There's a huge difference between being a replaceable cog on the assembly line and being the one who is missed, the one with a unique contribution, the one who made a difference.

Just imagine how much you'd get done if you stopped actively sabotaging your own work.

The secret of getting on the shortlist is doing your best work fearlessly for a long time before you get on the list.

Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your return policy.

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.

The object isn't to be perfect. The goal isn't to hold back until you've created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

Before you tell yourself you have no right to invent this or improve that, remind yourself that the person before you had no right either, but did it anyway.