Quotes from Seth Godin

Great bosses and world-class organizations hire motivated people, set high expectations, and give their people room to become remarkable.

Depth of knowledge combined with good judgment is worth a lot. Depth

Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements.

Finding security in mediocrity is an exhausting process. You can work only so many hours, fret only so much. Being a slightly better typist or a slightly faster coder is insufficient. You're always looking over your shoulder, always trying to be a little less mediocre than the guy next to you. It wears you out.

On top of this, if you do great work you gain the reward of knowing you're doing great work. Your day snaps into alignment with your dreams, and you no longer have to pretend you're mediocre. You're free to contribute.

The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.

there's a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.

Once you've engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it to your team to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen. To do less is to steal from them. If you hide your spark, bury your ideas, keep your questions and notions from the team, you have hurt them as badly as if you had stolen a laptop and fenced it on eBay.

Focus is a choice. The runner who is concentrating on how much his left toe hurts will be left in the dust by the runner who is focusing on winning. Even if the winner's toe hurts just as much. Hurt, of course, is a matter of perception. Most of what we think about is. We have a choice about where to aim the lens of our attention.

Or, more accurately, spend all day trying to avoid making a mistake? These are very different things. Defect-free is what people are often in search of. Meeting spec. Blameless.

Leo Babauta's brilliant little book Zen Habits helps you think your way through this problem. His program is simple: Attempt to create only one significant work a year.

You will fail at this. Often. Why is that a problem? In fact, this is a boon. It's a boon because when others fail to be remarkable or make a difference or share their art or have an impact, they will give up.

It's what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view.

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

What They Should Teach in School Only two things: 1. Solve interesting problems 2. Lead SOLVE

The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. I can't tell you how to do this; I think the answer is different for everyone. What I can tell you is that in today's economy, doing it is a prerequisite for success. The

Some people are gift givers by nature. They love their tribe, or they respect their art, and so they give. Not for an ulterior motive, but because it gives them joy.

Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.

Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce, and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: make art. Being an artist isn't a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It's an attitude we can all adopt. It's a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you're an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.

A lifeguard doesn't have to spend much time pitching to the drowning person. When you show up with a life buoy, if the drowning person understands what's at stake, you don't have to run ads to get them to hold on to it.

Abundance is possible, but only if we can imagine it and then embrace it. Will

Persistent, consistent, and frequent stories, delivered to an aligned audience, will earn attention, trust, and action. Direct

Shipping, because it doesn't count if you don't share it. Creative, because you're not a cog in the system. You're a creator, a problem solver, a generous leader who is making things better by producing a new way forward. Work, because it's not a hobby. You might not get paid for it, not today, but you approach it as a professional. The muse is not the point, excuses are avoided, and the work is why you are here.

Service to the change they seek to make. Willing to tell a story that resonates with a group that they care enough to serve. There could be an overlap. It's possible that it's the way you feel right this minute, but it might not be. The version of you on offer might run many layers deep, but it can't possibly be all of you, all the time.