I had the distinct pleasure of attending a 12 person, full day workshop with Seth Godin last week. Seth’s a bit of a hero of mine (I compared this workshop to being a high school football quarterback and having the opportunity to attend a clinic with Tom Brady for the day), so this was a fairly incredible event for me.
Interestingly, my biggest takeaway was not specific to the business, but rather to a way of thinking. Seth thinks differently than anyone I’ve ever met. In a span of 3 to 4 questions, he’d have you looking at your project in a way you may have never previously considered. Most often, the question he led off with was:
I love this. We so often focus on the problem. We talk around and through the challenge over and over, trying to work our way out of the problem. Seth asked us to look at where we want to go, not where we were currently stuck. Solving the problem now is sort of like getting your car out a ditch. It’s a definite improvement, but do you know where you’re going? Do you know what you’ll need to get there? Is it even worth going there at all?
There’s magic in the words, “What do you want to have happen?”. They reengage you. They clarify your mission. They put the “problem” into context. I encourage you to try them out.
