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But If The Cow Is Purple, You'd Notice It, Ok? The Thing That's Going To Decide What Gets Talked About, What Gets Done, What Gets Changed, What Gets Purchased, What Gets Built Is, Is It Remarkable? And Remarkable's A Really Cool Word 'cause We Think It Just Means Neat, But It Also Means Worth Making A Remark About, And That Is The Essence Of Where Idea Diffusion Is Going.
-Seth Godin
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But If The Cow

Seth Godin
But If The Cow Is Purple, You'd Notice It, Ok? The Thing That's Going To Decide What Gets Talked About, What Gets Done, What Gets Changed, What Gets Purchased, What Gets Built Is, Is It Remarkable? And Remarkable's A Really Cool Word 'cause We Think It Just Means Neat, But It Also Means Worth Making A Remark About, And That Is The Essence Of Where Idea Diffusion Is Going.
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If You Believe That A Given Situation Should Make You Unhappy, Then It Will, And The Unhappiness Will Then Reinforce The Condition.
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If You Love Writing Or Making Music Or Blogging Or Any Sort Of Performing Art, Then Do It. Do It With Everything You've Got. Just Don't Plan On Using It As A Shortcut To Making A Living.
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I Look At Starbucks, Howard Schultz Has Made Many Brilliant Decisions, And One Of The Things That They Did Was They Invented The Third Space. It's Not Work, It's Not Home. That's One Of The Engines Of Its Spread. But At The Same Time He Was Doing That, He Bet The Farm To Open More And More Stores In Any Given Town, And Making It Ubiquitous Made It Much Easier To Say To Your Friend, I'll Meet You At Starbucks.
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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.
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I'll Confess That I Don't Watch The Olympics, But You'd Have To Be Living Under A Rock To Be Unaware Of The Corruption And The Expense. An Amorphous Organization With No Transparency, Unclear Lines Of Responsibility, Huge Amounts Of Politics And A Great Deal Of Unearned Power.
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And In A World Where We Have Too Many Choices And Too Little Time, The Obvious Thing To Do Is Just Ignore Stuff. And My Parable Here Is, You're Driving Down The Road And You See A Cow, And You Keep Driving 'cause You've Seen Cows Before. Cows Are Invisible. Cows Are Boring. Who's Going To Stop And Pull Over And Say, Oh, Look, A Cow? Nobody.
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The Instinct To Produce Great Work Doesn't Require A Fancy Notebook.
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Your Generosity Is More Important Than Your Perfection.
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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. When Your Uncomfortable Actions Lead To Success, The Organization Rewards You And Brings You Back For More.
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If You Wait Until You Are Ready, It Is Almost Certainly Too Late.
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You Can't Fool All The People, Not Even Most Of The Time. And People, Once Unfooled, Talk About The Experience.
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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.
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'teamwork' Is The Word That Bosses Use When They Actually Mean 'do What I Say'
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In A Long Distance Race, Everyone Gets Tired. The Winner Is The Runner Who Figures Out Where To Put The Tired, Figures Out How To Store It Away Until After The Race Is Over. Sure, He's Tired. Everyone Is. That's Not The Point. The Point Is To Run.
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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.
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The Job Is Not Your Work; What You Do With Your Heart And Soul Is The Work.
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Either You Defend The Status Quo, Or You Invent The Future.
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It Takes Confidence And Guts To Intentionally Create Tension.
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Now, Before Sliced Bread Was Invented In The 1910s I Wonder What They Said? Like The Greatest Invention Since The Telegraph Or Something. But... The Thing About The Invention Of Sliced Bread Is This - That For The First 15 Years After Sliced Bread Was Available No One Bought It; No One Knew About It; It Was A Complete And Total Failure.
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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.
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Excellence Isn’t About Working Extra Hard To Do What You’re Told. It’s About Taking The Initiative To Do Work You Decide Is Worth Doing.
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Choices Lead To Habits. Habits Become Talents. Talents Are Labeled Gifts. You’re Not Born This Way, You Get This Way.
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Don't Create For The Masses. Create For The People Who Are Your Kind Of Weird.
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Kind
Mass
The Thing Is, The Future Happens. Every Single Day, Like It Or Not. Sure, Tomorrow Is Risky, Frightening And In Some Way Represents One Step Closer To The End. But It Also Brings With It The Possibility Of Better And The Chance To Do Something That Matters.
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Way
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Making Promises And Keeping Them Is A Great Way To Build A Brand.
Promise
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Way
Most People Don't See That They Have Options Beyond What Society Tells Them To Do. That's The Biggest Problem. They Honestly Believe That Compliance Is The Shortcut To Success.
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The Secret Of Getting On The Shortlist Is Doing Your Best Work Fearlessly For A Long Time Before You Get On The List.
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Lists
The Goal Is To Be On The Hook, Not To Let Someone Else Do The Scary Parts.
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Hook
Learning Is Not Done To You, It Is Something You Choose To Do.
Done
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Change Is Not A Threat, It's An Opportunity. Survival Is Not The Goal, Transformative Success Is.
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I Learned That A Long Walk And Calm Conversation Are An Incredible Combination If You Want To Build A Bridge.
Long Walks
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Want
You Win By Trying. And Failing. Test, Try, Fail, Measure, Evolve, Repeat, Persist.
Winning
Innovation
Trying
In A Battle Between Two Ideas, The Best One Doesn't Necessarily Win. No, The Idea That Wins Is The One With The Most Fearless Heretic Behind It.
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Products That Are Remarkable Get Talked About.
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The Time To Look For A New Job Is When You Don't Need One. The Time To Switch Jobs Is Before It Feels Comfortable.
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Needs
Copy, Not From Your Industry, From Others. You Have To Go Where There Is No Competition.
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Writing A Book Is A Tremendous Experience. It Pays Off Intellectually. It Clarifies Your Thinking. It Builds Credibility. It Is A Living Engine Of Marketing And Idea Spreading, Working Every Day To Deliver Your Message With Authority. You Should Write One.
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Most Of Your Competition Spend Their Days Looking Forward To Those Rare Moments When Everything Goes Right. Imagine How Much Leverage You Have If You Spend Your Time Maximizing Those Common Moments When It Doesn't.
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People Rarely Buy What They Need. They Buy What They Want.
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The Combination Of Fear And Ignorance (two Sides Of The Same Coin) Can Be Paralyzing.
Ignorance
Two Sides
Coins
No Niche Is Too Small If It's Yours.
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It's Never Too Late To Start Heading In The Right Direction.
Too Late
Heading In The Right Direction
Headings
Teaching Young People To Sell Is A Priceless Gift.
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A Product For Everyone Rarely Reaches Much Of Anyone.
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If You Use Your Money To Create Exceptional Products And Services, You Won't Need To Spend It On Advertising.
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What If Getting Bigger Isn't The Point? What If You Merely Got Better?
What If
Bigger
Ifs
Be Relentlessly Generous, Without Focusing On When It Will Come Back To You.
Generous
The Opportunity Of A Lifetime Is To Pick Yourself. Quit Waiting To Get Picked; Quit Waiting For Someone To Give You Permission; Quit Waiting For Someone To Say You Are Officially Qualified... And Pick Yourself.
Opportunity
Giving
Waiting
What Marketers Used To Do Is Make Average Products For Average People. That's What Mass Marketing Is. They Would Ignore The Geeks, And - God Forbid - The Laggards. It Was All About Going For The Center. I Don't Think That's The Strategy We Want To Use Anymore.
Thinking
Average
People
You Can Listen To What People Say, Sure. But You Will Be Far More Effective If You Listen To What People Do.
Success
Effectiveness
People
The Tragedy Is That Society (your School, Your Boss, Your Government, Your Family) Keeps Drumming The Genius Part Out. The Problem Is That Our Culture Has Engaged In A Faustian Bargain, In Which We Trade Our Genius And Artistry For Apparent Stability.
School
Government
Boss
The Next Thing You Do Today Will Be The Most Important Thing On Your Agenda, Because, After All, You're Doing It Next. Well, Perhaps It Will Be The Most Urgent Thing. Or The Easiest. In Fact, The Most Important Thing Probably Isn't Even On Your Agenda.
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Agendas
Today
The Minute There's A Map, There Is No Art. Paint By Numbers Is Not Art. Paint By Numbers Is A Mechanical Activity.
Art
Numbers
Maps
The Reason Business Writing Is Horrible Is That People Are Afraid. Afraid To Say What They Mean, Because They Might Be Criticized For It. Afraid To Be Misunderstood, To Be Accused Of Saying What They Didn't Mean, Because They Might Be Criticized For It.
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It's Rare To Find A Consistently Creative Or Insightful Person Who Is Also An Angry Person. They Can't Occupy The Same Space, And If Your Anger Moves In, Generosity And Creativity Often Move Out. It's Difficult To Use Revenge Or Animus To Fuel Great Work.
Revenge
Moving
Anger
This Notion That It Is Up To Each Person To Innovation In Some Way Flies In The Face Of The Industrial Age, But You Know What, The Industrial Age Is Over.
Innovation
Age
Culture
If You Want To Dig A Big Hole, You Need To Stay In One Place.
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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.
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Trying
Way
If You're Not The Best In The World At What You Do, Then You Have To Get Better.
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World
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Own Your Dreams. There Is No Better Way To Make Them Happen.
Dream
Way
Happens
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.
Differences
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Leadership Is The Art Of Giving People A Platform For Spreading Ideas That Work.
Leadership
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Ideas
Anxiety Is Practising Failure In Advance. Anxiety Is Needless And Imaginary. It's Fear About Fear, Fear That Means Nothing.
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Imaginary
Do Your Art. But Don't Wreck Your Art If It Doesn't Lend Itself To Paying The Bills. That Would Be A Tragedy.
Art
Tragedy
Would Be
Please Stop Waiting For A Map. We Reward Those Who Draw Maps, Not Those Who Follow Them.
Funny
Waiting
Maps
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.
Example
Bars
Facts
The Enemy Of Creativity... Is Fear. We're All Born Creative, It Takes A Little While To Become Afraid. A Surprising Insight: An Enemy Of Fear Is Creativity. Acting In A Creative Way Generates Action, And Action Persuades The Fear To Lighten Up.
Creativity
Creative
Enemy
Art Is What We Call...the Thing An Artist Does. It's Not The Medium Or The Oil Or The Price Or Whether It Hangs On A Wall Or You Eat It. What Matters, What Makes It Art, Is That The Person Who Made It Overcame The Resistance, Ignored The Voice Of Doubt And Made Something Worth Making. Something Risky. Something Human. Art Is Not In The ...eye Of The Beholder. It's In The Soul Of The Artist.
Photography
Art
Wall
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.
Wall
Writing
Mean
You Are Not Your Resume, You Are Your Work.
Motivational
Inspiring
Business
Instead Of Focusing On Arguing With People Who Say No, It Might Be Easier To Get Near The People Who Like To Say Yes.
People
Might
Arguing
If You Are Deliberately Trying To Create A Future That Feels Safe, You Will Willfully Ignore The Future That Is Likely.
Inspirational
Business
Trying
If You Want To Get In Shape, Go To The #‎ Gym Every Single Day, Change Your Clothes And Take A Shower. If You Can Do That Every Single Day For A Month, Pretty Soon You'll Start Doing Something While You're There.
Clothes
Shapes
Want
Perhaps Marketing Is About To Transition To A New Kind Of Profession, One That Requires Insight, Dedication And Smarts.
Smart
Dedication
Marketing
Just About Every Great, Brave Or Beautiful Thing In Our Culture Was Created By Someone Who Didn't Do It For Money.
Beautiful
Brave
Culture
The People That Are Doing Work That Matters Aren't Doing Work Thats Popular. They're Just Doing Work That Changes Some People.
People
Matter
The Sooner We Realize That The World Has Changed, The Sooner We Can Accept It And Make Something Of What We've Got. Whining Isn't A Scalable Solution.
Mind Your Own Business
World
Realizing
Gratitude And Opportunity Create More Of The Same.
Gratitude
Opportunity
You Get To Keep Making Art As Long As You Are Willing To Make The Choices That Let You Make Your Art.
Art
Long
Choices
The Only Thing Leaders Have In Common Is The Shared Decision To Lead.
Motivational
Leadership
Decision
Good Marketers Measure.
Business
Marketing
Marketers
The Largest Enemy Of Change Isn't 'no', It's 'not Yet' - That Is The Easiest Way To Forestall Change.
Enemy
Way
You Have To Pay The Price To Be In The Right Place At The Right Time Often Enough That People Tend To See You As The Regular Kind.
Pay The Price
People
Kind
When We Think Of Design, We Usually Imagine Things That Are Chosen Because They Are Designed. Vases Or Comic Books Or Architecture... It Turns Out, Though, That Most Of What We Make Or Design Is Actually Aimed At A Public That Is There For Something Else. The Design Is Important, But The Design Is Not The Point. Call It "public Design"... Public Design Is For Individuals Who Have To Fill Out Our Tax Form, Interact With Our Website Or Check Into Our Hotel Room Despite The Way It's Designed, Not Because Of It.
Book
Thinking
Design
You Can Raise The Bar Or You Can Wait For Others To Raise It, But It's Getting Raised Regardless.
Waiting
Bars
Mediocrity
Surprise And Delight And Connection Are Remarkable.
Connections
Delight
Surprise
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.
Responsibility
Water
Way
As Soon As You Are Willing To Say 'it's Not For You', You're Freed Up To Make Art.
Art
Willing
The Less People Know, The More They Yell.
Communication
People
Knows
What I Learned: Shun Nonbelievers. Ignore Critics. Do Your Best For People Who Want To Dance With You.
People
Want
Critics
I Don't Think There's A Shortage Of Remarkable Ideas. I Think Your Business Has Plenty Of Great Opportunities To Do Great Things. Nope, What's Missing Isn't The Ideas. It's The Will To Execute Them.
Opportunity
Thinking
Ideas
Many Things That Are True Are True Because You Believe Them.
Believe
It's Pretty Easy To Decide To Roll With The Punches, To Look At The Enormity Of Natural Disaster And Choose To Hunker Down And Do Less. It's More Important Than Ever, I Think, To Persist And Make A Dent In The Universe Instead. We've All Been Offered Access To So Many Tools, So Many Valuable Connections, So Many Committed People. What An Opportunity.
Opportunity
Thinking
People
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.
Emotional
Organization
People
Someone Can Always Do Your Job A Little Better Or Faster Or Cheaper Than You Can.
Jobs
Littles
Faster
It Always Feels Too Soon To Leap. But You Have To. Because That's The Moment Between You And Remarkable.
Moments
Remarkable
Leap
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.
Stars
Book
Perfect
Fundamentalist Is A Person Who Considers Whether A Fact Is Acceptable To Their Faith Before They Explore It. As Opposed To A Curious Person Who Explores First And Then Considers Whether Or Not They Want To Accept The Ramifications.
Curiosity
Firsts
Facts
Leaders Lead When They Take Positions, When They Connect With Their Tribes, And When They Help The Tribe Connect To Itself.
Leader
Tribes
Helping
People That Take Responsibility Are Often Given Responsibility!
Responsibility
People
Taking Responsibility
If You Take Action, You Will Be Judged. There's No Way Around It. The Alternative, Of Course, Is Much Safer. To Be Ignored. Up To You.
Alternatives
Up To You
Way
The Resistance Is Not Something To Be Avoided, It's Something To Seek Out.
Resistance
Avoided
What Makes Someone An Artist? I Don't Think Is Has Anything To Do With A Paintbrush. There Are Painters Who Follow The Numbers, Or Paint Billboards, Or Work In A Small Village In China, Painting Reproductions. These Folks, While Swell People, Aren't Artists. On The Other Hand, Charlie Chaplin Was An Artist, Beyond A Doubt. So Is Jonathan Ive, Who Designed The Ipod. You Can Be An Artist Who Works With Oil Paints Or Marble, Sure. But There Are Artists Who Work With Numbers, Business Models, And Customer Conversations. Art Is About Intent And Communication, Not Substances.
Art
Communication
Thinking
If You Can Raise Money, You're Never Going To Have Trouble Getting A Job.
Jobs
Trouble
Raises
You Don't Become Indispensable Merely Because You Are Different. But The Only Way To Become Indispensable Is To Be Different. That's Because If You're The Same, So Are Plenty Of Other People.
People
Different
Way
A Customer Is Never Out Of Warranty, Even If His Product Is.
Customers
Products
Ifs
Fitting In Is A Short-term Strategy That Gets You Nowhere. Standing Out Is A Long-term Strategy That Takes Guts And Produces Results.
Positivity
Long
Strategy
Sharing An Idea You Care About Is A Generous Way To Change Your World For The Better.
Ideas
World
Care
You Can't Shrink Your Way To Greatness!
Greatness
Way
Shrinks
Insulate Yourself... From Anonymous Angry People Expose Yourself To Art You Don't Yet Understand Precisely Measure The Results That Are Important To You Stay Blind To The Metrics That Don't Matter Fail Often Ship Lead, Don't Manage So Much Seek Out Uncomfortable Situations Make An Impact On The People Who Matter To You Be Better At Your Baseline Skills Than Anyone Else Copyedit Less, Invent More Give More Speeches Ignore Unsolicited Advice
Art
Impact
Skills
Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty.
Entrepreneur
Thirsty
Wells
The Secret To Being Wrong Isn't To Avoid Being Wrong! The Secret Is Being Willing To Be Wrong. The Secret Is Realizing That Wrong Isn't Fatal.
Failure
Secret
Realizing
There's Nothing Wrong With Having A Plan. Plans Are Great. But Missions Are Better. Missions Survive When Plans Fail, And Plans Almost Always Fail.
Failing
Missions
Plans
The Big Win Is When You Refuse To Settle For Average Or Mediocre.
Winning
Average
Settling
Big Ideas Are Little Ideas That No-one Killed Too Soon.
Acceptance
Ideas
Rejection
Marketing Is The Art Of Seeing (and Then Creating) What Might Be Interesting To More Than Our Friends
Art
Creating
Interesting
The Myth That The Ceo Is Going To Discover You And Nurture You And Ask You To Join Her For Lunch Is Just That, A Hollywood Myth.
Life
Work
Lunch
Marketing Isn't Done By Computers, It's Done By People. And People Who Sense Opportunity And Have The Confidence To Be Remarkable Will Always Defeat Defensive Actions By People Who Have Given Up.
Opportunity
People
Marketing
I Think If Your Goal Is For Everything To Be Okay, That's A Mistake. To Achieve That Goal, The Only Obstacle You'd Have To Face Tomorrow Is To Eliminate All Risk ... I've Made The Decision That I'm Never Trying To Make Everything Okay. I'm Trying For There To Be More Loose Ends, Not Fewer Loose Ends.
Mistake
Thinking
Goal
The Conversation Is Happening About Your Brand Whether You're A Part Of It Or Not.
Conversation
Brands
Happenings
Playing Safe Is Very Risky.
Business
Safe
The Way The World Works Now, The Way The Rules Of Engagement Operate, You Can't Claim To Make Sense Out Of The Exterior Without Booking Voyages Into The Interior. Think About It: How Can You Understand 'it' If You Haven't Made Any Effort To Understand 'you'? Because What You're Really Doing Is Establishing A Living, Electrical, Vital, Energetic Connection Between It And You. You're Creating Both Of Them, Simultaneously. A Lot Like Quantum Physics.
Thinking
Self
Creating
The Reason You Might Choose To Embrace The Artist Within You Now Is That This Is The Path To (cue The Ironic Music) Security.
Artist
Ironic
Might
Content Marketing Is The Only Marketing Left
Marketing
Content Marketing
Left
The First Step Toward Becoming Extraordinary Is, Of Course, To Stop Being Ordinary.
Ordinary
Firsts
Becoming
I'm Not A Psychopath-i'm Wearing A Tie!
Ties
Psychopath
I Do Not Think You Can Get Rid Of The Fear... But You Can Dance With It.
Thinking
The Mirror We Hold Up To The Person Next To Us Is One Of The Most Important Pictures She Will Ever See.
Mirrors
Important
Next
People Get Good Gigs Because They Stand Up....you Don't Get Picked. Reject The Tyranny Of Picked. Pick Yourself.
People
Mind Your Own Business
Gigs
Reputation Is What People Expect Us To Do Next. It's Their Expectation Of The Quality And Character Of The Next Thing We Produce Or Say Or Do. We Control Our Actions (even When It Feels Like We Don't) And Our Actions Over Time (especially When We Think No One Is Looking) Earn Our Reputation.
Character
Thinking
People
Tribes Makes Our Lives Better, And Leading A Tribe Is The Best Life Of All.
Greatness
Tribes
Our Lives
Artists Are People With A Genius For Finding A New Answer, A New Connection, Or A New Way Of Getting Things Done.
Artist
People
Connections
What We Most Need In Our Lives, Though, Is Something Worth Doing, Worth It Because We Care.
Needs
Care
Our Lives
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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