Quotes from Seth Godin

The value we create is directly related to how much valuable information we can produce, how much trust we can earn, and how often we innovate.

You can't really decide to paint a masterpiece. You just have to think hard, work hard, and try to make a painting that you care about. Then, if you're lucky, your work will find an audience for whom it's meaningful.

If you seek to become indispensable, a similar question is worth asking: "Where do you put the fear?" What separates a linchpin from an ordinary person is the answer to this question.

I can do this forever. It's like adjusting a pair

Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we're afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.

Tennis has a Dip. The difference between a mediocre club player and a regional champion isn't inborn talent—it's the ability to push through the moments where it's just easier to quit. Politics has a Dip as well—it's way more fun to win an election than to lose one, and the entire process is built around many people starting while most people quit.

We don't need more noise, more variety, or more pitches. There's noise all around us, but it's often the idle chatter of people hiding in plain sight, or the selfish hustle of one more person who wants something from you. Our world is long on noise and short on meaningful connections and positive leadership.

If you're able to look at what's happening in your world and say, "There's the pattern," or "Wow, that's interesting, I wonder why," then you're far more likely to respond productively than if your reaction is "How dare he!

College started as universitas magistrorum et scholarium—a community of masters and scholars. It was a refuge; it was a place you went to get lost in ideas, to discover and wander, and to plot a course as an academic. Today it's a place you go to exchange a lifetime of debt for credit hours, a degree, and maybe a good job.

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.

Emotional labor is the task of doing important work, even when it isn't easy. Emotional

we give up our freedoms and responsibilities in exchange for the certainty that comes from being told what to do

One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you'll discover that good ones slip through

Make it easy to believe.

When you're the best in the world, you share the benefits (the income, the attention, the privileges, the respect) with just a handful of people or organizations or brands.

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organisations. Reactive quitting and serial quitting are the bane of those that strive (and fail) to get what they want.

This is a powerful book--Tiny is mighty. Sharon Rowe's simple shift in thinking is a profound idea, precisely what we need to hear.

Average Is for Losers

It doesn't matter if anyone reads it, buys it, sponsors it or shares it. It matters that you show up.

Real gifts don't demand reciprocation (at least not direct reciprocation), and the best kinds of gifts are gifts of art.

It's human nature to be weird, but also human to be lonely. This conflict between fitting in and standing out is at the core of who we are.

The time to look for a new job is when you don't need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable. Go. Switch. Challenge yourself; get yourself a raise and a promotion. You owe it to your career and your skills. If

Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.

Where does the scarcity come from? It comes from the hurdles that the markets and our society set up. It comes from the fact that most competitors quit long before they've created something that makes it to the top. That's the way it's supposed to be. The system depends on it.