Why passion is nonsense and money is like heroin for this rockstar marketer

A photo of Seth Godin.

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Seth Godin is perhaps the most famous marketer in the world, recently inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. He is a successful entrepreneur, a public speaker, and the author of 18 bestselling books including Linchpin, Permission Marketing, Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow.

Godin is also a founder of internet companies Yoyodyne and Squidoo.

His blog, which you can find by simply typing Seth into Google, is one of the most popular in the world.

Could you introduce yourself in one sentence?

“I’m Seth Godin. I’m a teacher and sometimes I’m a blogger and an entrepreneur.”

You’ve said before that a passion or a calling is nonsense. Could you elaborate?

“Let’s start with Carnegie Hall, where I’ve spoken a couple of times to students from Juilliard and other places. I think we can agree that [Juilliard] is the pinnacle for someone who’s devoted their life to learning the cello.

“It’s easy to imagine that a kid who starts at the age of three and practices three or four hours a day, and then gets picked by a teacher and then gets picked by Juilliard and then gets picked to be at the executive level at Carnegie hall, has succeeded as an artist.

“The thing is, they’re not artists. They are cogs in the symphony industrial complex. They have been taught, from the age of three, to play the music as written. Playing it as written is a compliance activity.

“The problem with the practice room is that it teaches you to be a cog in a system that doesn’t need you anymore—the career opportunities for an excellent cello player are nil. Compare this person to Yo-Yo Ma, who is not an excellent cello player. He’s a genius. There’s a difference because he does not play the music as written because he is exploring the edges. He is the one and only.

“The problem is that competence is now overrated. That in a world where everyone is connected, it’s easier to find a competent supplier than ever before, and if you can define what you need, you can find someone cheaper, and that means there’s a race to the bottom.

“People are trying to win the race to the bottom by working more hours for less money and becoming ever more obedient. Therein lies very little happiness and very little success. My argument is that there’s an alternative, and the alternative is to do the emotional labor, to have the guts to speak up and to stand up and to connect and to lead and to solve interesting problems.

“That doesn’t happen because you got an A in first grade and second grade and third grade and practiced more in fourth grade. It happens because you grew up in a culture that encouraged you to explore the edges with a sense of generosity.”

What advice would you give to someone who thinks money will solve all their problems?

“If I had substituted the word heroin for money, I think that most of us would look at that and say, ‘That’s absurd. Just don’t become a heroin addict because we all know that becoming a heroin addict rarely leads to long-term happiness or contribution.’

Was there a point when you were chasing money as well?

Can you share tactics that can help people deal with the fear of failure?

How do you want to be remembered?