Quotes from Seth Godin

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

Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human.

strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.

Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It's only for those who signed up for the journey.

Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this: Being well rounded is the secret to success.

What people are afraid of isn't failure. It's blame. Criticism.

Marketing is the generous act of helping others become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories—stories that resonate and spread.

The job is not your work; what you do with your heart and soul is the work.

If it wasn't a mystery, it would be easy. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth much.

If all we do with these tools is teach compliance and consumption, that's all we're going to get. School can and must do more than train the factory workers of tomorrow.

There's not a lot to say about the Cul-de-Sac except to realize that it exists and to embrace the fact that when you find one, you need to get off it, fast. That's because a dead end is keeping you from doing something else. The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that's not going to get better is just too high.

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.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Correct is fine. But it is better to be interesting.

The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal.

Your first mistake might be assuming that people are rational. Your second mistake could be assuming that people are eager for change. And the marketer's third mistake is assuming that once someone knows things the way you know them, they will choose what you chose.

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

Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does. Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.

Great teachers are wonderful. They change lives. We need them. The problem is that most schools don't like great teachers. They're organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average. Why

The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that's actually a shortcut, because it gets you where you want to go faster than any other path.

You're not running around grabbing every conceivable lock to try out your key. Instead, you're finding people (the lock), and since you are curious about their dreams and desires, you will create a key just for them, one they'll happily trade attention for.

There are fewer and fewer good jobs where you can get paid merely for showing up. Instead, successful organizations are paying for people who make a difference and are shedding everyone else. Just

In the case of personality, most psychologists agree that there are five traits that are essential in how people look at us: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability.

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.