He has one of the most popular blogs in the world.

He’s a renowned author whose work is cited by renowned authors.

His companies have grown to millions of users and culminated in successful exits by the likes of HubPages and Yahoo.

He’s spoken at TED, has his very own MBA-replacement program built charitable giving right into one of his businesses.

Seth Godin makes the Dos Equis guy look like a light weight.

But how does a person go from selling light bulbs door-to-door to becoming one of the world’s leading authorities on marketing and leadership?

He became an artist.

Not with paintbrushes or pianos mind you, but in being original and doing things that others won’t.

Godin says anyone has the power to become an artist.

“My definition is somebody who solves a problem in a way that no one expected or haven’t been able to solve.

What artists do is not paint. What artists do is put together things, see the world as it is and make change happen.”   – Seth Godin

 

According to Godin, we’re conditioned from birth to follow the rules, stay with the herd and be “compliant cogs” in the machine.

“It’s about training you to work in the factory.”

But those days are over.

“The world changed, reorganized, and made it so being noncompliant is actually beneficial.”

People now get paid for their “emotional work” instead of physical labor.

“The opportunity is we’re now rewarding individuals who make a difference. We’re now celebrating leaders. We’re now seeking out people online and off, who make things by hand, or keep their promises, or challenge the status quo.”

Make things by hand…say whaaat?

“Let me clarify what I mean by make by hand. Google was built by hand. In 1999 or 2002 there was no book called How to Build Google for Dummies.

But they built it anyway.

“The work is not to just ditto everything you hear. The work is to innovate. The work is to go to an edge and touch someone and make an edge and be generous.“

You need to keep “rough edges” because these are what people want and are willing to pay for.

Godin gives his experience with creating his book Linchpin as a prime example. He went back and forth with the publisher dozens of times on many different aspects of the book.

But Seth knew he was on the right path because of the fact they so vehemently disagreed on everything about the project.

“The more they hate it, the better the book’s going to do. Because if I just fit in and follow, there are 175,000 books going to be marketed this year, why pick mine? You won’t.”

Bottom line: If you keep trying to fit in, you’ll never stand out.

“What I’m arguing is if you don’t decide to be an artist it’s never gonna happen. And if you do decide to be an artist, you’re gonna figure it out.”

Seth went on to share more of his incredible insight on how to make your mark in an ever-changing world. He has a fresh take on the way he approaches business – and his success speaks for itself.

He walk you through his entire approach to become an artist and build a big business yourself. It’s exactly the kind of thing that you might be looking for.

Check out the full interview below and discover how you can become an artist too…