Seth Godin in Seattle: Fighting the Resistance
Last Friday, Peter, Alyssa, and I had the opportunity to see Seth Godin here in Seattle at the ACT Theater. We also attended with five of our thinkspace members, Mirko Freguia, Andrew Spottswood, Javier Palamo, Ali Spain, and Matt Heinz.
Seth Godin is the famous author of Linchpin, Permission Marketing, Tribes, Poke in the Box, Purple Cow, and more. I consider Godin to be a total thought leader in the realm of self-motivation and innovation.
During the talk I wrote down pages of notes, insights, and quotes from Godin. One thing that stood out to me the most was,
“When you feel the resistance, do the exact opposite of what it wants you to do. Listen to that voice. When you hear that voice you know you’re on to something.”
Godin talks about the resistance in a few of his books and in his blog posts quite frequently. The resistance is what Godin refers to as, “The lizard brain, your prehistoric brain stem, the part of your brain that is responsible for revenge, fear, and anger. The lizard brain is eternally vigilant, trying to keep people from noticing you (which is dangerous). The lizard brain hates failure, and thus it hates creativity or the launch of anything that might make a fuss (which can lead to failure)” Source.
I experience the resistance in all realms of my life, and I experience it quite frequently (I’m pretty sure most humans do). I find it fun and liberating to fight the resistance by doing the exact opposite of what it’s telling me to. However, remembering to fight the resistance is part of the reason why the lizard brain usually wins. It’s so important to listen to that resisting voice and dig deeper into what that voice is saying. When you feel the resistance ask yourself, “What am I resisting exactly?” Is it fear of rejection? Fear of hard work? Fear of (fill in the blank)? Whatever it is, learning more about what you naturally resist is useful insight into our self-awareness. I believe that it’s impossible to change something until you become aware of it first. Kind of like, “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
Thoughts?
Ryan Breske
It’s the nature of human “survival,” however it’s also the thing that is killing us. Being crippled by the fear, via not taking the action we really wanted to, has us lose out on our sense of aliveness. It jeopardizes our vitality. I almost didn’t write anything here, because I don’t know you, my thoughts may be misinterpreted, blah, blah, blah.
But, your post hit me at the right time, as last night I started a post about a call to action, a plea of sorts. It’s not yet published, however my plea is that people start to get in action, get together, share themselves, be vulnerable. Stand for what they want in the world.
Thank you for prompting me to get in action.
Kristin Eide
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I am right in line with what you’re saying. We all want to survive, however “surviving” doesn’t lead to a happy and rewarding life (and does the exact opposite quite frankly). The fact that you hesitated about writing a comment on this post is related to our natural resistance as humans, but I’m so glad you did. Have you published your post yet?
Ryan Breske
Just made a bunch of updates and published it. Glad to participate with you –
http://www.zeitgeist33.com/z-movement-blog/a-plea-for-help.html
Alyssa Magnotti
Great blog post Kristin! I love Seth Godin and absolutely loved getting to hear him speak! One of the quotes that I LOVED and gave me a little laugh: “Dont just slather some facebook on your company and think that all your (marketing) problems will go away.”
Kristin Eide
Thanks for the comment, Alyssa! And yes, I loved that quote too 🙂 It’s so true.
Matt Heinz
I fight the lizard brain every day. I loved that Seth admitted that he’s lazy and would prefer to just listen to the lizard, but that most of his success has come from simply doing the opposite of what the lizard asks him to do. Good stuff.
Kristin Eide
I think Seth’s experience with fighting the lizard brain is true for many of us. I am working on remembering to recognize when the resistance is kicking in!
Peter Chee
I really enjoyed attending this event not just because of Seth Godin who books “Purple Cow”, “Tribes”, and “Linchpin” have had a big impact on me, but, I really enjoyed spending time with the thinkspace members outside of the office. Kirstin I think you did a great job coordinating this event for us! Thank you.
Kristin Eide
Thanks Peter. This was a great event, and I’m glad that we were able to make a thinkspace group outing out of it.
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