Review: Poke the Box
March 31st, 2011 Filed under: Project Management Careers — Business Author
The Lowest Price we could find is $14.99 $8.91
We send our kids to school and obsess about their test scores, their behavior and their ability to fit in. We post a help wanted ad and look for experience, famous colleges and a history of avoiding failure. We invest in companies based on how they did last quarter, not on what theyre going to do tomorrow. So why are we surprised when it all falls apart? Our economy is not static, but we act as if it is. Your position in the world is defined by what you instigate, how you provoke, and what you learn from the events you cause. In a world filled with change, thats what matters your ability to create and learn from change. Poke the Box is a manifesto about producing something thats scarce, and thus valuable. It demands that you stop waiting for a road map and start drawing one instead. You know how to do this, youve done it before, but along the way, someone talked you out of it. We need your insight and your dreams and your contributions. Hurry.
Book Description: If you’re stuck at the starting line, you don’t need more time or permission. You dont need to wait for a bosss okay or to be told to push the button; you just need to poke.
Poke the Box is a manifesto by bestselling author Seth Godin that just might make you uncomfortable. Its a call to action about the initiative youre taking- in your job or in your life. Godin knows that one of our scarcest resources is the spark of initiative in most organizations (and most careers)- the person with the guts to say, I want to start stuff.
Poke the Box just may be the kick in the pants you need to shake up your life.
Love the ideas in Poke the Box? Check out our Domino Project page for other format options, such as a 5-pack or 52-pack carton of books to share or the limited deluxe edition, which includes the book with a letterpress jacket, a specially designed signature plate signed by Seth Godin, and a letterpress poster. Be sure to also visit TheDominoProject.com for the latest news and special offers.
Daniel H. Pink Reviews Poke the Box
Daniel H. Pink is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Drive and A Whole New Mind, which together have been translated into 31 languages. Read his guest review of Seth Godin’s Poke the Box:
Let me begin with a professional and personal disclosure: If Seth Godin werent a friend of mine, I would probably hate his guts.
He makes those of us in the word-slinging, meme-spreading trade look like a bunch of neer-do-well slackers. He is so preposterously creative and so endlessly productive–a new blog post every day, a new book every year, dozens of efforts to raise money for charity, Squidoo, the Domino Project, and more–that I once suspected “Seth Godin” was really a cover name for an army of elves toiling in a work camp near the Hudson River.
But after reading this remarkable book, Ive discovered Seths secret: Hes willing to poke the box. To start. To initiate. To begin. Thats all.
Indeed, the message of this book is so profoundly simple and so simply profound, I can encapsulate it in a single word.
Go.
Dont cogitate. Dont ruminate. Dont plan on getting started or wait for permission to begin.
Go.
Of course, thats a little scary. Starting is a risk. Things might not work out. You could flop. But one theme of this book–and its a theme that you should write on a rock, imprint on your brain, and inject into your bloodstream–is that we ought to be much more concerned about mediocrity than failure. “If you cant fail,” Seth writes, “it doesnt count.”
Like the man who produced it, Poke the Box is inspired and inspiring. Ill place it on my shelf alongside two other extraordinary books: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. If you enjoyed those two, youll love this one. It will simultaneously stir your heart and kick your butt.
Which brings us to a final question: When should you get started on that project, that business, that work of art only you can deliver to the world?
Seth has the answer to that, too: “Soon is not as good as now.”
In other words, go. –Daniel H. Pink
A Q&A with Seth Godin
Question: What does it mean to Poke the Box?
Seth Godin: Conformity used to be crucial–fitting in, not standing out. Compliance used to be the heart of every successful organization, every successful career. The reason? We all worked for the system, in the factory, doing what we were told. Now, though, compliance is no longer a competitive advantage.
Poke the Box is about the spark that brings things to life. We need to be nudged away from conformity and toward ingenuity, toward answering unknown questions for ourselves. Even if we fail, as I have done many times in my life, we learn what not to do by experience and doing the new.
This isnt the same thing as taking a risk. In fact, the riskiest thing we can do right now is nothing.
Ive had an extraordinary run, creating a dozen nationwide bestsellers, starting Internet companies and giving speeches around the world. The key thing I bring to the projects I take on is not more talent than most (I dont) or even more hours than most (hardly). My contribution is a willingness to poke, to start, to lean into the project and to get it out the door.
Question: What will I learn from reading Poke the Box?
Seth Godin: Hopefully you will learn lots but do more. Start thinking about when youve taken initiative in a way that really meant something to you and your team, your family. When was the last time you did something for the first time? How did it feel?
There are no step-by-step how-to instructions in Poke the Box. Instead, youll find a series of layers, a foundation for taking a different approach to your work. Instead of learning to be more compliant, I want to push you to be the one who takes initiative.
Question: Why did you write this book?
Seth Godin: Ive been fortunate enough to hear from almost a million people over the years, to talk with CEOs and bosses and customers around the world. And they all tell me precisely the same thing: its the motive force they demand, the person who will shake things up and move them forward.
Static is not an acceptable state. The status quo is no longer something we want at work or in politics or in any organization we care about.
The market is just waiting for people to step forward. I wrote the book for those people, the ones whove been hesitating to take the leap.
Question: Why did you start The Domino Project?
Seth Godin: The Domino Project is my latest attempt at “poking.” Its an independent publishing imprint founded by me and powered by Amazon. This is an opportunity to publish “idea manifestos” committed to readers, rather than being bookstore friendly. Its named after the domino effect–where one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person.
I have two audacious goals: I want to change the people who read (not enough do) and I want to change the way books are published (theyre too hard to find and spread). I honestly believe that a book can change a mind like nothing else, and thats our focus. To help anyone to do work theyre proud of and to make a difference.
Question: Why Amazon?
Seth Godin: I partnered with Amazon so we could leverage what we both do best–Amazon is the leader in global distribution, multiple format production capabilities, and reaching people in the right way, and I want to spread powerful ideas to the people who want to read them.
For 15 years, Amazon has been building an audience and gaining our trust. Many surveys identify them as the most-trusted new brand in the world. Now that Amazon is interacting with more people more often, they have a chance to bring those customers new ideas in innovative ways. Its a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring ideas worth spreading to a huge and eager audience.
Question: Who is Seth Godin?
Seth Godin: Im an author, entrepreneur, and a person who starts things.
Review:
Not too long ago, I read and reviewed Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” While it was very thought-provoking and filled with an incredible array of ideas, it was also wrong- headed in many ways, I felt.
So I ordered “Poke the Box” with some trepidation. What I’ve learned is to re-calibrate my expectations from Seth Godin. While I might want a well-thought-out and researched treatise proving the latest idea to me, Seth Godin overwhelms me with his passion and force. Rather than resisting and arguing with Seth (I do this especially as I read what he writes!) I decided this time to listen carefully and take away from the book what I could. Besides, for one dollar as a Kindle book, how could I go wrong! This, by the way, is part of Seth’s exciting new strategy for getting books out to people through non-traditional means. “Poke the Box” is the first book being marketed by Seth using the Domino Project and its strategies. It is, in fact, the first is a series of manifestoes.
If “Poke the Box” communicates nothing else, it presents this one message with a megaphone voice: “Go!” “Start now.” “The worst thing you can do is nothing.” Already, I find myself arguing, since I know that just doing things without careful planning first has led to many disasters. But I keep reading because Seth is so insistent, and he has such a large tribe following him, telling me that maybe he’s worth listening to.
But I think I know what Seth means: he means that you’ve got to be out there trying and risking failure, or you’ll be irrelevant. There are too many people out there and too many tribes so that if you do nothing or are too cautious, thinking that you can control the whole process, the chances are you’ll end up marginalizing yourself. The important thing is to be out there, thinking, inventing, trying, and experiencing, for that is how we learn and create.
Poking the box, therefore, means being willing to poke, to get things started, and to stir things up. And that’s something that I personally need to hear, for my tendency is to caution and fearfulness. “Poking the Box” is the culmination of many other books I’ve read that have also convinced me to begin now and take the initiative. One of the most important times I did that was when I dared to write a daily Bible devotional for every passage of the New Testament. I had a lot of reasons why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do this or why I’d never complete it. But God told me to start one day, and so I did. Two years later I finished “Give Us This Day.”
Poking the Box is about recapturing all of the moments in your life when you started something new and were jazzed about it and the world seemed wonderful and mysterious again. Poking the Box is about recapturing that feeling by taking real action in something you’ve already been thinking about but haven’t had the guts or inspiration to carry out. Read “Poking the Box” for yourself, and see if it doesn’t re-energize you to find old dreams or execute new ones!
When should you poke the box? When the cost of poking the box is less than the cost of doing nothing. It also means working hard and committing to finishing.
“The market is waiting for people to step forward,” Seth says. And so are the tribes that we lead and that each of us are a part of. If you’re a religious leader as I am, then so are the people of God, who all too often have become fearful and weak.
By the way, like Seth, I’m also a big fan of Amazon. I think they’ve been brilliant in the way they’ve gone about their business. I agree with Seth when he says that they have become world leaders in marketing, building an audience (tribe) and in reaching people. In fact, he’s using Amazon to promote his Domino Project: “I want to change the people who read (not enough do) and I want to change the way books are published (they’re too hard to find and spread). I honestly believe that a book can change a mind like nothing else, and that’s our focus.” These are things that I, too, believe in, for I have a tribe of my own and ideas I would like to share with the world.
Thank you, Seth, for giving me a little more courage to “Poke the Box” in my chosen field! Who knows what you, yes YOU, may come up with if you too “Poke the Box”!
I’ll close with some quotes from “Poke the Box.” Like me, you may not completely buy into them, but they are certain to “poke” you:
“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way and not starting.” (Siddhartha Gautama)
“Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.”
“Poking doesn’t mean right. It means action.”
“This might not work” isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you should seek out.
“Risk is avoided because we’ve been trained to avoid failure.”
“Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.”
“Where did curiosity go? Initiative is a little like creativity in that both require curiosity. The difference is that the creative person is satisfied once he sees how it’s done. The initiator won’t rest until he does it.”
“The people arguing on behalf of accepting the status quo are the ones who, years ago, set out to change it. As disillusionment sets in, people stop poking.”
