An altMBA colleague, Dean Caravalis, has a blog called Outrageously Remarkable. This week he released an interview with Seth Godin, the altMBA tribe leader and a change agent in my own life. There was a lot packed into this interview and I'll be unpacking that for myself over a couple of blog posts.
Seth's principle of remarkable – something that people will remark about and that moves a message forward – is a strong pillar of how I try to do my own work. Ideas spread because people spread them. You can try to take an idea that's like everyone else and make it spread, but it will be like moving a very heavy boulder uphill. To be remarkable is to take a small snowball that's unlike what others are doing and start rolling it down the hill. What you don't know is whether it will pick up any snow or not.
That's part of the tension of being remarkable. You don't actually know what will spread. It might not work. It might take you a number of iterations to figure out how to make your remarkable message move forward. In the short term you probably could get further moving that heavy, status quo boulder up the hill; however, as the remarkable idea starts to spread it will get bigger and bigger as it rolls down the hill and eventually this momentum will sustain it.
It's one of the things that I love about blogging. At least half of what I write isn't overly remarkable. You could probably read it anywhere. About 50% of the time I can feel that my head, heart and hands have come together and its a sort of magic moment. I write for those moments. And those moments wouldn't be possible without the courage and curiosity muscles I've built by showing up daily and daring to be remarkable.
Being a Force for Good 