The charismatic character in the photo above is a marketing genius and a provocative thinker. His name is Seth Godin. Long-time friends know that I’m a Seth Godin Superfan. Call me a “Sethy.” Much of his writing reflects his strong belief in taking the long view.

Seth often says, “People like us do things like this” when fellow tribe members connect their values with how they live their lives. In particular, Seth sounds like us…clients, team members, and other evidence-based investors in this recent post. See if you agree.

If you don’t quite get the connection and want to learn more, let’s talk! Set up a call or meeting here. 

As we head into the holiday season, we are encouraging families to discuss their values and guiding principles. On this point – we wanted to share this short, unedited piece by one of our favorite bloggers, Seth Godin. We think he does a superb job of defining what principles are, and why they are important. 

Principle is Inconvenient

A principle is an approach you stick with even if you know it might lead to a short-term outcome you don’t prefer. Especially then.

It’s this gap between the short-term and the long-term that makes a principle valuable. If your guiding principle is to do whatever benefits you right now, you don’t have principles of much value.

But it’s the valuable principles that pay off, because they enable forward motion, particularly when it feels like there are few alternatives. We embrace a culture based on principles because it’s that structure and momentum that enables connection and progress to happen in the first place.

You can check out the original piece on Seth’s blog here. 

Curious about facilitating your own family meeting? Try out these questions about values and guiding principles that you can pose to kids, partners, and parents this holiday season:

• What are your values? 
• Anything you believe that you feel is a guiding principle in your life? 
• What are our family’s guiding principles? 
• How do these principles impact the decisions we make?

We just had to repost this gem of a blog post from marketing legend – Seth Godin.

Long-term vs short-term

By Seth Godin