2], that is subscribed to by tens of thousands of readers. Although he mainly talks about marketing terms, Seth’s primary topic is about how to spread your ideas in the post-digital world.

I haven’t read any of his priced books, but I have read several of his freely downloadable ones [3]. The style with which he writes, as one other blogger says it, is “short and succinct”. Seth doesn’t write long blog posts – not like some of my other favorite bloggers – but in the short sentences that he does, he hits the point home with thousands of his readers; this is how he spreads his ideas [4].

The books Seth has published include best hits such as The Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. His latest release, just published last month, is titled Linchpin and has been bought, read, shared, and tweeted about intensively in the circle of thought readers that I follow – including musicians! There is a wealth of ideas to absorb in his books, or you could opt for the daily snackable content by subscribing to his blog [5].

Seth Godin’s main idea – or at least the one I can conclude from reading his blog – is what he calls resistance; or the lizard brain. The lizard brain is basically part of our ego whose job is to maintain the status quo. Therefore, it’s the part of our brain that creates the resistance when we strive for success.

The lizard brain is the part of the human psychology that inhibits our growth by drawing from survival instincts from back when humans still lived in wild environments. In the wild where lack of concentration could lead to physical or fatal injury, the purpose of the lizard brain is to teach us not to take foolish risks. We have survived partially because we listened to what our lizard brain said.

Unfortunately, we brought this thought process of living in the wild into living in modern society – where the rules of survival and prosperity are different. To succeed in the social environment, we need to take risks that may seem highly dangerous to the lizard brain. Our perception defeats the substance, and we retreat each time an opportunity presents itself.

In the social environment, the risk that is feared the most is failure. It’s an abstract risk, yet we fear it as if it was a physical one. We react violently towards the thought of failure, or the possibility of putting ourselves out on the line for everybody to see.

Seth’s idea is we need to defeat the impulses of the lizard brain. We need the intelligence to know the difference, which risks are physical and which ones only exist in our prejudices. When we can differentiate between the two, we are one step closer towards achieving our dreams.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

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[1] Book Review: Six Pixels of Separation, 2010
[2] Seth Godin’s blog
[3] Check his website for links to these free ebooks
[4] Therefore this isn’t exactly a book review, it’s more a blog review
[5] For why and how to subscribe, check How to Use RSS, 2009