The market and the consumer and idea trump the system.

Sooner or later, the ones who told you that this isn't the way it's done, the ones who found time to sneer, they will find someone else to hassle. Sooner or later, they stop pointing out how much hubris you've got, how you're not entitled to make a new thing, how you will certainly come to regret your choices. Sooner or later, your work speaks for itself. Outlasting the critics feels like it will take a very long time, but you're more patient than they are.

Being charismatic doesn't make you a leader. Being a leader makes you charismatic.

Marketing is the art of seeing (and then creating) what might be interesting to more than our friends

If you set your bar at 'amazing' it's awfully difficult to start. Your first paragraph, sketch, formula, sample or concept isn't going to be amazing. Your tenth one might not be either. Confronted with the gap between your vision of perfect and the reality of what you've created, the easiest path is no path. Shrug. Admit defeat. Hit delete. One more reason to follow someone else and wait for instructions. Of course, the only path to amazing runs directly through not-yet-amazing. But not-yet-amazing is a great place to start, because that's where you are.

Our cultural instinct is to wait to get pickedNo one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.

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.