So Seths latest book This is Marketing (his first in 6 years!) comes at the perfect time for me, as I race through my Year of reading all of Seth’s books.

Its hot off the presses, and stuffed with Seth’s off-kilter wisdom that, as usual, throws a spanner in the works of seeing the way things are and the way things could be.

I had an interesting take on this book. I heard Seth say on one of the many podcasts he did to promote this book that TIM was a book about first about the stories we tell ourselves. In my work as a coach and coaching altMBA, I have had to do a lot of digging into my personal Why’s, my motivations for wanting to help others create the change they want to see in the world. I was an interesting lens to read TIM with this in mind.

Towards the end (spoiler!) Seths tells us “It is the marketing we do for ourselves, to ourselves, by ourselves, the story we tell ourselves, that can change everything. It’s what’s going to enable you to create value, to be missed if you were gone.”

This alone was a huge insight for me as a marketer (It might not say it on my LinkedIn profile, but we are all marketing something…). The self-talk, the daily conversation that needs to happen in order to be professional, to help me bring my best self in my work with others, those conversations are the most important work that I do. It’s putting on my oxygen mask first, and taking the time and space to “market” me, to me.

If you have an existing business or an approaching idea, this book could change the way you see yourself in your ideas in the marketplace. Seth’s thoughts on how much marketing has changed and what that matters alone is worth the price of the book.

A great read to understand better the world we now live in, no matter what you do.