Seth Godin Quotes

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

There's no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely your organization will be to embrace it.

All the good things in my career are a direct descendant of what I did and learned at #‎ camp

Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new...If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low.

The problem with words is that they easily lose their meaning. Say something often enough and it becomes a tic, not an expression of how you actually feel. Not only that, but words rarely change things. Actions do.

More and more people now have jobs that require them to confront the risk of appearing stupid on a regular basis.

A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much.

Make something happen today, before you go home, before the end of the week. Launch that idea, post that post, run that ad, call that customer. Go the edge, that edge you've been holding back from... and do it today. Without waiting for the committee or your boss or the market. Just go.

Mass attention is almost unattainable and it's not clear that you want it.

Don't have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.

Any customer that walks away, disrespected and defeated, represents tens of thousands of dollars out the door, in addition to the failure of a promise the brand made in the first place. You can't see it but it's happening, daily.

Your success is no longer about your ability to do what you are told, and do it well.

You can't shrink your way to greatness!

Embracing the fear of freedom, deciding to determine your own path, this is the work of a grownup.

The fatigue was there, but some people understood that putting it aside was the single most important factor in succeeding.

Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does.

I wonder why anyone would hesitate to be generous with their writing. I mean, if you really want to make a living, go to Wall Street and trade oil futures ... We're writers. We're doing something that is inherently a generous act. We're exposing ourselves to the muse and to the things that frighten us. Why do that if you're not willing to be generous? And paradoxically, almost ironically, it turns out that the more generous you are, the more money you make. But that's secondary. For me, the privilege of being generous is why I get to do this.

Stop trying to find the formula that will instantly make your idea into a winner. Instead of being scientists, the best marketers are artists. They realize that whatever is being sold is being purchased, because it creates an emotional want, not because it fills a simple need.

As soon as you are willing to say 'it's not for you', you're freed up to make art.

Social Networking that matters is helping people archive their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatability so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.

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

Marketing yourself to a new person often involves being charismatic, clever and quick-but most jobs and most relationships are about being consistent, persistent and brave.

Fear is the workout we give ourselves imagining what will happen if things don't work out. . . . Worry is our effort to imagine every possible way to avoid the outcome that is causing us fear, and failing that, to survive the thing that we fear if it comes to fruition.

Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.

Too often, the person who wrecks our work is us.

The rest of the world isn't nearly as important as the few who are here.

The weird set an example for the rest of us. They raise the bar. They show us through their actions that in fact we're wired to do the new, not to comply with someone a thousand miles away.

Organizations grow when they persuade a tiny cadre to be passionate, not when they touch millions with a mediocre message

Everyone has failed, everyone has misspoken, everyone has meant well but done the wrong thing. Your favorite restaurants, cafes and books have all gotten a one-star review along the way. No brand is perfect, no individual can pretend to be either. Perfect can't possibly be the goal, we're left with generous, important and human instead.

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

Tell your lizard (brain) to shut up.

Go ahead, fail. Try to avoid mistakes, though.

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

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.

To make a product, to market an idea, to come up with any problem you want to solve that doesn't have a constituency with an otaku, is almost impossible... There's a hot sauce otaku, but there's no mustard otaku.

All Marketers are liars tell stories.

It will take you less time and effort to do a thing the difficult way than it will to buy, try and discard all the shortcuts.

Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Canoeing was hard and scary, and the wind could blow you across the lake if you did it wrong. After a year of not doing it right, I could talk to people and get them to sit up straight, take different kinds of chances, to breathe differently, to engage in the moment in the boat. And I changed them, and I changed me in the process.

The best favors are worth doing for the doing, not because we'll ever get paid back appropriately.

It's not reckless, because when we leap, when we dive in, when we begin, only begin, we bring our true nature to the project, we make it personal and urgent. And it's not abandon, not in the sense that we've abandoned our senses or our responsibility. In fact, abandoning the fear of fear that is holding us back is the single best way not to abandon the work, the pure execution of the work. Later, there's time to backpedal and water down. But right now, reckless please.

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

If you're remarkable it's likely that some people won't like you.

If there's time for an emergency, why isn't there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?

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

Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.

Art...is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person...Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people.

Don't try to be the 'next'. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.