Seth Godin

Most people have bosses who hire them to fill a slot in the work chart and to do what they are told. And most people who are doing what they are told feel safe; it feels reliable.

Life is like skiing. Just like skiing, the goal is not to get to the bottom of the hill. It's to have a bunch of good runs before the sun sets.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

Art is a personal act of courage.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance.

It's never too late to start heading in the right direction.

The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run. It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact those people have goals.

Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you male, but about the stories you tell.

Be relentlessly generous, without focusing on when it will come back to you.

If it scares you it might be a good thing to try.

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape from.

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.

I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.

The minute there's a map, there is no art. Paint by numbers is not art. Paint by numbers is a mechanical activity.

Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.

The problem with competition is that it takes away the requirement to set your own path, to invent your own method, to find a new way.

The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.

You are not your resume, you are your work.

You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training.

The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home. First time, every time. When there's no ball, there's no game. Bullies hate that. So they'll either behave so they can play with you or they'll go bully someone else.

Marketing used to be about advertising, and advertising is expensive. Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.

A dialogue leads to connection which leads to trust which leads to engagement.

It's human nature to quit when it hurts. But it's that reflex that creates scarcity.

Surprise comes from defying expectations.

Just because the tide is out, doesn't mean there is less water in the ocean.

Sharing an idea you care about is a generous way to change your world for the better.

When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

Being a leader gives you charisma. If you look and study the leaders who have succeeded, that's where charisma comes from, from the leading.

You have brilliance in you your contribution is valuable and the art you create is precious. Only you can do and you must

Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.

I learned that a long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.

We're not going to outgrow our need for information.

Its uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.

The key to getting a reputation for being brilliant is actually being brilliant not just acting like you are.

Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals.

If we live in a world where information drives what we do, the information we get becomes the most important thing. The person who chooses that information has power.

Just saying yes because you can't bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.

The best way to be missed when you're gone is to stand for something when you're here.

The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.

If it's worth listening to, it's worth questioning until you understand it.

Set a goal, and in small, consistent steps, work to reach it. Get support from your peers when you start flagging. Repeat. You will change.

Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you're doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they're hiding out in the comfortable zone.

Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that's what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it.

Great work is always shunned at first.

Great work is the result of seeking out tension not avoiding it.

It's not an accident that successful people read more books.

Remarkable work often comes from making choices when everyone else feels as though there is no choice.

The art of good decision making is looking forward to and celebrating the tradeoffs not pretending they dont exist.

Change is not a threat, it's an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

The thing about information is that information is more valuable when people know it. There's an exception for business information and super timely information, but in all other cases, ideas that spread win.

Your audacious life goals are fabulous. Were proud of you for having them. But its possible that those goals are designed to distract you from the thing thats really frightening you the shift in daily habits that would mean a re invention of how you see yourself.

Life is a buzzer box. Poke it.

Marketing is a contest for people's attention.

Either you defend the status quo, or you invent the future.

And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.

Dig your well before you're thirsty.

Marketing is the act of inventing the product. The effort of designing it. The craft of producing it. The art of pricing it. The technique of selling it.

A bully is playing a game, one that he or she enjoys and needs. You're welcome to play this game if it makes you happy, but for most people, it will make you miserable.

The only thing worse than starting something and failing ... is not starting something.

It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. Stop settling for what's good enough and start creating art that matters.

What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It's about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it's something that people have wanted forever.

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.

The edge is a great place to be. Inside the box is too dark. Outside the box theres no leverage. But on the edge of the box you can get things done

When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate.

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations

The Net is not television. It is the finest direct-marketing mechanism in the history of mankind. It is direct mail with free stamps, and it allows you to create richer and deeper relationships than you've ever been able to create before.

The resistance is not something to be avoided, it's something to seek out.

It takes three years to be an overnight success, sometimes more.

The danger of the web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.

Ordinary thinking and ordinary effort are almost never enough to generate leadership.

Initiative is the privilege of picking yourself.

Becoming a superstar takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.

Optimism is the most important human trait because it allows us to evolve our ideas to improve our situation and to hope for a better tomorrow.

Facts are irrelevant. What matters is what the consumer believes.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another connected to a leader and connected to an idea. For millions of years human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe a shared interest and a way to communicate.

Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.

A bully is playing a game one that he or she enjoys and needs. Youre welcome to play this game if it makes you happy but for most people it will make you miserable.

Real content marketing isn't repurposed advertising, it is making something worth talking about.

The tiny cost of failure...is dwarfed by the huge cost of not trying.

The instinct to produce great work doesnt require a fancy notebook.

The internet was supposed to homogenize everyone by connecting us all. Instead what it's allowed is silos of interest.

If you wait until you are ready, it is almost certainly too late.

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

The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got. Whining isn't a scalable solution.

I intentionally abandoned the hard stuff early on because not only do I think it's useless, I think it's a distraction.

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is maybe you should set up a life you dont need to escape from.

The ladder of success isn't a ladder. It's a series of steps with leaps interspersed along the way.

The only purpose of customer service is to change feelings.

Deadlines have a lousy name. Call them live lines instead. Thats what they are.

It takes confidence and guts to intentionally create tension.

The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.

Cheap is the last refuge of a product developer or marketer who is out of great ideas.

Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.

No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies.

Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don't show up. They want to be missed when they're gone.