To Korean readers
Entering
People who surpassed the limits of Icarus

PART 1.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is coming.

Our lives are a process of balancing our comfort zones and safety zones.
Successful people align their comfort zone with their safety zone.
Times have changed and comfort zones have shifted, but what if your comfort zone remains the same? You need to re-evaluate your comfort zone.


PART 2.
Tear down, tear down, change

In the new connected economy, we must begin to change.
What's happening in this new safe zone? Art and innovation, destruction and rebirth.
So, the only path we can choose is to leave safety behind and run towards change.


PART 3.
Don't be fooled by Icarus

The lesson that it is dangerous to fly too high and not to be proud of having godlike powers is wrong.
What we need now is not conformity, but pride.
It is the courage to expose yourself to the risk of being lost, failing, criticized or envied, but that is where the true meaning of life lies.

PART 4.
What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid of failure or embarrassment? Don't be overcome by shame.
Don't conform to society, be willing to be impure.
Take a new path without a map.
Of course, it is difficult and scary.
Challenges put us at risk.
But risk is the very process we must go through to become artists.

PART 5.
Become an artist

An artist is someone who has the courage, insight, creativity, and determination to challenge the established order.
Art is a journey, not a product.
What we need to do is find a journey worth dedicating ourselves to and jump into something worthwhile, something without any guarantees or safety nets.


Coming out

A must-read for all Icarus around the world.
“The world is full of ordinary people doing extraordinary things!”

★ Amazon's #1 Overall Bestseller ★
★ Recommended by the Financial Times, Forbes, and Business Week ★

Don't be fooled by Icarus' trick!
The real lesson of the Icarus story is
It is not a myth that calls for death, but a message of challenge that changes life!

One day, Daedalus, an inventor who was imprisoned for defying King Minos's will, came up with an ingenious escape plan.
He decided to give wings to himself and his son.
Just before he attached wings with wax and took flight, Daedalus warned his son Icarus not to fly too close to the sun.
But Icarus, intoxicated by the magic of flying, disobeys his father and flies too high.
And we all know what happened next.
The wax melted, Icarus' wings fell off, and he fell into the sea and died.


The lesson this Icarus story teaches us is simple and clear.
Conform to the system.
Don't be proud.
If you are arrogant, your wings will melt and you will eventually die.
But is that really true? In fact, there's a half of this story that our society has deliberately ignored, a half you haven't heard.
Daedalus didn't just warn Icarus not to fly too high.
It also came with a warning not to fly too low.
In fact, flying too low can be much more dangerous than flying too high.
Because you will live in a state of complacency, not even realizing that your wings are getting wet, under the illusion of safety.


Yet, within the system of the past industrial society, which was closed on all sides, that was considered the right answer.
We have been conditioned to conform to society by exaggerated information that the world is a dangerous place and a vague anxiety that it will be difficult to make a living if we step outside the lines.
What manager or leader would dislike someone who believed obedience and conformity were the keys to success? But the world has changed.
Obedience and conformity no longer bring comfort.
As the economy shifted from an industrial economy to a connected economy, the safe zone also shifted accordingly.
It is an era that requires courage and creativity to challenge, create new things, and connect unrelated things.
Seth Godin says we must change and find new comfort zones, even if there is a possibility of failure.


Don't be fooled any longer by the false lessons taught by the Icarus myth.
The real lesson of the Icarus story is not the death-inducing myth we know, but the message of a life-changing challenge.
Only by breaking free from the comfort and framework you've created and soaring high, even if it means failing, can you transcend your limits and achieve self-transformation, innovation, and success.
If you were Icarus, what choice would you make?

What are you afraid of? Take a new path without a map!
“Are you an irreplaceable artist?”

In the industrial economy, workers were encouraged to attend ceremonial meetings, submit reports according to formats, and become cogs in a company's machinery, moving as directed, saying that a good job was "fun, easy, and safe."
But gradually, people began to appear who broke free from this framework and thought, spoke, and acted differently, and the author found hope in them.


Seth Godin calls the work of building new frameworks of thought, connecting people and ideas, and trying things without set rules "art," and calls those who have the courage, insight, creativity, and determination to challenge the established order "artists."
And ten years later, his prediction proved accurate. With AI replacing humans in every field, we've entered an era where simply following instructions with speed and precision, as in the past, is no longer enough to find answers.


We each need the courage to elevate what we do, even if it fails, into art.
In that sense, this book is the result of a declaration to abandon existing comforts and a will to try something new.
Seth Godin challenges readers who are stuck in a society that demands conformity and obedience, who fear change, or who are stuck in self-imposed limitations to break free.
Times have changed, but most people lack the courage and determination to capitalize on their insights and ideas, remaining stuck in the comfort zone provided by the industrial economy.
You can never progress if you stay in your own comfort zone.
You have to get out of your comfort zone and try to find a new safe zone.
Be willing to become impurity.
That kind of person is an artist.


The author helps us find ways and attitudes to make our current problems a reality, using specific examples and analogies of ordinary people we see around us trying and working to overcome their limitations.
Anyone can be an artist.
A person who has the courage to reveal himself even if he is criticized for being noisy.
A person who seeks out a path that doesn't exist even when it seems impossible, a person who draws and creates the map itself, a person who raises and solves problems.
All you have to do is make choices that make you different from others.

A painter standing in front of a blank canvas, an architect who destroys the basic principles of architecture, a playwright who makes the audience cry, a meticulous doctor who calls a patient, a detective who solves a labyrinthine case, a diva who challenges the classics with a new interpretation, a service worker who visits customers in person even in the midst of a busy work schedule, an entrepreneur who boldly jumps in without relying on approval or authority, a mid-level executive who changes the atmosphere of an important meeting in an instant with a single word… … .
In this way, the world can be full of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Ultimately, the world is led by artists who follow their own path without calculating or caring about others.
Which side will you be on?