Quotes About Value

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

Do extremely difficult work. That seems obvious, right? If you do something that's valued but scarce because it's difficult, you're more likely to be in demand and to be compensated fairly for what you do. The implication is stunning, though: When designing a project or developing a skill, seek out the most difficult parts to master and contribute. If it's easy, it's not for you.

Becoming a linchpin is not an act of selfishness. I see it as an act of generosity

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.

People don't want what you make They want what it will do for them.

Don't worry about your stuff. Worry about making meaning instead.

Scarcity, as we've seen, is the secret to value. If there wasn't a Dip, there'd be no scarcity.

The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that's not going to get better is just too high.

What happens when the world cares more about unique voices and remarkable insights than it does about cheap labor

The industrialist (your boss, perhaps) demands that everything be proven, efficient, and risk free. The artist seeks none of these. The value of art is in your willingness to stare down the risk and to embrace the void of possible failure.

They're building an asset that has nothing to do with brand and everything to do with their relationship with you.

Amazon appears to be building a permission asset, not a brand asset.

The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.

Why are you easily replaceable at one venue but not the other? Are you charming when you go on a date or meet a handsome guy at a party? But not at a meeting at work?

We seek out experiences and products that deliver more value, more connection, and more experience, and change us for the better.

The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value.

Deadlines? Surely you know someone who is late all the time. Someone who can't deliver anything of value unless they've stalled so much they've created an urgency, an emergency that requires mind-blowing effort and adrenaline to deliver. This is not efficient or reliable behavior, and yet they persist. The reason is simple: they can't push through the common fear of completion unless they can create a greater fear of total failure.

The easier it is to quantify, the less it's worth.

Low price is the last refuge of a marketer who has run out of generous ideas.

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.

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.

It's not an effort contest, it's an art contest. As customers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play or interaction changed us for the better. Where it's made or how it's made or how difficult it was to make is sort of irrelevant. That's why emotional labor is so much more valuable than physical labor. Emotional labor changes the recipient, and we care about that. Soft

One reason to buy a watch (or a book) is because you want to possess it, show it off, give it to your grandchildren. Holding a book is a luxury, one for which you pay a premium.

Make things better. It's entirely possible that the thing you are marketing satisfies no real demand.