A MeaningfulExistence

Book Notes · 2 min read

Seth Godin's What Matters Now: The Free 2009 Ebook, Revisited

What Seth Godin's free 2009 ebook What Matters Now was, how it worked, the themes its contributors wrote about, and which ideas still feel relevant today.

By the A Meaningful Existence editors · Updated

In short

What Matters Now was a free ebook Seth Godin assembled in December 2009, made of short one-word essays from dozens of writers and thinkers. Its themes, such as generosity, attention, trust and creativity, still make a useful set of prompts for an annual reflection.

In December 2009, marketing author Seth Godin released What Matters Now, a free ebook distributed as a PDF that readers were encouraged to share. Rather than writing it himself, he invited a large group of authors, entrepreneurs and thinkers to contribute a short piece each, typically organised around a single word that they thought deserved attention in the year ahead.

The format was unusual at the time. It was free, it spread largely through blogs and social media, and it was built as a sampler: dozens of voices on a page or two each, so readers could dip in rather than read cover to cover.

What was inside

Contributors included well-known business and creativity writers of the period. Each piece took a word, such as generosity, trust, love, ideas, dignity or attention, and made a short argument about why it mattered as the decade turned. Some pieces were practical, some were personal reflections, and some were closer to manifestos.

Godin's own framing was characteristically direct: in a time of economic upheaval, he argued, the old rules about safety and compliance were weakening, and qualities like generosity, connection and creative courage were becoming more valuable.

Why it caught on

A few things helped. It was free and easy to share, which suited the way blog culture worked in 2009. It was short in every part, so readers could get value in five minutes. And it landed at the end of a difficult year, when many people were in a reflective mood after the financial crisis.

It was also a smart demonstration of one of Godin's favourite ideas: that giving valuable work away can build an audience and goodwill more effectively than charging for it.

The ideas that hold up

Read today, the specific references feel dated, but several themes have aged well:

  • Generosity as a strategy. The idea that helping people without an immediate return builds trust and opportunity remains central to how many creative careers work.
  • Attention as scarce. Several contributors worried about distraction years before smartphones made it a mainstream concern.
  • Trust and dignity. As more of life moved online, writers argued, honesty and respect would matter more, not less.
  • Making things. A repeated message was to ship work, share it and learn, rather than wait for permission.

Using it as a reflection exercise

The structure of the book makes a good personal exercise at the end of any year. Choose one word that captures what you want to matter to you over the next twelve months. Write a page about why: what the word means to you, what it would look like in practice, and what would change if you took it seriously.

Some people pick a word every year and keep the pages; reading them back later is a revealing record of what they cared about at each stage.

Should you read it now?

The PDF is still easy to find through Godin's blog post announcing it. Treat it as a time capsule and a source of prompts rather than a guide. If you enjoy it, Godin's Linchpin, published a few weeks later, develops several of the same ideas at book length.

For a related exercise, see our piece on goodbye old year, hello new: a simple year-end review.

Sources and further reading

Questions people ask

Where can I find What Matters Now?

Seth Godin announced the free PDF on his blog in December 2009, and copies are still linked from that post and elsewhere online. It was designed to be shared freely, so there is no paid edition to buy.

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