Quotes by Seth Godin

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.

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

Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

Be relentlessly generous, without focusing on when it will come back to you.

Set a goal, and in small, consistent steps, work to reach it. Get support
from your peers when you start flagging. Repeat. You will change.

Deadlines have a lousy name. Call them live-lines instead. That´s what they are.

Sharing an idea you care about is a generous way to change your world for the better.

Surprise comes from defying expectations.

Ordinary thinking and ordinary effort are almost never enough to generate leadership.

It's not an accident that successful people read more books.

Facts are irrelevant. What matters is what the consumer believes.

Blaming the system is soothing because it lets you off the hook. But when the system is broken, we wonder why you were relying in the system in the first place.

You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training.

Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you're doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they're hiding out in the comfortable zone.

Communication is the transfer of emotion.

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.

Transparency in the traditional school might destroy it.

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

Great work is always shunned at first.

As you've probably discovered, great work makes us uncomfortable.

It takes confidence and guts to intentionally create tension.

Initiative is the privilege of picking yourself.

The only purpose of customer service, is to change feelings.

Either you defend the status quo, or you invent the future.

The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they've got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change.

If you wait until you are ready, it is almost certainly too late.

A dialogue leads to connection, which leads to trust which leads to engagement.

The tiny cost of failure...is dwarfed by the huge cost of not trying.

This notion that it is up to each person to innovate in some way flies in the face of the industrial age, but you know what, the industrial age is over.

I think there's plenty of room for blogs that exist to pay the blogger, or blogs that exist to turn a profit. That's just not the kind of blog I'm writing, and I'm not the kind of blogger that could do that.

I was lucky enough to co-found a business in college that ended up with 400 employees, and I launched 20 different projects while I was there -- a project a week.

You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.

Competence is the enemy of change!

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

Marketing used to be about advertising, and advertising is expensive. Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.

Instead of focusing on arguing with people who say no, it might be easier to get near the people who like to say yes.

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

By my definition, most art has nothing to do with oil paint or marble. Art is what we're doing when we do our best work.

You are far more likely to do your best work if you are willing to delight a few as opposed to soothe the masses.

Art is what we're doing when we do our best work.

The world is begging for you to lead.

When exactly were we brainwashed into believing that the best way to earn a living is to have a job?

Acknowledge to yourself that the factory job is dead. Having a factory job is not a natural state. It wasn't at the heart of being human until very recently. We've been culturally brainwashed.

Most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

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

What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.

Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules.

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

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

Catering to the passionate is exactly what you should do.

Remarkable work is always not on the list, because if it was, it would be commonplace, not remarkable.

The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.

Be genuine. Be remarkable. Be worth connecting with.

By being remarkable, being genuine, you can be worth connecting with. And you don't have to have it figured out perfectly the first time -- you can adjust.

Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing.

Kings fear change. Leaders crave it.

Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.

Everyone is not your customer.

Choose your customers, choose your future.

Which are you?...competen t, inspiring, passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry, driven, adoring, inspired, an artist, a genius, someone who cares...?

With all these remarkable, powerful, important options available to each of us, why do so many of us default to competent?

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That's not marketing though, that's efficiency.

The art, the new, the ability to connect the dots and to make an impact -- sooner or later, that can only come from one who creates, not from a teacher and not from a book.

Anything worth achieving in life has a dip.

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

Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It's a Purple Cow.

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

Defending mediocrity is exhausting.

Art is a human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen.

Wouldn't it be great to be gifted? In fact... It turns out that choices lead to habits. Habits become talents. Talents are labeled gifts. You're not born this way, you get this way.

The problem with holding a grudge

is that your hands are then too full to hold onto anything else.

Trust is precious and easily wasted, and guessing is a lousy foundation for future progress.

The good news is that more than ever, value accrues to those that show up, those that make a difference, those that do work that matters.

People are buying only one thing from you: the way the engagement (hiring you, working with you, dating you, using your product or service, learning from you) makes them feel.

One key to learning and success is the willingness to try something new, and feel momentarily incompetent.

Data is not useful until it becomes information.

Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that's what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance.

The reason you might choose to embrace the artist within you now is that this is the path to (cue the ironic music) security.

Art isn't only a painting; it's anything that changes someone for the better, any nonanonymous interaction that leads to a human (not simply a commercial) conclusion.

The relentless act of invention and innovation and initiative is the best marketing asset.

When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

Librarians who are arguing and lobbying for clever e-book lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending the library-as-warehouse concept, as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher, and impresario.

The greatest shortage in our society is an instinct to produce. To create solutions and hustle them out the door. To touch the humanity inside and connect to the humans in the marketplace.

Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

The reason they want you to fit in... is that once you do, then they can ignore you.

If you hesitate to map out your future, to make a big plan or to set a goal, you've just gone ahead and mapped your future anyway.

Art is the act of navigating without a map.

Human nature is to need a map. If you're brave enough to draw one, people will follow.

At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin.

The problem with taking offense is that it's really hard to figure out what to do with it after you're done using it. Better to just leave it on the table and walk away. Umbrage untaken quietly disappears.

While you may have made money doing something a certain way yesterday, there's no reason to believe you'll succeed at it tomorrow.

Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals.

How do I dance with the fear? Fear is not the enemy. Paralysis is the enemy.

In our desire to please everyone, it's very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre.

It takes three years to be an overnight success, sometimes more.

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.

Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is.