What if you didn't pass up your turn?

Best-selling author Seth Godin surely no longer needs an introduction, but as a reminder, I’ll just say that he is the former marketing director of Yahoo, the ambassador of Permission marketing since 1999, an expert on tribes, story-telling, viral marketing and personal development, and today a consultant and an influential speaker.

I’ve chosen to write about his latest book, What to do when it’s your turn (and it’s always your turn) published in December 2014, because it carries a message i strongly believe in: seize your opportunities.

The first thing that struck me about What to do when it’s your turn is that it is dedicated to an early English suffragette, Annie Kenney, whose photo is on the cover (left). Godin tells us that, at a town hall meeting, Kenney asked a Member of Parliament to give his opinion on women’s right to vote, and he refused to respond. The commotion she caused landed her three days in jail, but her courage launched a movement that changed the world. Because Annie Kenney stepped up.

Step up, is what Seth Godin is telling us to do in his book.

The opening manifesto reads:

What does Seth Godin mean by “your turn?” Traditionally when you hear “it’s your turn,” you’re playing a board game, waiting in line, or you’re in your car and the light has turned green. It’s a turn that is given to you. But Godin enlightens us on a different sense of taking your turn, meaning a person who makes a change. Here, it’s not about being given your turn, it’s about taking your turn. As, Seth Godin proves, it is always your turn.

What to do when it’s your turn talks first and foremost about opportunity: “The opportunity to contribute, to lead and to live your life fully.”

For Godin, opportunity is freedom: “The freedom to connect, to reach out to just about anyone in the world. The freedom to create, to sing and write and invent and share widely. The freedom to lead, to stand up and say, “follow me.” The freedom to learn, to take almost any course on any topic and to put that learning to work. The freedom to choose your next project, the information you consume, and the people you associate with” – in spite of the fact that we live in a world that’s still filled with barriers and limits.

Godin points out how – oddly enough - we have come to fear freedom. He shows us how to refuse that fear, as well as the fear of stupidity. Failing, although not fun, is necessary. There are no guarantees. We can, and we will, fail. But it’s only by starting again that we can succeed. Godin writes, “the person who fails the most, wins.”

Godin debunks all of the supposed obstacles and made-up suffering that may be separating us from going for our dreams and trying to achieve our goals. There is no such thing as writer’s block. There is no such thing as the right time. There is no such thing as ‘no choice.’ We must simply realize that it is our turn, and develop a habit of taking initiative, starting. As Alfred Hitchcock once said: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” Or to quote Elon Musk, “destiny is in our own hands. If we don’t succeed, it’s our own fault.”

So we must write until we are no longer afraid of writing. We must reach out of our comfort zones. We must be brave, we must be generous, we must choose.

In this book, Seth Godin gives us the motivation that we (shouldn’t) need. He teaches us how to find the power within ourselves – and there are different ways of going about it – to do what we really want to do. Through inspirational anecdotes and pinpointing common excuses, pretexts or made-up obstacles we've all heard countless times, he shows us that we are all capable – and free – to be and do something remarkable.

In his famous 2007 Ted talk entitled “How to get your ideas to spread,” Seth Godin highlights the notion of 'remarkable' and shows us how it's the quirky, bizarre or even bad ideas that are often more successful, and set us apart (video below).

Though I am not necessarily the projected target of this book (but it is because I believe in this message that I wrote and published my book, The Killer Idea), I feel that the directive of What To Do When It’s Your Turn is highly important and relevant at a time when it is more essential than ever for people to take action. So I recommend it to you, reader hiding behind your fear, full of dreams, awaiting your turn. Take it from Seth Godin, it is your turn.