Big Is The New Small

You Are Not Seth Godin! Some of you are probably reading this post and thinking, “Duh, state the obvious!”  Seriously, You Are Not Seth Godin and neither am I.  Don’t get me wrong, I definitely consider myself to be a student of the Seth Godin School of Thought.  As a matter of fact, this little ol’ blog BigIsTheNewSmall.com is an Arkansas Kissin’ Cousin of Seth’s book Small Is The New Big.

I think one of the key leadership/life/marketing lessons that we can learn from Seth Godin, is simply this, “You Are Not Seth Godin.” Instead of learning from Seth Godin or learning from [fill-in the blank], people try to be a copy-cat of that person.   Just because Seth Godin has recently Given Up On Traditional Book Publishing, doesn’t mean every other author should.  Instead authors should learn from Seth’s decision and apply those learning’s to their situation.

What makes Seth Godin remarkable is the fact that he’s Seth Godin.  He’s a bald-headed, almost action-figure-looking, brilliant, thought leader and marketer that challenges us to dream BIG. think BIGGER. Seth takes the most simple concepts and makes them profound. He states in 300 words what most people can’t state in 300 pages. He doesn’t Twitter or Facebook in the same fashion that most people do; however in his book Tribes he defines leveraging Social Media as we know it.

What makes Seth Godin remarkable is that he learns from everything and he applies those learning’s through the Seth Godin filter.  He doesn’t learn from so and so and try to become so and so.  Seth learns from so and so and through his God-Given Seth Filter, he makes concepts remarkable.  Who else can make a statement like “Very Good Is Bad” and make it make sense. You might ask, How can very good be bad?   According to Seth in one of the old TED talks, “The trouble with very good is that it’s not remarkable enough and people don’t talk about it. They tune it out.”

You Are Not Seth Godin!  That’s the point…

Focus on becoming the best “You,” because “You Are Remarkable!”

I was up bright and early this morning doing my regular 3B regimen: Books, Bible and Blogs along with some writing.  I love the fact that my entire family is sleep, it’s dark outside and it’s literally as quiet as a church mouse.  I can actually hear myself think, I can hear the whispers from God, I can hear the cars drive by and in the distance “I Hear The Trash-Man…”

I was sitting in the bed with my laptop in hand, just typing away; as my thoughts were just flowing onto the computer screen word-by-word.  As I’m typing I realize that “I Hear The Trash Man…”  The trash-man began to get closer and closer to my house and the only thing I could think of is “I Hear the Trash-man…”  Finally, I could tell that the trash-man was in front of my house, so I looked out the window and watched as the trash-man lifted our two trash receptacles, dumped the trash and drove away.

I know you are probably asking what does this have to do with the price of tea in China… anyways here are the two life lessons from the trash man who emptied two trash recpticles:

1. The Trash-man has a unique sound, you can hear him from a distance, you know that he’s coming and you know what to expect when he gets there.  Are you/your church/your business… making the right noises where people can hear you coming from a distance and know what to expect when you get there?  What results do they expect: positive, negative, remarkable…
2. When we surrender our lives to Christ, it’s like… imagine hearing the trash-man coming from a distance, emptying your trash (wiping your slate clean).  The choice is ours regarding how much junk, trash, garbage we put back in our receptacles of life.

Make the right noises and empty the trash.

Share your thoughts on this post?  What do you think of when you hear the Trash-Man?