Poke the Box is mandatory reading. Please take note. You can buy it here.
Below are my notes from my single-sitting reading of Poke the Box, Seth Godin’s latest manifesto and the inaugural Domino Project release. The first copy I was able to get my hands on was a traveling copy passed to me by Jeff Moriarty, Domino Project Street Team Member Extraordinaire. I have since passed it to Marty — and after that, it goes to the next person willing to read it within 5 days and pass it along. The faster and further it goes — zoom! — the better. (If you’re interested in being the next one up — email me.)
The Back Story (One Book After Another)
When I read Tribes, it was my favorite book of all time.
I collected extras and gave them away nearly as quickly as they accumulated. I became intensely involved with the Triiibes social network community and community-driven projects therein. Many of my closest friends, today, were made in that community.
I made a valiant bid for the Alternative MBA in NYC, was invited to join the live interview crew in Hastings-on-Hudson, and consider it one of my most exciting, most celebration-worthy failures to date.
When Linchpin was released in January 2010, it took top spot. It was dramatically more relevant to my life and work than Tribes had been, and affected me profoundly on that basis. Seth was accomplishing, more effectively and on a much larger scale, what I’d been trying to do for months. I attended the Linchpin Session book release event, helped to coordinate the accompanying Triiibes conference, and attended Seth’s smaller Linchpin leadership training later that spring.
I have given away 30+ copies of Tribes and at least 70 copies of Linchpin to clients, colleagues, friends, family, and complete strangers. I am heavily involved in coordinating the Austin Linchpins group here in town, a wonderful ongoing spin-off of Seth’s original worldwide meetups.
It is not enough to say that I’m an evangelist.
Why Poke the Box Is Better
I have a great deal of respect for the work this man does, and it’s not hard to maintain when he continues to produce such interesting, useful, people-oriented and change-making initiatives. Poke the Box is the most recent, and paired with the Domino Project, I consider it the most impressive.
I feel this way not because the content is all that different or more extensive — it’s not. Anyone who has read Linchpin and Tribes will find Poke the Box deliciously familiar, yet still new and very pointed. Poke the Box is better because the content is far more concise than previous books, and Seth has used it to zoom in on a facet of Linchpin that absolutely had to be discussed further: Initiative.
The Linchpin release had us brainstorming ways to get people interested in reading a 245-page book because we knew it would change their work forever. But Poke the Box tops out at 85 pages… and its execution is far more focused than Linchpin’s was. To someone daunted by pages, Poke the Box is almost a no-brainer. Yes, it’s a different product. But for someone who has long elevated the values Linchpin promotes, for someone who wants this material to spread to as many people as possible, Poke the Box is the perfect catalyst.
My Favorite Tidbits For Your Perusal
Below are my favorite bits and pieces of Poke the Box, including realizations I had because of the material. Take a look, notice the ones that excite you — and go buy the book. (Buy two, and give one away. Buy five, and keep them on hand — that’s what I do. Yes, this stuff matters.)
Ready?
Make your schedule before you start, and don’t be derailed. For those of us who work for ourselves, this is an interesting trap! We work for ourselves because we want creative flexibility, and while that flexibility can produce amazing results, it can also trip us up if we’re not careful. You must always show up, you must always work hard, and you must never allow yourself excuses that put you off schedule. We’ve all done it — and we all know that we can do better. (More on page 19.)
Quit wasting time being anxious, paranoid, or jealous. Chipmunks don’t get jealous. Drop it, get past it, and do the thing. (I was reminded of this spontaneously somewhere in the first 20 pages, and it’s a very big deal.)
It’s hard to find smart people willing to start useful projects. Not only does that make it easier to get over the hump and start something exciting — there’s so little competition! — but you can draw your confidence from the realization that not everyone can bring themselves to do what you do. If everyone else is afraid, but you push through, you’re a superhero. (More on page 28.)
Most noises and interruptions do only that — they interrupt you. But what if some of those noises reminded you to get back down to business? What if your Twitter notification reminded you to drop your distractions, sit down and create something? What if your break alarm induced an incredible psychological reaction: A 20-minute coffee break followed by the best idea catalyst, gettin’ shit done session you’ve ever had?
It’s scary to try something new. Failure is always hovering nearby, taunting us and turning us away. But the hardest part of doing great work is entertaining that very first failure. Once you get through that, you can get on to the next attempt. The more failures you experience, the closer you are to success — no matter how you define it. (More on page 42.)
Many people think “starting something” means starting their own business. Of course! They want to work for themselves instead of someone else. Yes, this is a noble goal. (Note: It used to be my sole concern!) But this is a very narrow mindset. Starting something great is not specifically about making a living. Starting something great may have absolutely nothing to do with making a living, or it might have a lot to do with making a living. We focus on money because that’s what we’ve learned to do, often to the exclusion of all else. The brilliance of Poke the Box lies in a slightly different direction.
Start something, and ship it. Start something, and ship it. Start something, and ship it. Little or large, that’s the part that matters.
Failure is a relief. Failure means you’ve done it, you’ve succeeded at failing — and it’s time to move on to the next try. This is wonderful, because the more failures you accumulate, the closer you are to the prize. No one wins without a few bumps and bruises, a few battle scars. Go out and get yours, make them really mean something, and display them with pride. (More on page 54.)
There are no functional success-only policies. You can’t have a successes-only model. Rewarding only the successes is a broken schema. But rewarding mistakes, failures and successes? Sounds like a nice balance to me.
If you can’t fail, it doesn’t count — and if you can fail better, you must. You might notice yourself counting “failures” and being a little disappointed at the nature of those failures. Were they really failures, or were you just looking for more for the list? Make your failures matter. Make them glorious, cliff-side 300 style. Make dramatic, meaningful attempts so that your wins — and losses — really count.
The Dandelion Method: Promiscuous starting, and promiscuous shipping, is the goal. A dandelion throws seeds as far and as numerously as it can. Most of them will fall somewhere they can’t grow, and that’s okay… because some of them will fall somewhere they can grow. Throw out as many seeds as you can, grow thousands, millions, billions of dandelions. (More on page 71!)
Here’s another take: Good eggs and bad eggs. I used to count my bad eggs and use them as evidence. I used to say to myself, “Look at all these bad eggs you’ve got, and how crappily you’re handling them! You must suck.” But then I learned that the bad eggs really aren’t an indicator of my worth or success. The bad eggs are… well, bad. But the good eggs tell me what I’m doing right and who is excited about my work. The point is not to learn how to better handle the bad eggs, though that can be an interesting problem to solve. How can I make the good eggs even happier? That’s the right exercise. Then, I can increase my overall number of eggs — and focus all my energy on the good ones, the ones who resonate with what I’m trying to do. The good eggs and I, we don’t have to work to understand each other. We’re already on the same wavelength.
And that’s not all…
I know there’s something you’ve been waiting to do, something you’ve been putting off. Something that means a lot to you. You think you have a reason to hold off, but it’s no reason at all. Get in the habit of indulging the creative act. Give in immediately. Let it surge through and remake you. Let it make its mark, peak, and depart. Don’t turn away, don’t distract yourself. ENACT it, whatever it is. Now’s the time, and you’re the right person.
After you’ve read Poke the Box, there’s a fantastic workbook they’ve put together that is highly worth printing and keeping around. Read it and use it, guys.
If you want to know more about Poke the Box and the Domino Project, watch Seth Godin’s interview at Rise To The Top with David Siteman Garland. My favorite comment from the interview: Failureful. At the end, the person who failed the most… WINS.
Are you convinced yet?
