Seth Godin: How to Build a Business Strategy That Actually Works

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0:01:10 People don’t know what strategy is.
0:01:12 They think it’s a plan.
0:01:14 They think it’s an instruction manual.
0:01:15 It’s none of those things.
0:01:17 It’s a compass.
0:01:21 What separates an entrepreneur who succeeds from one who struggles?
0:01:24 It’s not how many hours you put in.
0:01:29 In this case, do you see the current, the forces of the systems that are involved?
0:01:35 If you’re not able to talk coherently about the risks you’re taking, the changes you’re
0:01:37 making, the systems you see, you don’t have a strategy.
0:01:39 You’re just doing your job.
0:01:42 Don’t play a game you can’t win if your goal is to win.
0:01:45 If you’re not building something that people are talking about, build something better.
0:02:04 Young Improfiters, welcome back to the show.
0:02:06 And today, we’re going to be focused on strategy.
0:02:11 Now, as entrepreneurs, we often think that we are really good at strategy, right?
0:02:13 It’s a lot of what we do.
0:02:15 We’re creating plans of action.
0:02:16 We have outcomes.
0:02:18 We’re aligning our plans to these outcomes.
0:02:21 We’re doing the tactics to make sure that it gets done.
0:02:24 But are you stepping back and actually thinking about strategy?
0:02:28 Are you being strategic about the way that you’re doing strategy?
0:02:32 Because there’s a lot of philosophy behind strategy and the way that the world works
0:02:33 in general.
0:02:35 And joining us today is Seth Godin.
0:02:38 He’s been on the podcast twice before.
0:02:42 He’s always so valuable when he comes on the show, and today is not going to be any different.
0:02:44 We’re really going to go deep on strategy.
0:02:46 That’s all we’re going to talk about today.
0:02:49 And in particular, we’re going to learn about systems.
0:02:51 So what are the different systems out there?
0:02:58 Why do we need to understand and be able to see systems in order to change them as entrepreneurs?
0:03:02 We’re going to talk about empathy and the desires that people have and how that helps
0:03:07 us motivate people with our strategy and motivate them to buy our products and services and
0:03:09 align to what we’re trying to do.
0:03:13 We’re going to talk about time, and we’re going to talk about the games that people
0:03:17 play when it comes to strategy, the games we shouldn’t play and the games that we should
0:03:18 play.
0:03:19 I can’t wait for this conversation.
0:03:23 I feel like it’s going to really open our minds and think differently about strategy,
0:03:26 which is, of course, Seth’s point in writing this new book.
0:03:31 So without further ado, here’s my conversation with the amazing Seth Godin.
0:03:34 Seth, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:03:35 Thank you.
0:03:36 It’s great to see you.
0:03:40 I am definitely excited to talk to you for the third time.
0:03:46 So Young and Profiters, we talked to Seth, Episode 87, we talked about creativity, Episode
0:03:52 225, we talked about productivity, and today we’re going to be talking about strategy.
0:03:55 Strategy can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, Seth.
0:04:01 And so my first question to you to warm us up is, what do you exactly think strategy
0:04:02 is?
0:04:06 Well, this is why I needed to go through all the pain and suffering of writing a book because
0:04:09 people don’t know what strategy is.
0:04:10 They think it’s a plan.
0:04:12 They think it’s tactics.
0:04:13 They think it’s an instruction manual.
0:04:16 It’s none of those things.
0:04:18 Strategy is a philosophy of becoming.
0:04:24 It is a way of looking at the world as it is and deciding how you want to change it.
0:04:27 It is not a guarantee.
0:04:28 It’s not a map.
0:04:29 It’s a compass.
0:04:33 And we need to talk about it, because if we don’t talk about it, you can’t make your
0:04:34 strategy better.
0:04:38 It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going if you’re going in the wrong direction.
0:04:44 Now, this is a show for entrepreneurs, and I’m curious to understand why strategy is
0:04:48 especially important for entrepreneurs.
0:04:52 So what separates an entrepreneur who succeeds from one who struggles?
0:04:54 It’s not how many hours you put in.
0:05:00 It has something to do with the people you surround yourself with, but mostly it’s do
0:05:04 you see the current, the forces of the systems that are involved?
0:05:09 Is the world supporting you or are you fighting the world?
0:05:14 And these are decisions, decisions that you can make early on, and then decisions you
0:05:17 have to make again when the world changes.
0:05:21 So I don’t care if you have a team of one or two people and you’re mostly a freelancer
0:05:26 like me, or you’re trying to build an organization with 80,000 people in it.
0:05:30 You still need to be very clear about what your strategy is.
0:05:37 So a company like Amazon, they didn’t succeed because they did everything right.
0:05:41 They succeeded because Jeff had a very simple strategy, and he stuck with it for a very
0:05:42 long time.
0:05:45 I feel like one of the ways that we can better understand strategy is to understand what
0:05:46 it’s not.
0:05:49 So what is the opposite of strategy?
0:05:53 Well, one of the things that’s the opposite is strategic planning, which is a terrible
0:05:54 name.
0:05:59 Roger Martin has pointed out that you can’t have a strategic plan because a plan means
0:06:01 that if you follow it, you will succeed.
0:06:07 That a plan for a house, if you follow it, you will have a house when you’re done.
0:06:13 That businesses like plans because they like power and authority and measuring and delivering.
0:06:16 But a strategy isn’t that.
0:06:18 A strategy is a point of view.
0:06:19 It’s assertions.
0:06:20 It’s what do you see?
0:06:25 It’s who are you here to serve and how are you hoping to change them?
0:06:29 It is a question, at least as much as it is an answer.
0:06:34 So one of the things that you say in your book is that we’re trained our whole life based
0:06:35 on tactics.
0:06:39 So can you help us understand how in school and work, we’re really trained for tactics
0:06:44 and how that might make us overlook strategy?
0:06:49 They only ask you questions they know the answer to in school and they push you to get
0:06:50 an A on the test.
0:06:55 So you need tactics to do those things, study this way, answer this way.
0:06:59 You’ve been doing this podcast now for hundreds of episodes.
0:07:05 When you started, it wasn’t obvious that someone could professionally make a podcast.
0:07:07 You had a strategy for how to bring the podcast to the world.
0:07:13 The tactics of let’s make sure that the gain level is set this way or that it’s this many
0:07:14 minutes per episode.
0:07:19 These are important, but these wouldn’t have worked if you would have been building a pottery
0:07:25 studio instead of a podcast because it’s almost impossible in today’s world to build
0:07:28 a pottery studio that would have the impact that your podcast has.
0:07:34 You had a good strategy and then you follow it with tactics that support the strategy.
0:07:40 But if you’re not able to talk coherently about the risks you’re taking, the changes
0:07:45 you’re making, the systems you see, you don’t have a strategy, you’re just doing your job.
0:07:50 And what do you think a career or life looks like if you’re just only focused on the tactics
0:07:53 and you’re never thinking about the strategy?
0:07:59 For grandparents, ours, mine, yours, that was an entirely appropriate strategy.
0:08:04 You got out of school, you got a job for a can company and you made cans for 40 years
0:08:09 working your way up because the can industry would be fine, right?
0:08:12 When the world changes, that doesn’t work so well.
0:08:17 So let’s say you’ve worked really hard to break into Hollywood when Hollywood was about
0:08:18 movies.
0:08:19 Now the world changes.
0:08:24 And all of a sudden, you’ve been turning up your nose at things like YouTube or Netflix
0:08:27 and no one’s watching movies anymore, you’re in trouble, right?
0:08:34 So we need the resilience to say, “My job is to figure out what my job is, not to do
0:08:35 my job.”
0:08:42 And when it comes to strategy and success, what do you say to the people who just say,
0:08:43 “Try harder.
0:08:45 You just got to work hard, try harder.”
0:08:48 Try harder at what?
0:08:53 Almost all the jobs that entrepreneurs do, if you knew exactly what the job was, you
0:08:56 could hire someone cheaper than you to do it.
0:09:01 If someone writes a 300-page book, it might take them four years.
0:09:05 Typing a 300-page book only takes three days.
0:09:07 So what was the rest of the time spent on?
0:09:08 Because it wasn’t the typing.
0:09:12 When we say, “Work harder,” we’re saying, “Type faster.”
0:09:13 And typing matters.
0:09:16 But first you got to know what to type.
0:09:21 That isn’t about how many hours you’re spending in the office, it’s about what you see and
0:09:24 what are you up for in terms of the impact you want to make.
0:09:25 Okay.
0:09:31 So in your book, which by the way is written really uniquely, it’s called This Is Strategy
0:09:34 and basically Seth has these blurbs.
0:09:39 It’s not like chapters, it’s just telling a story and it’s up to you to decide how you
0:09:40 want to interpret it.
0:09:46 So one of the little blurbs that you had talked about four threads, timed, games, empathy
0:09:47 and systems.
0:09:52 And to me, as I was reading the rest of it, I really kept going back to that blurb about
0:09:54 that being the foundation of everything.
0:09:58 So strategy is woven by four threads, timed, games, empathy and systems.
0:10:02 Can you explain how these four pillars really underpin what strategy is?
0:10:03 Sure.
0:10:05 Let’s talk about time first.
0:10:06 Back to your podcast.
0:10:08 The first episode, how many people listened to it?
0:10:09 Probably 100.
0:10:14 If you’re lucky, maybe 10.
0:10:16 Did you say my podcast is a failure?
0:10:21 I hope not because what you did was say, “I just planted some seeds.
0:10:22 Now I need to nurture them.
0:10:27 Now they’re going to grow and then what’s going to happen and then what’s going to happen.”
0:10:29 Time is evenly distributed.
0:10:32 All of us get 24 more hours tomorrow.
0:10:34 Time unfolds whether we want it to or not.
0:10:38 We are very conscious of where we are now.
0:10:42 Yesterday feels like a memory, tomorrow feels like a daydream, now feels like now.
0:10:44 But tomorrow, that’s not going to be true anymore.
0:10:46 We have a different now.
0:10:52 So when we think about our strategy, I don’t care about what’s going to happen tomorrow.
0:10:57 I care about what are you planting and what’s going to happen in three months and six months
0:10:58 in two years.
0:10:59 What unfolds?
0:11:00 So that’s time.
0:11:02 The second one is empathy.
0:11:06 And empathy says you don’t have as much power as you want.
0:11:08 Other people have a choice.
0:11:11 Other people can choose to buy what you’re selling.
0:11:15 No one sees what you see, wants what you want, believes what you believe.
0:11:19 If you’re a teacher, it’s worth noting everything you’re teaching, you already know.
0:11:21 And everyone you’re teaching it to doesn’t know it yet.
0:11:25 So if you don’t have empathy for them, you can’t teach.
0:11:28 The third one are games.
0:11:30 Board games, but the games of game theory.
0:11:35 The games of players and choices and boundaries and outcomes.
0:11:38 If I do this, they might do that, or they might do that.
0:11:44 And calling it a game helps us take ourselves a little less seriously.
0:11:46 We realize if we make a move, that’s not a good move.
0:11:50 It’s not because we’re a bad person, it’s because the move wasn’t the right move.
0:11:55 So we can address a changing world with a lighter stance.
0:11:58 And the fourth one are systems.
0:12:04 Systems are usually invisible, but when someone points them out to you, then you notice them.
0:12:07 So the wedding industrial complex is a system.
0:12:12 The budget for a wedding is exactly what your best friend spent, but a little extra.
0:12:17 And we know what you’re supposed to wear, and we know what the mother-in-law is going
0:12:18 to say.
0:12:22 And we know all of this stuff is all made up, but it’s part of a system and everyone
0:12:25 in the system isn’t mean.
0:12:30 They don’t want to hurt anybody, they’re all doing their best, but the system undermines
0:12:33 and controls everything in equal measure.
0:12:39 So you need to see the system if you’re about to go to college and get a quarter million
0:12:41 dollars in debt.
0:12:44 You need to see the system if you’re applying for a job.
0:12:49 You need to see the system if you want to get funding for your tech company.
0:12:54 Because the system sees you, and if you don’t match what the system is used to, it’s going
0:12:55 to chew you up and spit you out.
0:13:00 So naming the system, seeing the system, and then using the system, even if you want to
0:13:04 change it to make forward motion, has to be built into your strategy.
0:13:08 I want to stick on systems for a while because I feel like there’s so much to unpack with
0:13:09 systems.
0:13:14 Systems make the world go round, and you say that systems are everywhere that humans engage
0:13:15 to fill a need.
0:13:20 So can you help us understand why systems are essentially productivity, human productivity?
0:13:24 Well, we’re not capable.
0:13:29 Imagine if every time you walked into a supermarket, each supermarket not only organized everything
0:13:34 in a totally different way, but had a totally different way of putting the stuff in a different
0:13:39 kind of basket and charged different sorts of prices and other sorts of currencies and
0:13:42 had different kinds of, you couldn’t deal with that.
0:13:47 We wouldn’t know what to do if every time we wanted to visit a website, everything about
0:13:49 every website was completely different.
0:13:51 We have a genre.
0:13:53 We have expectations.
0:13:55 We also have systems for who can we trust?
0:13:56 What does a promise mean?
0:13:57 What is a contract?
0:13:59 That’s part of a system.
0:14:03 What happens if there’s no system for driving and some people want to drive on the left
0:14:05 side of the road and some people want to drive on the right side of the road?
0:14:07 You would never be able to get anywhere.
0:14:12 These are all systems we built so that we wouldn’t have to start from scratch every single
0:14:14 time we interact.
0:14:18 That’s one reason why travel is thrilling and scary, particularly if you go someplace
0:14:23 far because they have a different system than you’re used to.
0:14:28 If human beings are engaging over time to do anything productive, they’re going to invent
0:14:31 a system, the metric system.
0:14:32 That’s a system.
0:14:33 Why?
0:14:36 Because everyone wants the screw to fit into the bolt.
0:14:39 If it says it’s going to fit, it needs to fit.
0:14:43 Can you talk about some of the tiny systems that exist within the world?
0:14:49 Well, there’s a whole branch of psychotherapy about family systems that if you go up in
0:14:53 a house with an abusive parent, that system feels a lot different than your next door
0:14:54 neighbor’s house.
0:15:00 There are systems of misogyny and oppression and caste, and then there are also systems
0:15:02 that are welcoming.
0:15:10 There are the systems of how the four best friends all interact with each other.
0:15:13 We all feel the stress if we get into a new friend group and they insist on texting and
0:15:14 we hate texting.
0:15:19 Well, all of a sudden, there’s tension in the system.
0:15:25 Learning to see these patterns helps us understand and if you read about behavior change when
0:15:31 it comes to things like diet, all you got to do is put a big bowl of carrots on the
0:15:36 counter and throw the brownies in the garbage, and you will lose weight because you changed
0:15:39 the system of how you are triggered to eat things.
0:15:44 I know when it comes to strategy, a big part of it is actually being able to see these
0:15:45 invisible systems.
0:15:49 You’ve got to be able to see the system so you can either change it or work with it
0:15:51 or start a new one.
0:15:54 How can we get better at actually seeing these invisible systems?
0:15:57 This is one of the things I’ve learned from blogging.
0:16:01 If you see something and you can’t explain it, it’s probably because there’s a system
0:16:02 at work.
0:16:08 Oh, why are all the women at this wedding wearing ill-fitting dresses that match?
0:16:14 Because I would have assumed that they’d want to wear dresses that they own that look good.
0:16:18 But no, they’re all wearing this dark blue satin thing up there in the front.
0:16:19 Why is that?
0:16:24 Oh, because the wedding industrial complex decided 300 years ago that bridesmaids should
0:16:28 dress the same because it raises the status of the bride and the bride has her one and
0:16:32 only chance to tell her friends what to do and so that’s been sticking around for a long
0:16:33 time.
0:16:39 Oh, I see it, but it wouldn’t have made sense if I didn’t understand the system.
0:16:43 We see them in so many places.
0:16:47 What shifted in the United States in the last 50 years?
0:16:50 Many things, but one of them is organized sports for kids.
0:16:57 Why are parents of seven-year-olds spending hours and hours and hours every weekend driving
0:17:00 kids around to these soccer matches?
0:17:02 We don’t have a trophy shortage.
0:17:06 Why is the whole community organized around that?
0:17:10 Well, I can show you systemically how it grew and how it stuck around.
0:17:16 Now I understand something, and if I wanted to start a new thing, knowing that would help
0:17:17 me.
0:17:22 And so when it comes to actually changing these systems, you say our power lies somewhere
0:17:25 between zero and infinity.
0:17:30 So talk to us about the ways that we can get more power to actually change these systems.
0:17:34 If you talk to a frustrated entrepreneur, they’re frustrated because they want everyone to listen
0:17:35 to them.
0:17:40 They know they have the right answer and they’ve discovered they don’t have unlimited power.
0:17:45 And if you talk to a despondent cog in a factory job, they’re despondent because they think
0:17:50 they have no power, that no one will listen to them ever and they should just give up.
0:17:51 And the answer is in between.
0:17:57 The answer is with an elegant strategy, we can show up and discover what people actually
0:18:03 want and work around the thing that the system might have chosen for them because what they
0:18:07 don’t actually want is the ugly blue dresses.
0:18:10 What they want is the feeling the bride gets.
0:18:17 And so if you can show up and satisfy their needs, you can change the way the system expresses
0:18:18 itself.
0:18:26 And we see this, for example, when some institutions moved coursework online, right?
0:18:28 What does MIT actually want?
0:18:31 Does MIT actually want people to sit in a classroom?
0:18:33 That’s not their mission.
0:18:38 Their mission is to create culture and earn status by affiliating students with each other
0:18:40 who have power in the world.
0:18:45 And if they can do that at scale without bringing someone into the classroom, sure, why not?
0:18:50 But we had to understand what it is they wanted as opposed to saying, this is what you have
0:18:52 to do right now.
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0:23:58 One of the things that you say in regards to choosing a strategy is that we should bet
0:24:04 on change and you talk about the ability to be able to find the agent of change.
0:24:08 Can you first tell us what an agent of change is and maybe some of the big agents of change
0:24:11 that we’ve had over the course of time?
0:24:14 The internet is one of the biggest agents of change of our lifetime.
0:24:18 AI is an agent of change, but it can be something smaller than that.
0:24:23 It could be that the government in your village bans leaf blowers.
0:24:24 That’s an agent of change.
0:24:30 Now, if you’re a landscaper, a lot of the things you were building your systems on have
0:24:34 to shift because you can’t use this noisy, polluting thing anymore.
0:24:38 So you have to do something else and maybe another landscaper who takes advantage of it
0:24:44 will get market share because you were slow, they were fast and they captured new customers.
0:24:48 So the agent of change is something that changes the system at scale.
0:24:51 It is possible for you to be the agent of change.
0:24:54 That’s harder, unlikely, but possible.
0:25:02 So if we think about the world of jazz, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck were agents of change.
0:25:07 When they showed up with their music, it changed what it meant to make a jazz record because
0:25:10 the two of them sold so many copies of their records in the early 1960s.
0:25:15 The record labels paid attention, so other musicians paid attention, so venues paid attention,
0:25:16 and the system shifted.
0:25:24 So that’s doable, but we’re way more likely to succeed when we see larger agents of change
0:25:26 that we didn’t start.
0:25:31 So you say agents of change often take forms in things like communication, competition,
0:25:32 cultural shifts.
0:25:35 How can we spot these agents of change?
0:25:37 What should we be looking for?
0:25:43 If you see something that is stressing out dominant systems, you found an agent of change.
0:25:51 So when eBooks showed up, the people at bookstores and book publishers freaked out.
0:25:55 So that must be an agent of change because they didn’t invent eBooks.
0:25:58 They’re not happy with eBooks, but here they are.
0:26:00 So now what’s going to happen?
0:26:04 Now what’s going to happen is they’re going to have to shift whether they want to or not.
0:26:08 So a whole bunch of bookstores went out of business, and book publishers, whether they
0:26:11 liked it or not, started selling a lot of eBooks.
0:26:17 And the one company that leaned hard into the shift ended up making millions and millions
0:26:22 and millions of dollars because if Amazon hadn’t made the Kindle, well, then the Kobo
0:26:24 would have worked or somebody else.
0:26:30 But once the technology was there and users were delighted by it, it wasn’t going to
0:26:31 go away.
0:26:37 So basically you’re saying look for what’s changing in the system and potentially create
0:26:41 products and services that are aligned to this big change that happened.
0:26:43 It might not be a big change.
0:26:47 It’s just a change that the existing players in the system don’t like.
0:26:52 If the players in the system like it, there’s not much of an opportunity.
0:26:59 So when food companies shifted to making smaller, more expensive packages of cookies and stuff,
0:27:06 that’s not really an opportunity because Nimbusco is on the same arc as you.
0:27:14 It’s when a shift happens where the existing players are trying to fight it, big or small,
0:27:15 that’s when an opportunity opens up.
0:27:17 That makes sense.
0:27:20 So we talked about some of the benefits of systems.
0:27:25 We talked about productivity and all these things, but there’s also negative impacts
0:27:26 of systems.
0:27:28 Can you talk to us about that?
0:27:34 Most all the negative things in our world are negative because systems push them forward.
0:27:43 So our climate problem is caused by the system of take cheap oil and burn it, and it’s struggling
0:27:46 because of the system of eat meat.
0:27:53 Meat is a system that profits everybody who touches it, and so capitalism plus meat equals
0:27:55 climate change.
0:28:02 What we see in issues of misogyny and caste is that for a long time, if companies are
0:28:09 hiring someone, they’re using a false proxy and judging them by what they appear to be,
0:28:13 and it’s easier to tell your boss, “I hired someone who looks like us,” than it is to
0:28:17 say, “Your boss, I hired someone who doesn’t look like us,” so that’s what happened.
0:28:22 And when we see these problems, we work to change them, but you can see how painful it
0:28:29 is, how many years it takes to undermine cultural systems that don’t want to change.
0:28:31 It’s so interesting.
0:28:34 These are all things that we know, but you never really think about it.
0:28:35 Correct.
0:28:40 You never really think about all these systems, which is why your book was so eye-opening to
0:28:41 me.
0:28:44 So let’s talk about some of the games related to systems.
0:28:49 You say sometimes the system will sell us a dream it can’t deliver, and these are games
0:28:50 we should avoid.
0:28:54 Can you give us an example of playing within a system that might actually not be in our
0:28:56 best interest?
0:29:00 So one of the maxims in the book is don’t play a game you can’t win if your goal is
0:29:01 to win.
0:29:02 Right?
0:29:06 If Gary Kasparov says you want to play chess, don’t play chess, because he’s going to win.
0:29:14 The promise that TikTok and YouTube make is please spend hundreds of hours making content
0:29:20 for us for free, and then there’s a one in a million chance you will become famous.
0:29:21 That is not a good game.
0:29:23 You should not play that game.
0:29:26 Someone is going to be famous, but it’s not going to be you.
0:29:30 And we already have a Kardashian, and the problem with that is it made other people
0:29:35 think they could become a billionaire by posting selfies.
0:29:36 You can’t.
0:29:39 The people who are carrying your content are doing fine.
0:29:40 You’re unpaid labor.
0:29:41 They’re very happy.
0:29:46 That’s a game that was proposed to people that they signed up to play, but they probably
0:29:48 can’t win.
0:29:53 And speaking of choosing where to play, you also say don’t follow your passion, which
0:29:56 is very different from a lot of other business coaches.
0:29:58 So why shouldn’t we follow our passion?
0:30:04 That was an expression made up fairly recently by a few people who got very lucky.
0:30:07 And the problem with it is it’s brittle.
0:30:10 It’s brittle because if the thing that you decided is your passion isn’t working, now
0:30:12 what are you going to do?
0:30:17 What’s resilient is to say, “Why don’t you decide to be passionate about whatever you
0:30:18 do?”
0:30:22 Because then, no matter what you do, you can be passionate about it.
0:30:25 And I don’t want to be a surgeon.
0:30:28 I think it’s pretty icky and scary.
0:30:33 But if I had a choice between being a surgeon and working in a steel mill, I’d be a surgeon.
0:30:38 And if I’m going to have to be a surgeon anyway, I’d figure out a way to find joy in what
0:30:39 I was doing.
0:30:44 Meanwhile, there are surgeons who desperately don’t want to be me, and back and forth.
0:30:49 But if you insist that you are born to do this one and only thing, you’re signing up
0:30:51 to be unhappy.
0:30:54 And the alternative is to say, “I’m only going to get today once.
0:30:59 I’d rather spend it finding joy and connection and meaning.
0:31:01 Here’s my profession for now.
0:31:03 I’m going to find it in this.”
0:31:08 So similarly, too good to be true strategies that we see all the time.
0:31:11 Somebody is saying, “You’re going to be a millionaire with my real estate strategies.
0:31:15 Just take my hour-long course and I’ll show you the way.”
0:31:18 Why should we be weary of them?
0:31:23 Well, as you just pointed out, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
0:31:25 And where does value come from?
0:31:28 Value comes from scarcity.
0:31:33 If everyone is doing something, it’s probably not that valuable.
0:31:37 So there was a meme that went around a few years ago about these people who were in the
0:31:40 free hugs movement where they were just standing there with a sign that said, “Free hugs and
0:31:42 you can come over and give them a hug.”
0:31:46 And then this other guy has a joke put up and said, “Hugs $5,000.”
0:31:52 Now, it’s very hard to sell a hug for $5,000 because there are all these free hugs that
0:31:53 are available.
0:31:58 If someone says, “Here’s my strategy to beat the stock market,” or, “Here’s my strategy
0:32:02 to win at real estate,” and it only takes an hour, then a lot of people are going to
0:32:03 do it.
0:32:07 And if a lot of people are going to do it, you’re back where you started, that we need
0:32:13 to find where the scarcity is, where are the constraints, where are we worth picking?
0:32:17 So there are two choices you have to make when you’re going to do your work.
0:32:21 Either you say, “You can pick anyone and I’m anyone.
0:32:22 I’m cheaper.
0:32:24 I’m more convenient.
0:32:25 Let’s go.
0:32:27 I’m going to win the SEO search.
0:32:28 Pick me.
0:32:29 Pick me.”
0:32:32 Or you can say, “You’ll pay a lot, but you get more than you pay for.”
0:32:33 That’s the race to the top.
0:32:37 That’s very hard to pull off because you have to do hard work to be worth more than you
0:32:38 pay for.
0:32:40 That’s the place to go.
0:32:44 That is a resilient strategy that works in almost every industry.
0:32:49 To be the one that we would miss if you were gone because you bring emotional labor and
0:32:54 insight and wisdom to the work you do and you’re not looking for a shortcut.
0:32:55 Let’s talk about time.
0:32:57 Time works together with systems.
0:33:00 What are the things that we need to think about when it comes to time within our strategy
0:33:01 building?
0:33:06 Well, the first thing, which we haven’t mentioned, is if you’ve ever built a campfire, I hope
0:33:12 you learned that you shouldn’t try to light a log that’s too big for the amount of kindling
0:33:13 you have.
0:33:17 That if you’ve got six sticks, you can’t light a birch tree on fire.
0:33:19 This is not going to work.
0:33:23 Well, don’t sign up for something that takes longer than you have time for.
0:33:28 That if you need to feed your family, don’t go to medical school because you’re not going
0:33:31 to make a living for six or nine or 10 years.
0:33:38 On the other hand, if you’re adequately supported, you can sign up for things that take a longer
0:33:40 time to grow.
0:33:47 This is what happened with the big podcast crash of a couple years ago, is podcasts started
0:33:48 to succeed.
0:33:53 A whole bunch of people said, “Oh, all I have to do is talk into my phone and have a podcast.”
0:33:58 They started a podcast and they expected that they would make money from their podcast within
0:33:59 four weeks.
0:34:02 It doesn’t take four weeks to make money from a podcast.
0:34:03 It takes four years.
0:34:07 If you don’t have four years, you probably shouldn’t start a podcast if your goal is
0:34:08 to make money.
0:34:11 You need to look at the time horizon.
0:34:13 The people who came before you, how long did it take them?
0:34:18 What does it look like when you’re four weeks or four years into this?
0:34:23 Are you on a journey that’s getting better and easier or is time working against you
0:34:27 and you’re losing money every day but trying to make it up in value?
0:34:31 I think a good case study in your book, you talk about Airbnb, and I think it’s a really
0:34:35 good case study in terms of systems and then also good timing.
0:34:37 Can you go over that case study with us?
0:34:40 Let’s talk about the smallest viable audience.
0:34:46 It’s tempting to say, “I want everyone to be my customer, but everyone’s not going to
0:34:47 be your customer.
0:34:49 Starbucks doesn’t have everyone as their customer.
0:34:51 My books have been bestsellers.
0:34:55 Not one of them has reached 1% of the population.
0:34:58 I have a 0% market share.
0:35:00 You don’t need everyone.
0:35:02 You need someone.”
0:35:04 Airbnb is a really cool idea.
0:35:06 It’s a two-sided marketplace.
0:35:09 You need places to sleep and people who want to sleep there.
0:35:13 If you don’t have places to sleep, you’re not going to get anyone who wants to sleep
0:35:14 there.
0:35:16 If you don’t have people who want to sleep there, you’re not going to have places put
0:35:18 up for sleeping.
0:35:19 They had this challenge.
0:35:24 They didn’t have a small viable audience and they didn’t have enough sleepers and they
0:35:26 didn’t have enough beds.
0:35:30 If you’re thinking about this over time, you could sit at the board meeting all you
0:35:33 want and say, “One day, we’re going to have 40 million customers.”
0:35:36 Okay, but how are we going to get to 40 million customers?
0:35:38 Right now, we have none.
0:35:41 There’s a whole other story about breakfast cereal that I’ll leave out, but they were
0:35:48 basically almost out of money and they realized that the customers they wanted were the kinds
0:35:52 of people who went to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
0:35:57 The thing about that conference is the kind of people who go tend to be younger and more
0:35:58 adventurous.
0:35:59 They tend to have money.
0:36:01 They talk a lot.
0:36:07 They love to be online and there aren’t enough hotel rooms in Austin, Texas.
0:36:11 What they did was they went to Austin and they worked really hard to find a whole bunch
0:36:17 of people who would put their listings up in anticipation of this one big week.
0:36:22 Then, they went to the people at this conference just a couple of thousand and were able to
0:36:25 say, “We have rooms because all the hotels are full.”
0:36:30 They got both pieces together at the right timing and then all the people who were at
0:36:35 South by, who stayed at Airbnb, tweeted about it, told their friends about it, and spread
0:36:37 it across the world.
0:36:40 That is what it looks like over time.
0:36:41 I love that example.
0:36:47 To your point, it’s a really good example of a minimum viable audience and a minimum
0:36:48 viable product.
0:36:52 They needed to make sure that it was functioning and it gave them an opportunity to test.
0:36:57 Why is testing and iterating on our products a game that we should play?
0:37:02 Testing is a funny word because testing reminds us of third grade and there’s a right answer.
0:37:03 I’m not sure I like that.
0:37:05 I think it’s evolving.
0:37:10 There are no creatures on earth other than cockroaches that have not changed in millions
0:37:11 of years.
0:37:14 Human beings have only been like this for 10,000 years.
0:37:21 The way evolution works is things that work get repeated and things that don’t go extinct.
0:37:27 We don’t know what the system is going to want to embrace until we see it happening.
0:37:31 The test involves, and I actually tested the book in the following way.
0:37:34 I didn’t say, “Hey, Halle, do you think this is a good book?”
0:37:40 What I did was I made 44 lessons on video, each corresponding to parts of the book.
0:37:46 Then I went to purple.space, the community I run online, and I gave the course to anyone
0:37:52 there who wanted to take it, 300 people, and I watched them interact with the videos.
0:37:53 I didn’t ask them for feedback.
0:37:55 I watched them use it.
0:38:00 When they got confused, I rewrote parts of the book to make it more clear because I saw
0:38:03 what evolved and what didn’t.
0:38:10 It’s that thing, not cooking it till it’s perfect, but engaging with the system to find
0:38:12 out what’s going to fly.
0:38:16 We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
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0:42:40 Another important aspect of strategy is being able to determine the strategy and then focus
0:42:42 on it to do what we say we were going to say.
0:42:46 The more successful that we get, the more opportunities that come our way.
0:42:48 The harder it is to say no.
0:42:52 Can you talk to us about the importance of saying no when it comes to focusing on our
0:42:53 strategy?
0:42:56 Every yes requires a no.
0:42:58 You can’t have lunch four times.
0:43:00 You can only have lunch once.
0:43:01 After that, you’re not hungry.
0:43:06 So you’re going to have to pick, are you going to have the carrots or are you going to have
0:43:08 the tofu, one or the other?
0:43:13 So if I say yes to people because it’s socially convenient or there’s pressure because you’re
0:43:18 sitting here right in front of me, I’ve forced myself into a no down the road anyway.
0:43:24 So a key part of our strategy is saying no to things that aren’t part of our strategy.
0:43:26 We can do it with respect.
0:43:27 We can do it with kindness.
0:43:31 But just because someone asks, they’re not entitled to your agenda.
0:43:32 It’s your agenda.
0:43:34 What about the opportunity cost?
0:43:38 Can you tell us about opportunity costs when it comes to saying yes to things that we
0:43:39 shouldn’t say?
0:43:42 This is a version of opportunity cost.
0:43:48 We’re very familiar with cost cost, which is if you want to buy a bag of carrots, it
0:43:49 costs $4.
0:43:50 Okay.
0:43:52 What is opportunity cost?
0:43:56 Opportunity cost is I can’t do that because I did this.
0:44:01 All the things that I did kept me from doing these other things.
0:44:07 And so we should get very clear with ourselves about how we’re investing our time and how
0:44:08 we’re investing our money.
0:44:09 It’s not just one.
0:44:11 It’s both.
0:44:15 And again, every yes requires knows to follow.
0:44:18 You may should make your nose intentional.
0:44:19 Okay.
0:44:21 One last game and then we’re going to talk about empathy.
0:44:23 This is the game of early advantage.
0:44:26 Why is this a game that we should potentially play?
0:44:30 Some philosophers who are incorrect say luck evens out.
0:44:32 That early luck is the same as late luck.
0:44:33 It’ll all work out.
0:44:34 This is nonsense.
0:44:35 This is not true.
0:44:41 If you are good at hockey when you’re six years old, you get to play on the traveling
0:44:45 team when you’re seven, and then you get better coaching when you’re eight.
0:44:49 And then you get to play on the province team when you’re nine.
0:44:54 And the chances that you will be in the NHL go way up compared to someone who gets a lucky
0:44:55 break when they’re 13.
0:44:58 It’s too late by that.
0:45:02 The idea that late luck will make up for early luck just doesn’t hold up.
0:45:08 So what we want to do is find places where we can erect scaffolding to cause early luck
0:45:15 to happen, where we can overinvest at the beginning so it will pay off in the long run.
0:45:22 As opposed to just hoping for a good thing to happen, compounding an early lead attracts
0:45:27 people who are looking for an early leader, and then we get to do it again.
0:45:31 Can you give us an example on business where somebody has done that successfully?
0:45:34 Google didn’t have any revenue of any kind for two years.
0:45:37 No ads, no nothing for two years.
0:45:44 And the purpose of the project for the first two years was to become the new second generation
0:45:45 search engine.
0:45:51 After Yahoo and LightGhost and Alta Vista, there was a gap who was going to be the new
0:45:52 one.
0:45:57 Every minute that Google spent trying to get strangers to use their service, trying to
0:46:03 get revenue was time they weren’t spending, compounding their head start.
0:46:07 Because once a brilliant engineer saw what Google was doing, it wasn’t that hard to copy.
0:46:11 They didn’t have anything you couldn’t copy except their head start.
0:46:16 Because what happened soon after they got going is a friend would say, “What’s the answer
0:46:17 to this?”
0:46:19 And you would say, “Go Google it.”
0:46:23 And it didn’t matter if there was another search engine like Bing that was indistinguishable
0:46:24 in its results.
0:46:28 It was too late because Google invested in their head start.
0:46:30 ChatGPT is doing the same thing right now.
0:46:31 That makes a lot of sense.
0:46:32 Okay.
0:46:33 So moving on to empathy.
0:46:41 Again, your book was really up to interpretation and I interpreted empathy as basically marketing.
0:46:46 It seems like you were suggesting that empathy is good marketing and you need empathy to
0:46:52 motivate people to engage in your systems, to go align with you if you’re trying to change
0:46:53 a system.
0:46:57 You also need to motivate people to buy whatever system you’re putting out there, strategy
0:46:59 that you’re putting out there.
0:47:03 And so can you tell us what you were meaning by empathy exactly?
0:47:04 I love that question.
0:47:08 I would say marketing is good empathy, not empathy is good marketing.
0:47:11 Some people think marketing is hype and hustle.
0:47:15 Some people think marketing is someone walks in by mistake to your Ferrari dealership and
0:47:19 asks for a station wagon because they got four kids and you try to persuade them that
0:47:21 they want a sports car.
0:47:23 This is a waste of everyone’s time.
0:47:28 You should eagerly walk them down the street to the Volvo dealership, not try to change
0:47:29 their mind.
0:47:32 So empathy says, “I can’t change your mind.
0:47:36 What I might be able to do is find someone who wants to go where I’m going.”
0:47:42 So my main job as a marketer is not to persuade people, but to just find the people who say,
0:47:44 “Wow, I’ve been waiting for this.”
0:47:47 And so can you talk about people’s wants and desires?
0:47:50 You say there’s three things that everybody wants and desires.
0:47:54 Why do we need to know those three things and how does that help us create better strategy?
0:47:59 Yeah, so this is a little controversial, but I keep being surprised by that.
0:48:07 Everyone I have met, if they have food and shelter, wants some combination of three things.
0:48:11 Status, affiliation, and the freedom from fear.
0:48:13 So what do I mean by that?
0:48:15 Status is who eats lunch first.
0:48:19 Status is who is respected.
0:48:21 Affiliation is who am I next to?
0:48:22 Who’s to my left?
0:48:23 Who’s to my right?
0:48:24 Which circle am I in?
0:48:26 Please don’t kick me out of the village.
0:48:30 And freedom from fear isn’t freedom from danger.
0:48:33 It’s freedom from the feeling of fear.
0:48:37 And so if we think about the things we buy, those are the only three reasons we buy anything.
0:48:43 If we think about the clubs we join or the professions we pick or who our friends are,
0:48:47 status, affiliation, freedom from fear, that’s it.
0:48:52 So if you offer that to people, it’s way more likely that that’s what they want.
0:48:55 If on the other hand you go to them and say, “I have this new widget and it does this and
0:49:00 this and this and this and this,” now you’re asking them to do a lot of computation to
0:49:03 decide if it’s going to help them with any of their three goals.
0:49:08 But we can save time by understanding that those are the three things people want.
0:49:12 Status and affiliation make a lot of sense to me, and I feel like I’ve heard some variation
0:49:13 of that.
0:49:16 But freedom of fear is one that I feel like I haven’t heard when it comes to persuasion
0:49:17 and things like that.
0:49:20 So what does freedom of fear mean exactly?
0:49:21 So many examples.
0:49:23 Taylor Swift has a concert coming up.
0:49:27 There’s only a few tickets left, you’re going to miss it.
0:49:31 So you’re afraid that you’re going to be left out.
0:49:37 You want to be in the circle, but also you are activated by this feeling that fears right
0:49:39 around the corner.
0:49:44 There’s very direct examples of people in perfectly safe neighborhoods, which is almost
0:49:48 every neighborhood in the United States, spending an enormous amount of money on security.
0:49:51 It’s not real security.
0:49:57 It’s security theater that after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we installed this whole regime
0:50:01 at airports that did absolutely nothing to increase safety.
0:50:06 It did a lot to make people feel like they were doing something to increase safety, because
0:50:10 the government didn’t understand how to say, “We don’t know what to do.
0:50:11 Everything’s going to be fine.”
0:50:13 That’s not what we voted for, right?
0:50:16 We wanted freedom from the feeling of fear.
0:50:18 But it’s not just life and death fear.
0:50:25 It’s you go watch a bunch of eight-year-olds at the school bus, when school’s going to
0:50:29 get in the fall, looking at each other at their clothing.
0:50:37 What matters to many of these kids is not, “I want to be the best-looking kid.
0:50:40 I don’t want someone to make fun of me, and I don’t want to be left behind.”
0:50:43 That’s the freedom from fear.
0:50:47 So then how do we use these wants and desires, knowing these wants and desires, to motivate
0:50:53 people to help us or engage with our systems and strategy?
0:50:55 What we’re trying to do is help them.
0:51:01 Facebook, at the beginning, said, “Hey, Hala, there are people talking about you behind
0:51:02 your back.
0:51:03 You want to hear what they’re saying?”
0:51:06 And that’s the reason that people joined it.
0:51:08 Now, Mark wasn’t doing it because he wanted to be a good person.
0:51:11 He was doing it because he was trying to build a business.
0:51:16 But he understood that on the Harvard campus, that one sentence was enough to trigger people
0:51:19 into forward motion.
0:51:22 It then takes leadership to turn it into something you can be proud of.
0:51:28 But the fact still remains, that’s the trigger, not, “Hey, this is fun.
0:51:32 Fun is a fine thing, but fun isn’t really what people sign up for.”
0:51:37 So in the same way, these human desires can be a way for people to reject our systems.
0:51:40 Can you tell us about the case study of climax and their fraudulent cheese?
0:51:43 This one really got under my skin.
0:51:49 This guy in California built a company that makes cheese out of beans.
0:51:52 And it’s spectacularly good.
0:51:57 The blue cheese is, I haven’t had dairy in 30 years, so I’m not a reliable judge of
0:51:58 this.
0:52:00 But you know who is a reliable judge of this?
0:52:02 The Good Food Awards.
0:52:07 The Good Food Awards look at gourmet foods every year, and if you win one, you get all
0:52:08 this great distribution.
0:52:10 It’s a big win.
0:52:14 So he applied to be judged in the cheese category.
0:52:17 Not the vegan cheese category, but the cheese cheese category.
0:52:19 And he won.
0:52:21 And they called him up and they said, “You won.
0:52:24 Bring all your people to our Big Gall event.
0:52:25 Everything’s going to be great.”
0:52:29 And then they rescinded the award, and they wouldn’t give it to him, because some cheese
0:52:35 bullies in Vermont got together and pressured the group and said, “This isn’t real cheese.
0:52:37 He shouldn’t win.”
0:52:41 This really rubbed me the wrong way, because there are cheese bullies everywhere we look.
0:52:44 Cheese bullies are people who defend the status quo.
0:52:49 Now the thing about these cheese makers is they’re not in the cow business.
0:52:51 They’re in the cheese business.
0:52:55 What difference does it make whether you’re making the cheese from white milk or white
0:52:57 nuts or white beans?
0:53:00 It’s still the process of making cheese.
0:53:09 But they were afraid that their skill and competence wouldn’t be valued as highly if
0:53:13 cheese that wasn’t made from milk started to be seen as real.
0:53:16 So they acted like cheese bullies and the system defends itself.
0:53:23 So one of the definitions of culture is what do systems build so they can stay in charge?
0:53:24 So eye-opening.
0:53:29 I want to talk about marketing a bit, and you are a marketing guru, of course.
0:53:34 When you talk about the importance of using stories, you say that our product needs to
0:53:35 tell a story.
0:53:39 So talk to us about some of your favorite examples of a product that tells a story.
0:53:44 I have to take great pains to say a story does not have once upon a time at the beginning.
0:53:50 If you go to an open house and it smells like apple pie when you get there, that’s a story.
0:53:54 The realtor put an apple pie in the oven to remind you of your mom.
0:53:57 And the story has no words, but it’s a story.
0:54:02 If you think about how far away the seats are in one bar versus another bar, that’s
0:54:08 a story because a crowded bar that’s really noisy tells a different story than one that’s
0:54:11 half empty because you didn’t go there to have an alcoholic beverage.
0:54:12 You could do that at home.
0:54:15 You went there for the way it felt to be in the room.
0:54:21 The story of Patagonia clothing is very different than Columbia clothing, very different than
0:54:26 Amazon cheap made in China clothing, even though all three will keep you from being naked.
0:54:33 And so what we do when we build something of value is not check the commodity boxes.
0:54:37 We are actually in the business of creating a story that people can tell themselves that
0:54:39 helps them get to where they want to go.
0:54:43 And you also say that we should create a story that other people tell others.
0:54:45 Can you talk about the importance of doing that?
0:54:52 This book made a big difference in my career, Purple Cow, and Purple Cow is about remarkable.
0:54:54 Remarkable doesn’t mean a gimmick.
0:54:58 Superbowl means worth making a remark about.
0:55:02 So again, back to your podcast, which has been listened to by millions of people.
0:55:04 How many Superbowl ads have you run?
0:55:06 None.
0:55:08 So how did they find out about it?
0:55:09 Word of mouth.
0:55:12 They told other people and that’s the word spread.
0:55:15 Why would someone tell a friend about this podcast?
0:55:17 Not because they like you.
0:55:19 They don’t even know you.
0:55:24 They would tell someone because it would raise their status, it would increase their affiliation.
0:55:30 It was part of being in their culture was to tell other people about what you built.
0:55:34 If you’re not building something that people are talking about, build something better.
0:55:36 Seth, this was amazing.
0:55:37 Young and Profiters.
0:55:39 The book is called This Is Strategy.
0:55:40 It’s out.
0:55:41 When is it out?
0:55:42 October?
0:55:43 October 22nd.
0:55:44 As we speak.
0:55:45 Amazing.
0:55:46 October 22nd.
0:55:47 I highly recommend it.
0:55:51 Seth, before we go, I have two questions that I ask all my guests, but before we do that,
0:55:55 what do you want entrepreneurs to know about this book and why they need to read it?
0:55:57 I stopped trying to sell books a long time ago.
0:55:59 What I want is people to talk about it.
0:56:05 I want you to find a small group, two or three people, and talk to each other about strategy.
0:56:10 If my book helps you do that, that’s great, but we have so much privilege and leverage
0:56:14 and we’re wasting it because we’re afraid to announce what we’re up to.
0:56:16 So find somebody and talk about it.
0:56:17 Yeah.
0:56:19 I have to say, this was a really easy read.
0:56:23 It was more just like, help me think about things and I thought it was really entertaining.
0:56:25 So thanks for writing it.
0:56:27 So I ask all my guests two questions.
0:56:31 The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today to become
0:56:33 more profitable tomorrow?
0:56:34 It’s pretty simple.
0:56:37 Find a problem and solve it.
0:56:42 And the problem that is most in need of being solved right now is people want to be seen
0:56:45 and treated with dignity and respect.
0:56:48 And what is your secret to profiting in life?
0:56:53 Find what words mean and profit doesn’t mean how much money you have in the bank.
0:56:56 It means how much value did you create for other people?
0:56:57 Well, thank you so much, Seth.
0:56:59 It’s always a pleasure to have you on.
0:57:00 Thank you so much.
0:57:02 Keep making a ruckus.
0:57:10 Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did because there was so many pearls
0:57:14 of wisdom from Seth Godin on strategy and entrepreneurship.
0:57:17 For Seth, strategy is not a plan.
0:57:19 It’s not an instruction manual.
0:57:21 It’s not just tactics.
0:57:26 It’s a philosophy and a way of looking at the world and understanding how the world
0:57:31 operates and what separates a successful entrepreneur from the rest of the pack is the ability to
0:57:37 read the systems and forces you see around you and to anticipate change.
0:57:39 And things change so fast.
0:57:45 Engaging with systems you find around you requires you to constantly test your hypotheses,
0:57:47 your products, your marketing angles.
0:57:51 And being strategic also means recognizing bad systems.
0:57:53 Don’t play a game you can’t win.
0:57:57 Most of us, for example, are not going to be TikTok stars or NFL players.
0:58:01 And we should think carefully before spending too much time and effort trying to become
0:58:03 something that’s totally unrealistic.
0:58:09 We can all become, however, better students of human nature and what our potential customers
0:58:11 and audience truly wants.
0:58:15 Like Seth puts it, marketing is just good empathy.
0:58:20 Your main job in marketing is not to persuade people, but to find those who have been waiting
0:58:22 for you to solve their problem.
0:58:27 So go forth, YAPBAM, and think strategically, figure out the game you can win.
0:58:31 Find that story that other people want to tell for you.
0:58:35 And like Seth put it, if you’re not building something that people are talking about, build
0:58:37 something better.
0:58:40 Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:58:45 If you listen, learn to profit from this conversation with the amazing Seth Godin, then please share
0:58:50 this episode, spread the wealth, and let others benefit from the same wisdom.
0:58:54 And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something and you really enjoy the content
0:59:00 from the show, then the only way you can really thank us is by dropping us a review on Apple,
0:59:05 Cast Box, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast, help me with the social proof.
0:59:07 That’s going to drive more listeners to the show.
0:59:11 That’s going to ensure that we can provide this amazing, free content to you guys day
0:59:13 in and day out.
0:59:18 And it’s also a great way to let us know that you appreciate us, me, and everybody who works
0:59:20 hard on the show.
0:59:24 If you prefer to watch your podcasts as videos, you can find all of our episodes on YouTube.
0:59:28 Just look up Young and Profiting, and you’ll find all of our episodes on there.
0:59:32 You can also find me on Instagram or LinkedIn by searching my name.
0:59:33 It’s Halla Taha.
0:59:36 And of course, I’ve got to give a big thanks to my YAP production team.
0:59:38 You guys are absolutely fantastic.
0:59:39 I’m so lucky to have you.
0:59:41 I couldn’t do this without you all.
0:59:45 This is your host, Halla Taha, AKA the Podcast Princess, signing off.
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