Author Seth Godwin is a contemporary writer who has managed to establish himself as a brand, thanks to the plethora of marketing and self-help books that he has published over the decades. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of them, but The Practice leads me to believe he has run out of original material.

What is the book about? Well, having read it through, the best I can come up with is that “the practice” is “the work” you must do to ship “creative projects”. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying. The book is basically a collection of 200+ short pep talks that are frequently repetitive, often inconsistent, and sometimes laughably vague. Oh, and each one is numbered, as if we are expected to refer to them as if they are Bible verses.

Despite Godin stating in this very book that good ideas rarely come out of conference rooms, the apparent source for these bits of motivation/inspiration/advice came from an “Akimbo Conference.” (Whatever that is.)

The author(s?) also frequently borrows common anecdotes (mostly uncredited), but changes them so as to diminish their meaning. I turned against this book when Godin, or whoever is writing, makes it clear that they don’t understand Lou Reed, Higher Education, Apple, or Conjuring.

One interesting thing that did jump out to me is that this is the first self-help book I’ve read that directly references the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. The author ruefully observes that “the perfect tomorrow we hoped for is never going to arrive.”

Overall, I found the book to be as disappointing as it is disjointed. Godin should have “done the work” to make this a more useful and coherent book.