And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world. A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.

Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization.

It's not enough to be aware of the domain you're working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new.

If you'd rather be a chooser, enter a market or a transaction where you have something to trade, something of value, something to offer that's difficult to get everywhere else. If all you have is the desire to get picked, that's not sufficient.

You will not understand your part within the framework of nature until you actually see yourselves in danger of tearing it apart.

The only real help is self-help. Anything else is just designed to get you to the point where you can help yourself.

Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission–which is emotional connection.