Seth Godin Quotes

You can't lose. Go, go, go!

If you don't know how it works, find out. If you're not sure if it will work, try it. If it doesn't make sense, play with it until it does. If it's not broken, break it. If it might not be true, find out.

Studying entrepreneurshi p without doing it... is like studying the appreciation of music without listening to it.

A business owner is the boss, but it's a job, a place that is stable and profitable. An entrepreneur is an artist of sorts, throwing his/herself into impossible situations and seeking out problems that require heart and guts to solve. Both are fine, but choose.

Every revolution destroys the average middle first and most savagely.

Art is what we do when we're truly alive.

Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you'll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn't make you better.

Surprise and differentiation have far more impact than noise does.

Empathy requires something extremely difficult: accepting the fact that we are not and never will be in the other person's shoes. There's no rational, universal course because individuals have different goals, different worldviews and different experiences.

The goal in blogging/ business/ inspiring non-fiction is to share a truth, or at least a truth as the writer sees it. To not just share it, but to spread it and to cause change to happen. You can do that in at least three ways: with research (your own or reporting on others), by building and describing conceptual structures, or with stories that resonate.

Following the well-lit path, offers little in the way of magic.

Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals.

Go ahead and act as if your decisions are temporary. Because they are. Be bold, make mistakes, learn a lesson, and fix what doesn't work. No sweat, no need to hyperventilate.

Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it's a lot easier to launch work that matters.

Practice works because practice gives us a chance to relax enough to make smart choices.

Good advice is priceless. Not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Not imaginary, but practical. Not based on fear, but on possibility. Not designed to make you feel better, designed to make you better. Seek it out and embrace the true friends that care enough to risk sharing it. I'm not sure what takes more guts-giving it or getting it.

If you're not the best in the world at what you do, then you have to get better.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are, and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing results you seek.

By all means, fire the customers who aren't worth the time and the trouble. But understand that the moment you insist the customer is wrong, you've just started the firing process.

Life is like skiing. Just like skiing, the goal is not to get to the bottom of the hill. It's to have a bunch of good runs before the sun sets.

If you borrow money to make money, you've done something magical. On the other hand, if you go into debt to pay your bills or buy something you want but don't need, you've done something stupid. Stupid and short-sighted and ultimately life-changing for the worse.

We notice what we choose to notice.

Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.

If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy.

Don't wait to be picked. Pick yourself.

Do your art. But don't wreck your art if it doesn't lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

What people are afraid of isn't failure. It's blame. Criticism.

The enemy of fear is creativity.

The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.

Decide, before you start, that you're going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you're reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn't to persuade you to change, it's to help you choose what to change.

The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.

Once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.

The sound of a small bell during a dark night, is louder than the din of traffic outside your window during rush hour. Surprise and differentiation have far more impact than noise does.

Many people believe that great designers get great clients. It's the other way around.

If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely it would be worth the journey. Persist.

Before you promise to change the world, it makes sense to do the hard work of changing your neighborhood.

All artists are entrepreneurs. All entrepreneurs are artists.

A symptom of the revolution: When we state something is impossible in theory, but then change our minds when we discover that it is possible in practice.

The problem with working with a coach isn't that we don't know what to do. The real problem is that we don't want to change our mind.

People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.

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.

Playing safe is very risky.

Competent people are the most resistant to change

Gifts are not favors. If you expect something in return, it's not a gift.

Make more decisions. That's the only way to get better at it.