Seth Godin

“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”

“To be willing to do new things you don't think you'll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just tolerate it, but to prefer it.”

“If you can't be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can.”

“Art is original. Marcel Duchamp was an artist when he pioneered Dadaism and installed a urinal in a museum.The second person to install a urinal wasn't an artist, he was a plumber.”

“Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new...If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot.The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.”

“Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don't start, you never get a chance.”

“That's your opportunity--to approach your work in a way that generates unique learning and interactions that are worth sharing.”

“We have little choice but to move beyond quality and seek remarkable, connected, and new. Remarkable, as you've already figured out, demands initiative.”

“Crash diets don't work.They don't work for losing weight, they don't work for making sales quota and they don't work for getting and keeping a job.The reason they don't work has nothing to do with what's on the list of things to be done (or consumed). No, the reason they don't work is that they don't change habits, and habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.”

“So sure, start with a slogan. But don't bother wasting any time on it if you're merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.”

“The opportunity of a lifetime is to pick yourself. Quit waiting to get picked; quit waiting for someone to give you permission; quit waiting for someone to say you are officially qualified and pick yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer, but it does mean you stand up and say, ‘I have something to say. I know how to do something. I’m doing it. If you want me to do it with you, raise your hand.”

“You get to keep making art as long as you are willing to make the choices that let you make your art.”

“The best way to be missed when you're gone, Is to stand for something when you're here”

“Sometimes, "never let them see you sweat," is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present. Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.”

“Don't wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you're stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can't help but improve, can't help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.You might not end up with perfect, but it's significantly more valuable than being stuck.Don't just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.”

“If failure is not an option, then neither is success.”

“Leadership isn't something that people hand to you. ... [i]t's a gradual process, one where you take responsibility years before you are given authority. And that's something we can teach.”

“If you can deny your talents, if you can conceal them from others or, even better, persuade yourself that they weren’t even given to you, you’re off the hook.And being off the hook is a key element of the industrialized school’s promise. It lets parents off the hook, certainly, since the institution takes over the teaching. It lets teachers off the hook, since the curriculum is preordained and the results are tested. And it lets students off the hook, because the road is clearly marked and the map is handed to everyone.If you stay on the path, do your college applications through the guidance office and your job hunting at the placement office, the future is not your fault.That’s the refrain we hear often from frustrated job seekers, frustrated workers with stuck careers, and frustrated students in too much debt. 'I did what they told me to do and now I’m stuck and it’s not my fault.' What they’ve exchanged for that deniability is their dreams, their chance for greatness. To go off the path is to claim responsibility for what happens next.”

“The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.”

“When you work under the cloud of anxiety, the best strategy is to play it safe, because if (when!) it fails, you’ll be blameless.”

“Marketing is the name we use to describe the promise a company makes, the story it tells, the authentic way it delivers on that promise.”

“If you're brilliant and undiscovered and underappreciated (in whatever field you choose), then you're being too generous about your definition of brilliant.”

“Teaching Fire a LessonFire is hot. That's what it does. If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at fire doesn't do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson so it won't be hot next time is certainly not time well spent. Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it's not human. But human beings are similar, in that they're not going to change any time soon either.”

“The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.”

“Its never too late ...to start heading in the right direction.”

“If you don't know how it works, find out. If you're not sure if it will work, try it. If it doesn't make sense, play with it until it does. If it's not broken, break it. If it might not be true, find out.”

“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.”

“The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there.People will follow.”

“Everyone will think it's stupid!""Everyone says it's impossible."Guess what? Everyone works in the balloon factory and everyone is wrong.”

“Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.”

“How was your day? If your answer was "fine," then I don't think you were leading.”

“An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It's enough.”

“Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.”

“The challenge with being an initiator of projects is that you are never, ever done.”

“How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?”

“Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance.”

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

“Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change you believe in.”

“Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.”

“One of the talents of the [late] great Steve Jobs is that he [knew] how to design Medusa-like products. While every Macintosh model has had flaws (some more than others), most of them have has a sexiness and a design sensibility that has turned many consumers into instant converts. Macintosh owners upgrade far more often than most computer users for precisely this reason.” (p.98)”

“My new favorite word is 'awkward.'...The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn't be worth the effort.”

“Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.Seth Godin”

“Soon is not as good as now.”

“You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.”

“If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand that you'll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job.”

“This is an addictive pastime. You take no real risk, touch the world, and it responds. Repeat.”

“One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don’t show (because it’s difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice.”

“I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.”

“All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.”

“One of the things that school is for is to teach our children to understand and relish the idea of intellectualism, to develop into something more than a purpose-driven tool for the industrial state.”