I recently talked with Seth Godin about his new book – We Are All Weird and wanted to share it with you.
Seth says, “This book is personal, heartfelt and urgent. I hope that you’ll take the time to read it. In the words of the philosopher Dr. Seuss, We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”
We humans crave connection and while the Internet has expanded our world, we still want to belong to a group of like-minded people. The book details how we are now in silos of tribes of like-minded people who support our weirdness. Seth argues in this book that the choice to push all of us toward a universal form of normal or plain vanilla is inefficient and wrong. The opportunity is for us to embrace our uniqueness and passions, and become weird.
The tribes I am in are those that support women for their successes (no back biting allowed), they stand for human rights, animal rights, organic and healthy food, saving the planet, moving women out of poverty and out from the margins of life, for peace not war, and to help women start their own business. I am freedom fighter – I fight for women to find emotional and financial freedom in their lives.
What do you stand for? Are you embracing your weirdness?
Thank you for this post! Really enjoyed how you expressed that idea of finding like minded folks, and when we do, we embrace each other and call it love. That is such a powerful image.
Nasrine – Seth is empowering us to embrace our weird and love our people. I have learned so much from him. He gave me the idea to start my social forum – Women Heal The World. I’d love to have you as a member of my “weird” tribe – an army of remarkable women who will help empower each other and raise funds for women worldwide. Thanks for reading and your comment.
Great Sherold – thank you! Seth is my Weird Guru! Love his touch on respecting + honoring ‘choice’. Looking forward to staying connected + weird!
Leona – thanks for being my weird B School friend and coming over. Love that you replied.
Oh, we humans do crave connection…thank you for the video it was a real treat.
I too am passionate about protecting this beautiful planet, ensuring that we all have healthy, delicious food, freedom to create, the opportunity to exercise our true strengths and time to care for those in need (we just may be on the receiving end more than once in our lifetime). I believe we all deserve a sustainable lifestyle and our birthright is experience over stuff.
P.S. and I might add (and I suspect Seth would agree) freedom from meetings and conferences filled with dreaded powerpoint slides.
Natalie – thank you for connecting! Have you signed up for Women Heal The World? Please do cause I am offering two classes – Taming Your Inner Critic and Finding Your Voice in Nov and Dec. I’ve discounted them for Women Heal the World members ($39 each vs. $79). WHW is a free forum of connection and support of like-minded women. Hope to see you there.
Thanks Sherold for posting this, Seth is definitely an interesting (and Weird) guy, and may I say you look fabulous! (said with that lovely Billy Crystal voice or was it Mahhvelous!) anyway you were great!
Laura – you are hilarious! Here’s to you and me in NY with Seth! I bought lighting after this interview so stay tuned for me movin on up!
I am signing up for your forum asap! Thank you so much for including me, I am honored. We could use some healing here in the Middle East FOsure!
Oh Nasrine – perhaps you can be a voice for us and a connection to the Middle East. This is so important for us women to help heal each other and celebrate our voice and our wins – with work and in life. I am so happy to have you. You are in B School with me – right?
This is so cool, Sherold! Great job with the interview. I just bought the book recently and it’s next on the list as soon as I finish Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why.” Seth’s concept of weird makes so much sense to me on so many levels. Now that I’m fully embracing my own weird, I’m much more likely to connect with others who are weird like me!
I stand for a lot of things, some of which I’m still trying to articulate, but most of them fall under the umbrella of being a nomad: having the freedom to live my own life, anywhere in the world, and helping others create this same freedom, so we’re able to go wherever we can find whatever we need in life right now.
Great interview, Sherold. He seems like the kind of guy you just want to sit down and have a glass of (fine) wine with. Lots of good points here and I feel so much better about being weird.
Sue Ann – I think we are all feeling good about being our weird self and then connecting with our tribe who is also as weird as we are is icing on the cake. Seth is such a warm, kind, generous and of course brilliant man. He cooks healthy food and made lunch for us. You would have a lot to talk about with him regarding food. His wife owns a bakery in Hastings and made the most delicious coconut cloud cake – I’ve never tasted gluten free muffins and cake that was so good. I signed up to go back to NY in Dec. I hope I get in again. Thanks for reading this.
Sherold, Thanks for the intro to redefining, reclaiming weird. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview & Seth’s squashing of the ‘normal curve’, which was the bane of my life as a psychology student. Intuitively, I knew it was bullshit, but was totally unable to articulate this.
Ann – I love your comments. I think this is so refreshing to all of us. I always felt like a rebel – was rebellious in high school and later in my first business. Now I know that I just needed to find my right tribe of people. I love that Seth can say it and then we can see it this way.