Omar Usman – 3 Things I Learned from What To Do When Its Your Turn Seth Godin
AI: Summary ©
In this video, Seth Godin shares three things he learned from the book, What to Do When It's Your Turn, which describes the importance of having a habit of doing work that is your turn and not hiding from it. He explains that motivation is for "will" and that this means that you have to keep showing up regardless of the outcome. He also discusses the importance of good habits and working towards your goals.
AI: Summary ©
In this video, I'm sharing 3 things I
learned from Seth Godin's book, What to Do
When It's Your Turn, and It's Always Your
Turn. And this is a book that he
wrote for us saying that
you can level up and you can do
work that will be missed after you're gone.
On the cover of the book, he put
a portrait of Annie Kenny, who was from
the working class in the UK and she
spoke up. She, in sets words, she caused
a ruckus.
And because of that ruckus, it was kind
of a flashpoint for the women's suffrage movement.
And he's saying that this is a book
for everyone to kinda know it's your turn,
it's time to do the work that you're
hiding from, and to be okay with being
uncomfortable with the results.
The first thing that I learned from this
book was that there's no such thing as
writer's block. Now that might come as a
little bit of a surprise, that that's something
that we've always accepted to be true. But
he says that when it comes to doing
the work that we're supposed to do,
when it's time to write, you write. You
have to have that habit in place. You
can't wait for inspiration or the right mood
or the right environment or the right moment.
Those things won't happen. And when we when
we say that we're waiting for that inspiration
or we're waiting for that motivation,
that's actually a way of hiding from the
work that we're supposed to do. You have
to have a system in place. You have
to have a way of doing the work
that you have the opportunity to do, that
you're obligated
to do, but you have to show up
and you have to do it regularly.
When we seek out motivation, really what we're
looking for is we're looking for reassurance. We're
looking for something to tell us that, yes,
this is the right time to do it.
But the reality is there's gonna be discomfort
in doing things on a habitual or or
a consistent basis.
Chuck Close said motivation is for amateurs. Professionals
have to get up and they have to
just continue to work regardless of the situation.
The second thing I learned from this book
was the idea of invented suffering. And now
Seth says that there's different ways that we
invent suffering for ourselves.
One is the anxiety of failure before we
before we even start. So when we embark
on, you know, trying to do work that
we know we should be doing or any
kind of venture,
we're held back because we're afraid of what
might go wrong. Like, well, if I do
this, if I put this out, then this
is gonna happen. Or people are gonna say
this or this will happen. And and we
start to have anxiety and literally suffering
over something that hasn't happened yet. But let's
say we cross that barrier and we and
we do our best, we put out that
work. Well then the next thing that happens
is we start to have this entitlement factor
that, okay, I overcame these hurdles
and I really put something out and now
I need immediate gratification. I need immediate validation
that what I did was liked and that
it was well, you know, well received and
all these different things. But you have to
be comfortable with knowing
that that might not happen.
The sometimes results will be uncomfortable,
but that doesn't prevent you from doing the
work that you're supposed to do.
When things don't go our way, the easiest
thing to do is to say, well, you
know what? I gave it a shot, I
overcame my fears, I tried to put something
out, it didn't work, and I'm not gonna
do it again, And we give up. But
the theme of the book that it's always
your turn
means that you have to keep showing up
regardless of that outcome. When it's your turn,
that means that it's your responsibility, and things
are gonna be your fault. And that creates
a little bit of a tension. And we
have to kind of in in his words,
we have to be able to dance with
that tension. Because if we don't, all it
does is create resistance, and that resistance keeps
us from doing the work that we should
be doing or that we're hiding from.
The third thing that I learned was what
separates good students from bad students.
Seth Godin said that in his lifetime of
teaching,
he's been able to distill down one characteristic
that really separates
the good students from the bad students. And
he said it's thirst. It's the ability for
someone to show up and just simply say,
teach me. I wanna learn. And when they
fail, when there's a setback,
they just see it as an iteration. Okay.
That didn't work. Let me try something else.
But he said the bad student is the
one that has to be marketed to. They
show up and they say, well, is this
on the exam? Am I gonna be graded
on this? You know, do I have to
learn this part? And so you almost have
to sell them on what you're gonna teach
them, and then that just ends up creating
a lot of frustration.
In order to succeed you have to have
a thirst for learning and the way that
we create that thirst for learning is with
with good habits. It's habitually asking why. It's
focusing on the process of learning not the
outcomes of what we gain with that knowledge.
And really this is kind of the theme.
When it's your turn,
it means
having those habits of learning. It means having
those habits of shipping, of leading, of putting
yourself out there, of doing what you can
to trying to produce work that matters
and shipping it, putting it out,
and being okay with the fact that it
might not work out the way that you
wanted. But you still gotta do the work
that you're hiding from the work that you're
meant to do, the work that will leave
an impact. That's 3 things I learned from
Seth Godin's book, What to Do When It's
Your Turn. Make sure you hit the thumbs
up and the subscribe button and there's a
link to the book down in the description
below. See you next week.