Seth Godin Quotes

You can't win by being more average than average.

But if the cow is purple, you'd notice it, OK? The thing that's going to decide what gets talked about, what gets done, what gets changed, what gets purchased, what gets built is, is it remarkable? And remarkable's a really cool word 'cause we think it just means neat, but it also means worth making a remark about, and that is the essence of where idea diffusion is going.

You will never become a category of one if you run with the pack.

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.

The world doesn't owe you a living, but just when you needed it, a door was opened for you to make a difference.

Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.

The future isn't so much about absorbing or tolerating change, it's about making change.

Gifts are not favors. If you expect something in return, it's not a gift.

3. ALWAYS LEAVE BOTH SIDES AN OUT. Nothing lasts forever, especially business partner- ships. A dear friend of mine spent two years wrestling with a former partner when he left in a huff. In the end, everyone loses. Make sure you have a well-defined clause that lets either party leave without wrecking the business.

The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.
Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.
The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.
Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.
I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.
The job is not the work.

The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win

The internet has opened the door for millions of businesses to do things differently, because there are other assets now, assets that can transcend location. Your permission to talk to customers, your reputation, your unique products-you can build a business around them online.

Your biggest failure is the thing you dreamed of contributing but didn't find the guts to do.

And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.

In your career, even more than for a brand, being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable.

When you walk around braced for impact, you're dramatically decreasing your chances. Your chances to avoid the outcome you fear, your chances to make a difference, and your chances to breathe and connect.

Give up control and give it away ... The more you give your idea away, the more your company is going to be worth.

How often do our heroes stand still? It's hard to imagine Spock and Kirk landing on a planet and just relaxing for a month or two. Just hanging out has nothing to do with boldly going where no one has gone before. What makes us different from every other creature is that we go places, places we've not gone before. We do it willingly, and often. What makes our work and our life interesting is discovery, surprise, and the risk of exploration.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths - whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over. If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.

Just start. Start now. Fail often. Enjoy the ride.

If you think cat food is for cats, how come it doesn't come in mouse flavor?

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt

The ONLY thing leaders have in common is the shared decision to lead.

Our culture works hard to prevent change.

Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.

The reason it's difficult to learn something new is that it will change you into someone who disagrees with the person you used to be.

Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine.

Be relentlessly generous, without focusing on when it will come back to you.

Marketing used to be about advertising, and advertising is expensive. Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.

We know what you want to accomplish ... The real question is, 'what are you willing to push through the dip for?' What are you willing to stand up for, bleed for, commit to and generally be unreasonable about? Because that's what's going to actually get done.

What are you working on? If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer? If you're not, you're wasting away.

The essential thing to know about the Dip is that it's there. Knowing that you're facing a Dip is the first step in getting through it.

Leaders who set out to give are more productive than leaders who seek to get.

It's easy to be afraid of taking a plunge, because, after all, plunging is dangerous. And the fear is a safe way to do nothing at all. Wading, on the other hand, gets under the radar. It gives you a chance to begin.

Empathy requires something extremely difficult: accepting the fact that we are not and never will be in the other person's shoes. There's no rational, universal course because individuals have different goals, different worldviews and different experiences.

You Are Not Your Career.
Your ability to follow instructions is not the secret to your success.
You are hiding your best work, your best insight, and your best self from us every day.
We know how much you care, and it's a shame that the system works overtime to push you away from the people and the projects you care about.
The world does not owe you a living, but just when you needed it, it has opened the door
for you to make a difference.
It's too bad that so much time has been wasted, but it would be unforgivable to wait any longer.
You have the ability to contribute so much. We need you, now.

This Is a Manifesto About Starting Starting a project, making a ruckus, taking what feels like a risk. Not just "I'm starting to think about it," or "We're going to meet on this," or even "I filed a patent application. . . ." No, starting. Going beyond the point of no return. Leaping. Committing. Making something happen.

If you think the solution is more rules and less humanity, I fear you will be disappointed by the results. Organizations that can bring humanity and flexibility to their interactions with other human beings will thrive.

Where do you put the fear when you choose to innovate? The fear is there, but you have to find a place to put it.

The next thing you do today will be the most important thing on your
agenda, because, after all, you're doing it next. Well, perhaps it will
be the most urgent thing. Or the easiest. In fact, the most important
thing probably isn't even on your agenda.

We are leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy.

In contemporary art or movies, it makes perfect sense to be focused on the bleeding edge, on the new idea that's never been previously contemplated. But when we're discussing our goals, our passion and the way we interact with the culture, it seems to me that what works is significantly more important than what's new.

We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference. Some organizations haven't realized this yet, or haven't articulated it, but we need artists.

If your feet are in two buckets and the average temperature of the water is 90 degrees, you're probably fine - unless one bucket is at 35 and the other is at 145 degrees. On average, you're fine. Based on variation, though, you're miserable.

Things that look like shortcuts are actually detours (disguised as less work).

Schools have figured this out. They need shortcuts in order to successfully process millions of students a year, and they've discovered that fear is a great shortcut on the way to teaching compliance.

And in a world where we have too many choices and too little time, the obvious thing to do is just ignore stuff. And my parable here is, you're driving down the road and you see a cow, and you keep driving 'cause you've seen cows before. Cows are invisible. Cows are boring. Who's going to stop and pull over and say, oh, look, a cow? Nobody.

'How was your day?' is a question that matters a lot more than it seems.

Nothing about becoming indispensable is easy. If it's easy, it's already been done and it's no longer valuable.

It's possible that your next frontier isn't to get more efficient, it's to get more brave.

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.

It's more important that you be passionate about what you do all day than it is to be passionate about the product that is being sold.

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

No is the foundation that we can build our yes on.

Two elements of successful leadership: a willingness to be wrong and an eagerness to admit it.

In other words, they believe it's wiser to focus more on increasing sales to a smaller percentage of your existing customers than to find new ones.

The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid. Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it. Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn't mean, because they might be criticized for it.

The combination of fear and ignorance (two sides of the same coin) can be paralyzing.

You know, if I look at an auditorium full of high school students and the big man on campus and his girlfriend are busy talking while the lecture's going on, the rest of the room is going to do it because they're powerful sneezers. They have influence. They reach out to a whole bunch of people in a way that makes the idea of being disrespectful spread.

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications. A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.

In the linchpin economy, the winners are once again the artists who give gifts. Giving a gift makes you indispensable. Inventing a gift, creating art - that is what the market seeks out, and the givers are the ones who earn our respect and attention.

The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.

I believe that uncertainty is really my spirit's way of whispering, I'm in flux. I can't decide for you. Something is off-balance here.

Getting picked is fine if it happens to you. But it's not a plan. It's a version of waiting and hoping.

Quality is not an absolute measure. It doesn't mean 'deluxeness' or 'perfection'. It means keeping the promise the customer wants you to make.

It's foolish to expect that one exposure to your message will instantly convert someone from stranger to raving ideavirus-spreading fan. So plan on a process. Plan on a method that takes people from where they are to where you want them to go.

Why do we value leadership, connection and grace? Because it's scarce, and that scacity creates value.

Fitting in is a short-term strategy that gets you nowhere. Standing out is a long-term strategy that takes guts and produces results.

Teaching young people to sell is a priceless gift.

Dreams are difficult to build and easy to destroy.

You can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust.

Life is not about gutting out every situation. It's about identifying opportunity or the lack thereof. If your pride is all that is standing in the way of quitting, quit. The right people won't care and the wrong people don't matter. If you know you're on the right path, persevere though the pain. It will be worth it.

If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy.

Treat different people differently. Anything else is a compromise.

Choose your customers, choose your future.

Understanding the mythology of your partner, your customer and your audience is far more important than watching the instant replay of what actually happened.

Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map - these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.

It takes three years to be an overnight success, sometimes more.

The people that are doing work that matters aren't doing work thats popular. They're just doing work that changes some people.

The art, the new, the ability to connect the dots and to make an impact - sooner or later, that can only come from one who creates, not from a teacher and not from a book.

Industry the most trusted brand is also the most profitable.

Begin to realize that the safest thing you can do feels risky and the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe.

What evidence would you need to see to change your mind about this?

Say what you believe and see who follows.

The best marketing strategy is to destroy your industry before your competition does.

You have to find a group that really desperately cares about what it is you have to say. Talk to them. They have something I call otaku. It's a great Japanese word. It describes the desire of someone who's obsessed to, say, drive across Tokyo to try a new Ramen noodle place 'cause that's what they do, they get obsessed with it.

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

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The devil doesn't need an advocate. The brave need supporters, not critics

No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies.

Make enough mole hills, and eventually you will build a mountain.

As creators, our pursuit of perfection might be misguided, particularly if it comes at the expense of the things that matter.

The killer: our anxiety not only makes us miserable, but ruins the interaction. People smell it on you. They react to it. They're less likely to hire you or buy from you or have fun at your party. The very thing you are afraid of occurs, precisely because you are afraid of it, which of course makes the shenpa cycle even worse. Shenpa is caused by a conflict between the lizard brain (which wants to strike out or to flee) and the rest of our brain, which desires achievement, connection, and grace. Oscillating between the two merely makes things worse. It seems that you have two choices for ending the cycle: you can flee or you can stay.

Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.

All artists are entrepreneurs. All entrepreneurs are artists.

You can't lose. Go, go, go!

The reason Steve Herrell's shop did so well is that it was famous for having a line! People brought folks from out of town to have the experience.

Marketing used to be what you say
Now, marketing is what you do. What you make. How you act. The choices you make when you are sure no one is looking.

What I learned: Shun nonbelievers. Ignore critics. Do your best for people who want to dance with you.

Most of the time, creative entrepreneurs lose interest long before their marketing message loses its power.

If you can embrace the idea that your success and happiness are tied up in defeating the fear that's holding you back, you're 90 percent of the way to where you need to go, because no, we're not kids, and no, this is not a bike.