#253 - Seth Godin: How to Escape Industrial Capitalism's Race to the Bottom & Do Work Worth Doing
Yes, we need to make a living. But how do we make a life? It might not simply be about the money. When the world is in turmoil, when our health is at risk and the future seems murky, perhaps paychecks and productivity aren’t enough. Perhaps we can’t manage our way into the future. What if we created the best job someone ever had? What if we built an organization people would genuinely miss if it were gone? What if the work we did made things better? Mozart, not Muzak. This is the Song of Significance This interview with Seth Godin, author of 21 international bestsellers that have changed the way people think about work, is about how we, in business, can do better. How we need to do better. In 2023, Seth published this very important book, The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams, which was an urgent call to action for us all to rethink work, management, and leadership. Both in how it’s all practiced and what it’s all even for. Seth, has influenced an incredible many in business and marketing myself included, and I believe he has long already been a champion for embedding meaning into the work we do. To make something people remark on, you must push yourself to make something remarkable. The focus isn’t on attracting customers, but rather, on building community around what you and your organization stand for. Trust and transactions aren’t best bought but rather built and earned through servicing what people need. This book, however, takes a much broader look at business–explains the rather dangerous pathway we are on, but in simple, yet profound maxims and short stories offers us a pathway forward. In this conversation, Seth and I discuss the perceived problems at hand with business, business culture, and work–and sort through the various nuances of remedying those issues to create a better, more meaningful future. Specifically, we explore how industrialization has bred a race to the bottom culture in business where it’s margins, not meaning or service fueling the engines of our marketplace. We explore how we need NEW entrepreneurial idols – and what mainstream business misses about the Henry Fords, Elon Musks, and Zuckerbergs of the world. And most importantly, Seth shares how we can do WORK WORTH DOING both for ourselves and for our communities. 🗒️ SHOW NOTES For more --> https://www.socialentrepreneurship.fm/253/