Rise to the Top Interviews Seth Godin

David Siteman Garland at The Rise to the Top recently interview Seth Godin about entrepreneurship, building communities, and what it means to do meaningful work.

I sat unmoved after the interview completed and the sound still – I was blown away by the short but loaded insight pact in by Seth Godin.

LIGHT BULB #1 – ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Seth distinctly compared entrepreneurs to freelancers, and if you confuse the two, meaning, you act like a freelancer but you think you’re an entrepreneur – that’s bad.

There’s nothing wrong with being a freelancer or an entrepreneur, but it could be detrimental when your actions are incongruent to your thoughts, and you don’t see the incongruence – then you’re just fooling yourself.

What is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur works on the system (the business as a separate entity) that is bigger than the entrepreneur that even makes money while the entrepreneur is sleeping.

LIGHT BULB #2 – BUILDING COMMUNITIES

Do the work that scares you. Don’t be busy with Facebook, Twitter, and comments if it only make you “busy.” Are you really connecting with people or is your interaction just short lapse of momentary applause? People love to be busy because it feeds the resistance to do work that actually makes a difference in their community and connecting people.

LIGHT BULB #3 – DO MEANINGFUL WORK

David asked Seth about his process used to create and do work. Seth replied that his process and map should not be other’s map – it may not work for other people. The only thing in common about people who built great things is that they’ve built great things – the great things they’ve built. There aren’t any other commonalities such as their backgrounds, process, or methods.

That’s why they call it art – it’s your creation, even the process is part of your creation. Entrepreneurship is an art – what and how you do your work have yet to be defined and duplicated. The effort isn’t to be busy but doing the necessary and scary work that is productive.

Thank you David Siteman Garland. (Why do you use a middle name?)

What is entrepreneurship?