Circle of Us, Circle of Now
Size your time horizon and your circle of concern, then match your partners
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 84%
Godin offers two dials. The circle of now measures how far ahead your decisions reach: a toddler's lasts seven seconds and produces a tantrum if unsatisfied; someone at the peak of maturity might run a decade, accepting six or eight years of medical school and no money in service of a later goal. The circle of us measures who you account for: a toddler covers themselves and maybe their parents, while Godin's friend Jim at the Fuller Center covers tens of thousands of strangers. The strategic application is matching: when you pick partners, investors and customers, pick people whose circles resemble yours. He reads the climate crisis as a circle-of-now conflict between people burning the furniture to warm the house tonight and people planning for the seventh generation.
Origin
Godin calls this the most heartfelt part of 'This Is Strategy' and the section people ask him about the least.
Core principles
- 01Your circle of now is how far ahead your decisions reach
- 02Your circle of us is how many people your decisions account for
- 03Both circles can be deliberately expanded
- 04Mismatched circles between partners produce chronic conflict
- 05Only drowning justifies a circle of exactly me and exactly now
How to run it
- 1
Measure your circle of now
Honestly assess how far into the future your decisions currently reach before impatience takes over. Seven seconds, a quarter, a decade.
Watch out A short circle disguises itself as pragmatism.
- 2
Measure your circle of us
Write down who your decisions actually account for: yourself, your family, your team, your customers, strangers, future generations.
Pro tip Even Ayn Rand's circle was more than one person.
- 3
Measure the circles of everyone you are tied to
Estimate the same two dials for your investors, partners, key customers and closest colleagues. Look for the gaps.
Pro tip Silicon Valley money, dentists in Iowa and bootstrapping each imply very different circles of now.
Watch out Mismatched horizons show up as conflict about tactics, disguising the real disagreement.
- 4
Align or part deliberately
Where circles diverge badly, either negotiate an explicit shared horizon or choose different partners before the pressure arrives.
Watch out Hoping a short-horizon investor will become patient later is not a plan.
- 5
Create conditions that widen circles
Measure and reward the things that reflect the larger circle, since the people around you will measure what you measure.
Pro tip If we're measuring the right things, they're going to measure the right things.
In the wild
Godin's illustration of a large circle of now: someone says they will go through medical school, pay out money and have no fun for six or eight years, because after that they will be able to achieve what they are after. Every step in between is deliberately not now. He contrasts it directly with a toddler whose circle of now is seven seconds and who has a tantrum when the seven seconds pass without satisfaction.
→ A framing that makes an otherwise painful decade legible as a single coherent decision.
Godin describes his friend Jim, who runs the Fuller Center and has spent decades providing housing and sustenance for strangers. Jim's circle of us extends to tens of thousands of people he will never meet, which is what makes decades of that work coherent rather than sacrificial. It is Godin's concrete upper bound on how large a circle of us can get in an ordinary life.
→ Decades of sustained work for strangers, explained by circle size rather than by willpower.
Common mistakes
Taking money from a shorter circle
Investors whose circle of now is far shorter than yours will apply pressure that forces tactics your strategy cannot survive.
Acting as if you are drowning
The circle of me and now is only correct in a genuine emergency; treating ordinary business pressure as drowning permanently shrinks both circles.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone choosing investors, co-founders, customers or a life direction and needing a way to test alignment before committing.
Not ideal for
Genuine emergencies, where the correct circle really is yourself right now.
From the transcript
“A toddler has a circle of now that lasts seven seconds. Somebody at the peak of their maturity might have a circle of now that…”
“When you pick your partners, when you pick your investors, when you pick your customers, it would really help if you would pick people whose…”
“The exception is if you're drowning. If you're drowning the circle is you and the circle is now.”
From the episode
#792: Seth Godin on Playing the Right Game and Strategy as a Superpower