Seth Godin is the bestselling author of nineteen books, including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and Tribes. He writes one of the most popular blogs in the world and routinely speaks at places like TED.
I sat down to interview him for my podcast 3 Books, and we discussed The Book of est by Luke Rhinehart, one of his three most formative books.
The Book of est is a fictional account of the four-day, sixty-hour Erhard Seminars Training that was a popular new-age movement throughout the 1970s. Seth clarified that he doesn’t subscribe to the cultlike aspects of the course or some of the nonsense spewed in the book. Still, when he read it, something in it hit him like a hammer.
He summarized the book’s thesis this way: “Your problem is not the outside world. Your problem is the story you’re telling yourself about the outside world. And that story is a choice. If you’re not happy with the story, tell yourself another story. Period. That simple. And most people will hear what I just said and not change anything.”
Is it that simple? Well, not always, but it can be. Because we often tell ourselves negative stories. We catastrophize, blame ourselves, wallow in our shame, tell ourselves we’re not worthy, and worse. We write a story where we’re the villain or the village idiot—or both. Why? Why do we dwell so much on the negative? Why are we so fast to judge ourselves so harshly?
If this sounds familiar to you, good. That’s a step. Seth recognized his tendency to make up negative stories about himself, and once he did, he realized that his story was imbalanced, maybe even self-harming.
How can we prove that?
Well, I’m guessing that you probably won the birthday lottery. If you’re reading this right now, you’re alive, you can read, you have an education. Did your parents give you food? And shelter? Did you go to college? Are you healthy?
We can keep playing this game to remind ourselves how good we have it. This helps us recognize that most stories we are telling ourselves are skewed.
Do you hate your stretch marks? Can you try to see them differently? Can they be timeless tattoos commemorating how you brought your beautiful children into the world?
Are you ashamed of your dozens of one-night stands? What if they helped you understand your own sexual chemistry enough that you knew what you needed in a partner?
Do you curse yourself over the extra ten pounds on your gut? Can you instead love the fact that you have a weekly pizza and wings night with your friends?
We have to remember that we retain the choice, we hold on to the choice, we get to make the choice to tell ourselves a different story.
We can rewrite our shame stories, we can be gentler on ourselves, we can take the kindness we preach… and treat ourselves more kindly first.
Tell yourself a different story.