Title Poke the Box

Author Seth Godin

Year Published 2015

Kind of Book Creativity/Self-help

How strongly I recommend it 7/10 

My Impressions This is a book about starting and finishing this. Godin urges the reader to start something new and to think outside the box. The message here is largely motivational, but a good message nevertheless.

Date Read April 2020

Practical Takeaways

  • Be aware of the market

  • Be connected

  • Be consistent

  • Be productive

  • Build an asset to sell

  • Have the guts to ship

  • Get into the habit of starting

  • When you're lost in the woods don't trust your senses. Use a star or the setting sun to guide you. (your senses will make you walk in circles)

  • Start stuff

  • Go to work on a regular basis

  • Make your schedule before you start -Zig Ziglar (so you won't procrastinate or chicken out of something)

  • Nonstop writing from 6am to noon every day-Isaac Asimov

  • End the day at a certain time every day

  • Show up

  • Ask yourself why a mediocre product isn't great

  • Look for the fear (It's almost always the source of your doubts)

  • Don't wait to be picked. Start something yourself

  • When the cost of poking the box is less than the cost of doing nothing, poke the box

  • Relentlessly and constantly be starting something (and finishing it)

  • Be prepared to do a TED talk on whatever you know about

  • Attempt new things that you aren't sure you can do

  • Finish whatever you start (If it doesn't ship, you've failed)

  • Focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work

  • Keep starting (on the same thing) until you finish

  • Don't worry about it being perfect. Just start. You can always adjust. (if you don't start you can't change it)

  • Make something new (the market is obsessed with novelty)

  • Be the one who starts things

  • Pass your ideas into the world

  • Be willing to get something different than what you set off to get

  • Schedule a date and time of day to start something (thurs April 3rd 3:05)

  • Do things where there is risk of failure (If there is not way you can fail at it, it doesn't count)

  • Ship before your deadline

  • Buzz more (if you were playing jeopardy) //error on the side of too much

Big Ideas

  • We have a tendency to think the cost of being wrong will be way worse than it actually is

  • The people who fail the most end up being the most successful in the long term

  • Because

  • They have gained a lot of feedback and knowledge through their failures

  • Getting booed and failing is a huge relief. You are then able to produce without worrying about failure

  • If you are not making a difference in the world it is because you are afraid of failure

  • Taking endless notes, reading a ton, and asking endless questions is a form of hiding and procrastinating taking action because you are afraid of rejection

Surprising Facts

  • People lost in the woods or lost in the desert with no star or setting sun to guide them tend to walk in circles

 

Unknown Terms

Financial Capital: Money in the bank that can be put to work on a project or investment (kind of capital)

Network Capital: People you know, connections you can make, retailers and systems you can plug into (kind of capital)

Intellectual capital: Smarts. Software systems. Access to people with insight (kind of capital)

Physical capital: Plant and machinery and tools and trucks (kind of capital)

Prestige capital: Your reputation (kind of capital)

Instigation capital: The desire to move forward. The ability and the guts to say yes. (kind of capital)

Anxiety: experiencing failure in advance-Seth Godin