Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions! Seth Godin: Embracing Tension & Unleashing Questions Strategic Potential | Seth Godin #25
"The reason we hesitate to ask questions is because they create tension." - Seth Godin
Seth Godin is a bestselling author of 22 books in 39 languages, entrepreneur, and speaker. Books include The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, This is Marketing, The Carbon Almanac, and most recently, This is Strategy. In April of 2025, he will upload his 10,000th daily blog post to one of the most popular blogs in the world; yeah, that's over 27 years of daily writing. Seth founded Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!) and is credited as the inventor of email marketing (the good kind).
Seth has given five TED talks, including two that rank as the most popular of all time. By teaching about everything from effective marketing and leadership to the spread of ideas and our responsibilities as leaders, Seth has motivated and inspired people worldwide.
I was introduced to his work in 2007, and this podcast was created in The Podcast Fellowship, a podcast incubator he led in 2018. His fingerprints are all over much of the work I have shipped. We met during the This is Strategy book launch in November last year, and this is our first conversation about questions.
The conversation delves into Seth's background, achievements, and philosophy behind the power of asking questions. They discuss how questions can create tension, drive more profound understanding, and foster meaningful connections. Seth shares anecdotes from his experiences, offering practical examples of strategically using questions in various contexts, from personal interactions to professional settings.
The episode underscores the necessity of intentionality in asking questions to effect change, highlighting the strategic importance of inquiry in personal growth and leadership. It concludes with reflections on empathy, systemic challenges, and the enduring significance of caring and trying to make a difference, no matter the state of the world.
Episode Notes
[03:47] Seth's Early Understanding of Questions
[04:33] The Power of Questions
[05:25] Building Relationships Through Questions
[06:41] This is Strategy: Focus on Questions
[10:21] Gamifying Questions
[11:34] Conversations as Infinite Games
[15:32] Creating Tension with Questions
[20:46] Effective Questioning Techniques
[23:21] Empathy and Engagement
[34:33] Strategy and Culture
[35:22] Microsoft's Transformation
[36:00] Global Perspectives on Questions
[39:39] Caring in a Challenging World
Resources Mentioned
The Dip by Seth Godin
Linchpin by Seth Godin
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Tribes by Seth Godin
This Is Marketing by Seth Godin
This is Strategy by Seth Godin
What Does it Sound Like When You Change Your Mind? by Seth Godin
Value Creation Masterclass by Seth Godin on Udemy
The Strategy Deck by Seth Godin
Jimmy Smith Curated Questions Episode
Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin
Tim Ferriss podcast with Seth Godin
Seth Godin website
Questions Asked
When did you first understand the power of questions?
What do you do to get under the layer to really get down to those lower levels?
Is it just follow-up questions, mindset, worldview, and how that works for you?
How'd you get this job anyway?
What are things like around here?
What did your boss do before they were your boss?
Wow did you end up with this job?
Why are questions such a big part of This is Strategy?
If you had to charge ten times as much as you charge now, what would you do differently?
If it had to be free, what would you do differently?
Who's it for, and what's it for?
What is the change we seek to make?
How did you choose the questions for The Strategy Deck?
How big is our circle of us?
How many people do I care about?
Is the change we're making contagious?
Are there other ways to gamify the use of questions?
Any other thoughts on how questions might be gamified?
How do we play games with other people where we're aware of what it would be for them to win and for us to win?
What is it that you're challenged by?
What is it that you want to share?
What is it that you're afraid of?
If there isn't a change, then why are we wasting our time?
Can you define tension?
What kind of haircut do you want?
How long has it been since your last haircut?
How might one think about intentionally creating that question?
What factors should someone think about as they use questions to create tension?
How was school today?
What is the kind of interaction I'm hoping for over time?
How do I ask a different sort of question that over time will be answered with how was school today?
Were there any easy questions on your math homework?
Did anything good happen at school today?
What tension am I here to create?
What wrong questions continue to be asked?
What temperature is it outside?
When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak?
What are the questions we're going to ask each other?
What was life like at the dinner table when you were growing up?
What are we really trying to accomplish?
How do you have this cogent two sentence explanation of what you do?
How many clicks can we get per visit?
What would happen if there was a webpage that was designed to get you to leave?
What were the questions that were being asked by people in authority at Yahoo in 1999?
How did the stock do today?
Is anything broken?
What can you do today that will make the stock go up tomorrow?
What are risks worth taking?
What are we doing that might not work but that supports our mission?
What was the last thing you did that didn't work, and what did we learn from it?
What have we done to so delight our core customers that they're telling other people?
How has your international circle informed your life of questions?
What do I believe that other people don't believe?
What do I see that other people don't see?
What do I take for granted that other people don't take for granted?
What would blank do? What would Bob do? What would Jill do? What would Susan do?
What happened to them? What system are they in that made them decide that that was the right thing to do? And then how do we change the system?
How given the state of the world, do you manage to continue to care as much as you do?
Do you walk to school or take your lunch?
If you all can only care if things are going well, then what does that mean about caring?
Should I have spent the last 50 years curled up in a ball?
How do we go to the foundation and create community action?