Cross-post from The Business of Authority:

Seth Godin joins us again, this time to answer the core question in his brand-new book “The Song of Significance”:

What does it take to do work that matters?

Talking Points

Why right now is the best time ever to make a significant contribution to the change you want to see in your world.

The importance of focusing on the smallest viable audience to accomplish significant work.

How to transform your work into your art (hint: it includes the story you tell yourself about where you’re going).

Why “soft skills” need to be considered as “real skills”—and why they are often far more valuable than skills that can be easily measured.

What to tell yourself to push past imposter syndrome.

Quotable Quotes

“It's way more likely that adroit, committed, passionate, smart people are going to realize they have more tools than anyone on Earth ever had before.”—SG

“What I'm trying to help undo is industrial brainwashing and remind people that significance comes from making a change in the world.”—SG 

“I've done more than 200 projects in my career. I've never missed a budget, and I have never missed a deadline. And the reason is that when I run outta time, or I run outta money, I'm done.”—SG

“The key to significant work, particularly for the soloist you're talking about, is understanding the power of the smallest viable audience. The goal cannot be the biggest possible audience, ‘cuz that will water down your work and wreck it.”—SG

“Part of my contribution is helping people tell themselves a story so they can transform parts of their day from work to art.”—SG

“Real skills are honesty, generosity, leadership, connection, charisma, creativity, a sense of humor.”—SG 

“We have filled our lives with dangerous, ineffective proxies. Things we measure that look like they're gonna give us a hint as to what we're gonna get, but they don't.”—SG

“People say, how do I get rid of imposter syndrome? And I say you can't. And that's a good thing because feeling like an imposter is a symptom that A, you're not a sociopath, and B, you're actually doing something difficult. Something important, something that might not work, something you can't prove because you're leading.”—SG

Links

• The Song of Significance
• The Carbon Almanac

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Do you have questions about how to improve your business?

Things like:

• Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?
• Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?
• Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?

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