Seth Godin Quotes
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Teaching young people to sell is a priceless gift.
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The question is not Will you succeed? but rather, Will you matter?
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The opportunity is not in being momentarily popular with the anonymous masses. It's in being missed when you're gone, in doing work that matters to the tribe you choose.
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The easiest way to thrive as an outlier is to avoid being one. At least among your most treasured peers. Surround yourself with people in at least as much of a hurry, at least as inquisitive, at least as focused as you are.
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The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.
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The goal in blogging/ business/ inspiring non-fiction is to share a truth, or at least a truth as the writer sees it. To not just share it, but to spread it and to cause change to happen. You can do that in at least three ways: with research (your own or reporting on others), by building and describing conceptual structures, or with stories that resonate.
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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.
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If you've got the platform and the ability to make a difference, then this goes beyond 'should' and reaches the level of 'must.' You must make a difference or you squander the opportunity. Wasting the opportunity both degrades your own ability to contribute and, more urgently, takes something away from the rest of us.
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Blaming the system is soothing because it lets you off the hook. But when the system is broken, we wonder why you were relying in the system in the first place.
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Catering to the passionate is exactly what you should do.
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Desire can't be sated, because if it is, the longing disappears and then we've failed, because desire is the state we seek.
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Viewing the web as a platform for generosity is very different than seeing an opportunity to turn it into an ATM machine.
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Marketing begins before the product is launched.
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The best creative solutions don't come from finding good answers to the questions that are presented... They come from inventing new questions!
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Reputation is what people expect us to do next. It's their expectation of the quality and character of the next thing we produce or say or do. We control our actions (even when it feels like we don't) and our actions over time (especially when we think no one is looking) earn our reputation.
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The object isn't to be perfect. The goal isn't to hold back until you've created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.
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Our best work can't possibly appeal to the average masses, only our average work can. Finding the humility to happily walk away from those that don't get it unlocks our ability to do great work.
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If you're passionate, be passionate enough to fail. Fail small, accept responsibility, repeat. The people who make change are the survivors of serial failure.
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That's why there's lots and lots of kinds of hot sauces, and not so many kinds of mustard. Not because it's hard to make interesting mustard - you could make interesting mustard - but people don't, because no one's obsessed with it, and thus no one tells their friends.
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It's entirely possible that there won't be a standing ovation at the end of your journey. That's okay. At least you lived.
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As the amount of inputs go up, as the number of people and ideas that clamor for attention continue to increase, we do what people always do: we rely on the familiar, the trusted and the personal. The incredible surplus of digital data means that human actions, generosity and sacrifice are more important than they ever were before.
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It might be bold to put your work into the world unadorned, but it's probably ineffective.
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The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here.
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One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice.