This might work – flying close to the sun

Five years ago, Seth Godin published the Icarus Deception, his most personal, and, I would argue, most impactful work.

Actually, he really published it over six months earlier, when he wrote a blog called “this might work” in which he launched a Kickstarter to crowdfund the publication. I was one of the many disciples who made it a massively successful Kickstarter and turned “might” into “did”. This did work.

Shortly after the publication, I ran an “Icarus event” at a bar called Karoo in Cayman, where about 8 of us sat and talked about the book one evening. My memory is a little hazy, but I do have a feeling that, six years later, each of the people in that group has since taken brave leaps in different ways, saying to themselves “this might work”.

The starting point for the book is to retell the story of Icarus. We all know the story of Icarus and his father Daedalus, and the warning of the father to not fly too close to the sun else the wax holding the feathers together on his wings would melt and he would crash into the sea. What we forget in our modern telling in our warning against hubris is that Icarus was also warned not to fly too low, else the humid ocean air similarly loosens the wax and send him crashing down to the ocean.

Seth Godin challenges us to ask ourselves how high will you fly? what kind of ruckus do you want to make ? Instead of saying to yourself “this might not work”, to commit to making your art, shipping it, and saying “this might work”!

The Icarus Deception remains one of the books that I continually reference for myself and others.

Hear from the man himself in this short clip, then ask yourself, “how high will I fly? “