Seth Godin Quotes

It's easy to pretend expertise when there's no data to contradict you.

If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.

You don't have to settle for the status quo, for being good enough, for getting by, for working all night.

If you can raise money, you're never going to have trouble getting a job.

The joy of art is particularly sweet, though, because it carries with it the threat of rejection, of failure, and of missed connections. It's precisely the high-wire act of "this might not work" that makes original art worth doing.

The job is not the work.

You know, if I look at an auditorium full of high school students and the big man on campus and his girlfriend are busy talking while the lecture's going on, the rest of the room is going to do it because they're powerful sneezers. They have influence. They reach out to a whole bunch of people in a way that makes the idea of being disrespectful spread.

This might end up in crying. If you're not prepared to cry about it, I'm not sure you're making art. And if you're not prepared to dance in anticipation, you're definitely not making art.

Go do something interesting. Ask if you need help.

The job is not your work; what you do with your heart and soul is the work.

There's no map for being an artist.

Everyone we interact with is changed forever. The only questions are: How will they be different (and how different will they be), and how will we be different (and how different will we be) as a result?

If you're passionate, be passionate enough to fail. Fail small, accept responsibility, repeat. The people who make change are the survivors of serial failure.

Anticipated, personal, and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.

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.

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

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

Data is not useful until it becomes information.

The industrial age brought compliance and compliance brought fear and fear brought us mediocrity.

One way to work the system is to work the system. The other way is to refuse to work it.

More time [to decide] without more information just creates anxiety, not insight.

The only reason to buy a paper book any longer is to own it and cherish it and remember it and tell a story about it.

Every voice doesn't matter--only the voices that move your idea forward, that make it better, that make you better, that make it more likely you will ship work that benefits your tribe.

You can be right or you can have empathy. You can't do both.

Excellence isn’t about meeting the spec, it’s about setting the spec. It defines what the consumer sees as quality right this minute, and tomorrow, if you’re good, you’ll reset that expectation again

Doing justice to the work is your task, not setting a world record.

And the reason is that until Wonder came along and figured out how to spread the idea of sliced bread, no one wanted it. That the success of sliced bread... is not always about what the patent is like, or what the factory is like - it's about can you get your idea to spread, or not.

Habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.

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

Risking the appearance of weakness takes strength. And the market knows it.

Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine.

The Cul-de-Sac ( French for "dead end" ) ... is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes

Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed.

When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.

If you work in an urgent-only culture, the only solution is to make the right things urgent.

Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.

Understanding the mythology of your partner, your customer and your audience is far more important than watching the instant replay of what actually happened.

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

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it

Your drudgery is another person's delight. It's only a job if you treat it that way. The privilege to do our work, to be in control of the promises we make and the things we build, is something worth cherishing.

Your peer group are people with similar dreams, goals and worldviews. They are people who will push you in exchange for being pushed, who will raise the bar and tell you the truth. They're not in your business, but they're in your shoes. Finding a peer group and working with them, intentionally and on a regular schedule, might be the single biggest boost your career can experience.

Initiative is the privilege of picking yourself.

Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing. After all, the thinking goes, if we can't be amazing all the time, better to reset the expectation to merely good. Which robs us of the ability to (sometimes) be amazing.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance.

It's not about you, it's about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it... pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action-that's the main reason it's a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.

If you're not willing to face the abyss of choice, you will almost certainly not spend enough time dancing with opportunity.

If you are wiling to do something that might not work, you are closer to being an artist.

believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.