Caring By Seth Godin

Caring By Seth Godin

No organization cares about you. Organizations aren’t capable of this.

Your bank, certainly, doesn’t care. Neither does your HMO or even your car dealer. It’s amazing to me that people are surprised to discover this fact.

People, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of caring. It’s part of being a human. It’s only when organizational demands and regulations get in the way that the caring fades.

If you want to build a caring organization, you need to fill it with caring people and then get out of their way. When your organization punishes people for caring, don’t be surprised when people stop caring.

When you free your employees to act like people (as opposed to cogs in a profit-maximizing efficient machine) then the caring can’t help but happen.

MabelAmber / Pixabay

Media Training From Seth Godin

FotografieLink / Pixabay

How to be interviewed

The explosion of media channels and public events means that more people are being interviewed about more topics than ever before. It might even happen to you… and soon.

  1. They call it giving an interview, not taking one, and for good reason. If you’re not eager to share your perspective, don’t bother showing up.
  2. Questions shouldn’t be taken literally. The purpose of the question is to give you a chance to talk about something you care about. The audience wants to hear what you have to say, and if the question isn’t right on point, answer a different one instead.
  3. In all but the most formal media settings, it’s totally appropriate to talk with the interviewer in advance, to give her some clues about what you’re interested in discussing. It makes you both look good.
  4. The interviewer is not your friend, and everything you say is on the record. If you don’t want it to be in print, don’t say it.
  5. If you get asked the same question from interview to interview, there’s probably a good reason. Saying, “I get asked that question all the time,” and then grimacing in pain is disrespectful to the interviewer and the audience. See rule 1.
  6. If your answers aren’t interesting, exciting or engaging, that’s your fault, not the interviewer’s. See rule 2.

Seth Godin- Internet as Amplifier

The internet as envy amplifier

Used to be that the only Jones you needed to worry about was the one who lived next door.

Now, if you choose, it’s easy to find someone taller, richer, more successful, better liked, with more followers, online friends, connections and endorsements. And certainly it will be someone less deserving than you.

George Carlin liked to talk about the person (there’s always someone) who is worse off than you. The web allows you, with not much effort, to find the person who is better off.

Like many authors, I was briefly addicted to the Amazon bestseller list. Every hour, you can check how you’re doing. The problem (other than the insane non-productiveness of it) is how tricky “you” and “doing” are in that sentence. A number isn’t who you are, and your status compared to other people isn’t how you’re doing.

geralt / Pixabay

I’m not sure the goal needs to be to have more turtles under you than anyone else has. Some things are better left unsearched.

*** my own addition-

Sometime you need to focus on your own business.

We look at others and are not looking at what we can do.

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