Seth Godins "Brainwashed" Blog 4A

Seth Godin’s article Brainwashed has seven layers of reinventing yourself. One of the ways to reinvent the way you are is to “acknowledging the lizard”. Seth is describing the thing inside of our brains that try to conform us back the old ways of life. The old ways of life being getting a good job that will bring in steady income and learning a trade that you will do for the rest of your life. Factory working is an example. He describes that one must acknowledge the lizard so that it can be ignored and overcome. Find the lizard so that we can recognize what it’s trying to prevent us to do. We must overcome the voice of the lizard and do what we want to do. We should not let the opportunity to pass.

            He says that the lizard brain doesn’t like to be laughed at. The lizard brain is what holds our creative side back and prevents us from discovering new and creative ways to work. There have been times that I have not created a certain piece of work because I was afraid of what people might say. I have been able to overcome that fear in the past year. I take an idea and run with it. Seth also describes that the lizard is resistance. To reinvent ourselves we need to recognize this resistance and shut it down. We become almost completely free when we shut down this resistance.

            Another way to reinvent our being is to ship. Shipping our ideas and creative works becomes an issue for me. I create a lot of work out of the public’s eye but am sometimes afraid to ship it because of failure. If we ship we might fail Seth writes. He describes that how can an idea or creative work spread if it isn’t shipped. We need to accept the risk of failure because we can learn from it. It also helps us overcome obstacles and make us better. Better in life, creative work, and our future careers. If Thomas Edison let failure take him away he would have never been recognized. We know Thomas Edison because he didn’t let failure over take him. If failure got the best of him I wouldn’t be mentioning his name in this blog.

            This class and writing blogs has helped me think about myself as far as a creative person. Reading for me is not something that I would put on the top of my list but the articles that I have had to read has helped me a lot. I have incorporated the suggestions in these articles to my own creative mind and material. It helps me think of other ways to be creative and be accepting of other creative artists. It has also helped me recognize the importance of thinking and analyzing the creative side of the mind.