Remarkable Reading #11: THE ICARUS DECEPTION by Seth Godin and THE POWER OF BROKE by Daymond John
The aim of this section Remarkable Reading is pay a tribute to the books that taught, share trends & insights into where our world in the 21st century is heading in a technology enabled world, and ask the right questions.
Bolded and italics quotes and references do not belong to myself and belong directly to the author. The focus is to share valuable insights and teachings from the book to win business for the authors.
Page 251 “Put all your passion and purpose behind whatever it is you're doing. If you don't believe in yourself, in your product, your service, or your business, you can’t expect anyone else to either. That said, you don’t want to come across as a nut, so don’t be fanatical or unreasonably optimistic. Remember that you're selling people on the idea of trusting in you, people invest in people, not just in a product or service”
You can visit Seth Godin's blog here, follow his tweets here and purchase a copy of THE ICARUS DECEPTION on Amazon here.
You can follow Daymond John on Twitter here, visit his website here and purchase a copy of The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage here.
The two topics we will be exploring are
- Art
- Entrepreneurialism
We are not only in a technological age, but eventually in an automated era we will be entering a entrepreneurial age.
Seth Godin is one of the world’s most renowned authors, and THE ICARUS DECEPTION is another forward-thinking and innovative book in his succession of books.
Here are five astute and profound facts I very much enjoyed about art:
Page 6 - “Oscar Wilde wrote that art is “new, complex, and vital”. Art isn’t something that’s made by artists. Artists are people who make art. Art is not a gene or a specific talent. Art is an attitude, culturally driven and available to anyone who chooses to adopt it. Art isn’t something sold in a gallery or performed on a stage. Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another. Most painters, it turns out, aren’t artists at all - they are safety-seeking copycats”
Page 19 - “Initiating a project, a blog, a Wikipedia article, even a unique family journey. Initiating something particularly when you’re not putatively in charge. We avoid these acts because we’ve been trained to avoid them. At the same time, almost all people believe they are capable of editing, giving feedback, or merely criticizing”
Page 41 - “STORIES THAT SPREAD: The next asset that makes the new economy work is the story that spreads. Before the revolution, in a world of limited choice, shelf space mattered a great deal. You could buy your way onto the store shelf, or you could be the only one on the ballot, or you could use a connection to get your resume in front of the hiring guy. In a world of abundant choice, though, none of these tactics is effective. The chooser has too many alternatives, there;s too much clutter, and the scarce resources are attention and trust, not shelf space. This situation is tough for many, because attention and trust must be earned, not acquired”
Page 85 - “It’s not necessarily about the money, or even a business. And it's certainly not about building an industrial empire. It might merely be about the joy of doing art. No, we’re not all entrepreneurs, not at all. But we are all able to be artists, and all artists are impresarios”
Page 139 - “Rejection says something about the critic, but not about you. Perhaps it means you chose the wrong audience. And yes, perhaps, if you've exhausted all possible audiences, it means that you need to make better art”
Moving on from art to now entrepreneurialism. Daymond John’s THE POWER OF BROKE: HOW EMPTY POCKETS, AND A HUNGER FOR SUCCESS CAN BECOME YOUR GREATEST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE is a powerful book for entrepreneurs. It is inspiring, luminous and lucid and proves why Daymond is one of the most compulsive and fascinating entrepreneurs in the United States today.
Here are five key take-out’s I found valuable from THE POWER OF BROKE: HOW EMPTY POCKETS, AND A HUNGER FOR SUCCESS CAN BECOME YOUR GREATEST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
Daymond mentions:
Page 1- “Because take it from me, the power of broke is all about substance over flash. It’s about creativity over certainty. It’s about taking a shot playing it safe. And here's another thing: The money runs out after a while”
Page 3- “Here’s my take: Innovation happens from the bottom up, not the top down. Break dancing, rap music, slam poetry, iPods, smart watches, electric cars...all the most creative, the most successful, the most dynamic innovations pop in an organic way, and then grow. Or not. You put your idea out there, no big thing, and it just kind of happens. Or not. People either respond to it, or they don’t, and it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, how much you try to dress it up, it is what it is and that’s that”
Page 68 - “With Rob, it was never about making money so much as it was about making things happen. Mostly, he cared about making noise, shaking things up. The money didn’t matter to him in a way i might have mattered to someone else. Why? Because money wasn’t what was driving him. No, with Rob, it was all about the push to be the best to stand out - and when you’re the best, when you stand out in such a big-time way, the money can’t help but follow”
Page 78 - “One of the things I point out to people when I talk about the themes of this book is the difference between straight-up poverty and poverty of the mind. It’s one thing to be hungry, but that doesn't mean you can’t feed your head with the insights and information you'll need to take it to the next level. For me, that hunger to learn came from that extra push from my mother, who encouraged me to read,m to think big, to look outside my small world of Hollis, Queens, to the big city and beyond”
Page 251 “Put all your passion and purpose behind whatever it is you're doing. If you don't believe in yourself, in your product, your service, or your business, you can’t expect anyone else to either. That said, you don’t want to come across as a nut, so don’t be fanatical or unreasonably optimistic. Remember that you're selling people on the idea of trusting in you, people invest in people, not just in a product or service”
You can visit Seth Godin's blog here, follow his tweets here and purchase a copy of THE ICARUS DECEPTION on Amazon here.
You can follow Daymond John on Twitter here, visit his website here and purchase a copy of The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage here.
Prashant aka Praz
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