Origin stories (E)

Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin

Midroll Media

Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Where did you get your special powers?

Akimbo is a weekly podcast created by Seth Godin. He's the bestselling author of 20 books and a long-time entrepreneur, freelancer and teacher.

You can find out more about Seth by reading his daily blog at seths.blog and about the podcast at akimbo.link.

To submit a question and to see the show notes, please visit akimbo.link and press the appropriate button.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Bruce Banner got hit with gamma radiation, Ben Grimm was in a spacecraft hit by cosmic rays.
0:09.8	Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed by a hoodlum and Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider.
0:18.2	Barbara Gordon, on the other hand, simply chose to become Batgirl.
0:24.1	Hey, it's Matt and this is a special archived episode of a Kimbo.
0:33.7	Everywhere we look, there are origin stories. They go all the way back to Greek and Roman mythology
0:41.5	and probably before. But we know the origin story by heart. We've heard it a million times about
0:49.2	Superman. Superman. Yes, it's Superman. Strange visitor from another planet who came to earth
0:54.8	with powers and abilities far beyond those of Batgirl men. Or when King Arthur took the sword out of
1:03.1	X-Caliber. Oh, who goes there? It is I, author, son of Usapem Dragon from the Castle of Kamalaks.
1:15.3	The origin story often has two components. The first one is something happened. Maybe it was
1:22.5	random. Something happened to our hero, to our founder. And then the second part is a choice
1:29.9	was made. That choice opens doors and sets that hero on a path. And it turns out we repeat that
1:39.2	story about our hero and about ourselves over and over again. And it has far more impact on our
1:47.2	choices and our culture than we usually give it credit for. Consider the case of Starbucks.
1:55.2	Starbucks, many people don't know, was a store, maybe two stores in Seattle that didn't sell
2:04.3	drip coffee or espresso. All they sold were beans and herbs, maybe some tea, but you couldn't drink
2:13.3	anything. Guy named Howard Schultz was working for our housewars company and he went to Italy.
2:20.4	In Italy, he discovered espresso culture. He had this transformational experience about the
2:27.6	third place, about a certain kind of quality, about a certain kind of taste profile, mostly
2:34.1	about what it felt to be part of it. It was a few years later that Howard Schultz, who did not
2:39.4	found Starbucks, took over Starbucks and grew it from the few stores that it had when he got there
2:45.9	to the bazillion stores that they have now. But that story, that original story, is understood by
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Midroll Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Midroll Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.