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Great Stories Agree With Our Worldview. The Best Stories Don't Teach People Anything New. Instead The Best Stories Agree With What The Audience Already Believes And Makes The Members Of The Audience Feel Smart And Secure When Reminded How Right They Were In The Thirst Place.
-Seth Godin
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Great Stories Agree With

Seth Godin
Great Stories Agree With Our Worldview. The Best Stories Don't Teach People Anything New. Instead The Best Stories Agree With What The Audience Already Believes And Makes The Members Of The Audience Feel Smart And Secure When Reminded How Right They Were In The Thirst Place.
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Topic
Smart
Believe
People
More From Seth Godin
You Don't Make Art After You Become An Artist. You Become An Artist By Ceaselessly Making Art.
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Way More Productive, I Think, To Push Yourself To Be More In The World, Not To Encourage Yourself To Hide.
Thinking
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We Notice What We Choose To Notice.
Choices
If You Can't Be Remarkable, Perhaps You Should Consider Doing Nothing Until You Can.
Doing Nothing
Should
Remarkable
Seeing, Despite The Name, Isn’t Merely Visual.
Names
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No Organization Ever Created An Innovation. People Innovate, Not Companies.
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That The Horrible Zika Virus Or Hiv, We Can Look At What It Means To Be Patient Zero, What It Means To Need Not Much Contact To Spread, And All Of Those Things Follow Into The Way Ideas Spread.
Zero
Mean
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Marketing Is The Art Of Seeing (and Then Creating) What Might Be Interesting To More Than Our Friends
Art
Creating
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Criticism Comes To Those Who Stand Out.
Criticism
Standing Out
You Don't Have To Settle For The Status Quo, For Being Good Enough, For Getting By, For Working All Night.
Night
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Art Is The Work Of A Human Being – Something A Person Does With Generosity To Touch Someone Else To Make A Change For The Better.
Art
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The Big Win Is When You Refuse To Settle For Average Or Mediocre.
Winning
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Settling
Self Sufficiency Appears To Be A Worthy Goal, But It's Now Impossible If You Want To Actually Get Anything Done. All Our Productivity, Leverage And Insight Comes From Being Part Of A Community, Not Apart From It. The Goal, I Think, Is To Figure Out How To Become More Dependent, Not Less.
Thinking
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The Job Is Not Your Work; What You Do With Your Heart And Soul Is The Work.
Life
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Just As We Don't Spend A Lot Of Time Worrying About How All Those Poets Out There Are Going To Monetize Their Poetry, The Same Is True For Most Bloggers.
Funny
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Every Revolution Destroys The Average Middle First And Most Savagely.
Average
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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.
Real
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Mind
I Learned That A Long Walk And Calm Conversation Are An Incredible Combination If You Want To Build A Bridge.
Long Walks
Bridges
Want
The Purpose Of An Elevator Pitch Is To Describe A Situation Or Solution So Compelling That The Person You're With Wants To Hear More Even After The Elevator Ride Is Over.
Purpose
Want
Elevators
People Who Make A Difference Never Wait For Just The Right Time. They Know That It Will Never Arrive.
Differences
People
Waiting
Design Is The Last Great Competitive Advantage.
Design
Lasts
Advantage
The Resistance Is The Voice In Your Head Telling You To Use Bullets In Your Powerpoint Slides...it’s The Voice That Tells You To Leave Controversial Ideas Out Of The Paper You’re Writing, Because The Teacher Won’t Like Them. The Resistance Pushes Relentlessly For You To Fit In.
Teacher
Writing
Ideas
Dreamers Don't Have Special Genes. They Find Circumstances That Amplify Their Dreams.
Dream
Special
Amplify
Your Best Customers Are Worth Far More Than Your Average Customers.
Business
Average
Customers
No One Ever Gets Talker's Block. No One Wakes Up In The Morning, Discovers He Has Nothing To Say, And Sits Quietly, For Days Or Weeks, Until The Muse Hits, Until The Moment Is Right, Until All The Craziness In His Life Has Died Down.
Morning
Block
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You Succeed Because You've Chosen To Be Confident. It's Not Really Useful To Require Yourself To Be Successful Before You're Able To Become Confident.
Successful
Able
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Things That Look Like Shortcuts Are Actually Detours (disguised As Less Work).
Looks
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If You Can't Sell To 1 In 1000, Why Market To A Million?
Marketing
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Millions
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
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Skills
We Are Leaving The Industrial Economy And Entering The Connection Economy.
Leaving
Connections
Entering
If You Do A Job Where Someone Tells You Exactly What To Do, They Will Find Someone Cheaper Than You To Do It. And Yet Our Schools Are Churning Out Kids Who Are Stuck Looking For Jobs Where The Boss Tells Them Exactly What To Do.
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School
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One Way To Think About Running A Successful Business Is To Figure Out What The Least You Can Do Is, And Do That.
Running
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Successful
Two Different Things: A Crowd Is A Tribe Without A Leader. A Crowd Is A Tribe Without Communication. Most Organizations Spend Their Time Marketing To The Crowd. Smart Organizations Assemble The Tribe.
Smart
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Organization
Conversations Among The Members Of Your Marketplace Happen Whether You Like It Or Not. Good Marketing Encourages The Right Sort Of Conversations.
Inspirational
Marketing
Social Media
But What If I Fail? You Will. A Better Question Might Be, ‘after I Fail, What Then?’ If You’ve Chosen Well, After You Fail You Will Be One Step Closer To Succeeding, You Will Be Wiser And Stronger And You Almost Certainly Will Be More Respected By All Of Those That Are Afraid To Try.
What If
Stronger
Trying
The Problem With The Race To The Bottom Is That You Might Win
Winning
Race
Might
Soon Is Not As Good As Now.
Time Management
Leadership Is A Choice. It's The Choice Not To Do Nothing.
Choices
The Art Of Good Decision Making Is Looking Forward To And Celebrating The Tradeoffs, Not Pretending They Don't Exist.
Art
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Looking Forward
No One Can Force You To Stand Up, Speak Up And Make A Difference. But If You Back Off And Play Along, Please Understand That Whatever Happens Happened, At Least In Part, Because You Acquiesced.
Play
Differences
Making A Difference
The Only Long-term Motivation Is Self Motivation. So Hire People Who Are Self Motivated And Get Out Of Their Way.
Motivation
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Long
If Not Enough People Doubt You, You're Not Making A Difference.
Differences
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Doubt
Before You Tell Yourself You Have No Right To Invent This Or Improve That, Remind Yourself That The Person Before You Had No Right Either, But Did It Anyway.
Persons
Believe That Giving Up Is The Same Thing As Being Realistic.
Giving Up
Believe
Realistic
Art Is When We Do Work That Matters In A Creative Way, In A Way That Touches (people) And Changes Them For The Better.
Art
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Creative
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.
Simple
Ideas
Years
It Turns Out That The People Who Like Their Jobs The Most Are Also The Ones Who Are Doing The Best Work, Making The Greatest Impact, And Changing The Most.
Motivational
Jobs
Work
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
The World Doesn't Owe You A Living, But Just When You Needed It, A Door Was Opened For You To Make A Difference.
Doors
Differences
Making A Difference
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.
Jobs
Promise
Delight
The Devil Doesn't Need An Advocate. The Brave Need Supporters, Not Critics
Brave
Devil
Needs
Great Marketers Don't Make Stuff. They Make Meaning.
Stuff
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The Ladder Of Success Isn't A Ladder. It's A Series Of Steps With Leaps Interspersed Along The Way.
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Way
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.
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...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.
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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.
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If Failure Isn't An Option, Then Success Isn't Either. Success Is Just Failure Repeated Until It Works.
Ifs
When You Think About Uber And Airbnb And The Other Companies That Are Turning Things Upside Down, Uber Isn't Big 'cause They Ran A Lot Of Ads. They're Big Because Someone Took Out Their Iphone And Said To Their Friend, Watch This, And Pressed A Button And A Car Pulled Up.
Thinking
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It Always Feels Too Soon To Leap. But You Have To. Because That's The Moment Between You And Remarkable.
Moments
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So By Giving People A Tool That They Can Share And Benefit From, It's A Form Of Media That Isn't Controlled By Rupert Murdoch Or The Guys At Viacom. It Is A Form Of Media That Is Earned Every Single Time It Spreads.
Media
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If You Are Wiling To Do Something That Might Not Work, You Are Closer To Being An Artist.
Creativity
Artist
Might
Be Bold, Make Mistakes, Learn A Lesson, And Fix What Doesn't Work.
Mistake
Making Mistakes
Lessons
Are You Doing Work Worth Doing, Or Are You Just Doing Your Job?
Jobs
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.
Shoes
Different Experiences
Goal
The Largest Enemy Of Change Isn't 'no', It's 'not Yet' - That Is The Easiest Way To Forestall Change.
Enemy
Way
Before You Promise To Change The World, It Makes Sense To Do The Hard Work Of Changing Your Neighborhood.
Hard Work
Promise
World
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
Letting Your Customers Set Your Standards Is A Dangerous Game, Because The Race To The Bottom Is Pretty Easy To Win. Setting Your Own Standards--and Living Up To Them--is A Better Way To Profit. Not To Mention A Better Way To Make Your Day Worth All The Effort You Put Into It." -
Leadership
Business
Winning
If You Set Your Bar At 'amazing' It's Awfully Difficult To Start. Your First Paragraph, Sketch, Formula, Sample Or Concept Isn't Going To Be Amazing. Your Tenth One Might Not Be Either. Confronted With The Gap Between Your Vision Of Perfect And The Reality Of What You've Created, The Easiest Path Is No Path. Shrug. Admit Defeat. Hit Delete. One More Reason To Follow Someone Else And Wait For Instructions. Of Course, The Only Path To Amazing Runs Directly Through Not-yet-amazing. But Not-yet-amazing Is A Great Place To Start, Because That's Where You Are.
Running
Reality
Perfect
What We Most Need In Our Lives, Though, Is Something Worth Doing, Worth It Because We Care.
Needs
Care
Our Lives
The Best Way To Be Missed When You're Gone Is To Stand For Something When You're Here.
Gone
Way
Stand For Something
The Easier It Is To Quantify, The Less It's Worth.
Easier
All Good Ideas Are Terrible... Until People Realize They Are Obvious. If You're Not Willing To Live Through The Terrible Stage, You'll Never Get To The Obvious Part.
Ideas
People
Realizing
You Dont Need To Convince Everyone. All You Need To Do Is Motivate People Who Choose To Follow You.
People
Needs
Convince
Even Good Excuses, Really Good Ones, Don't Help Very Much. Explanations, On The Other Hand, Are Both Scarce And Useful. And Accurate Forecasts And Insightful Intuition Are Priceless.
Hands
Insightful
Intuition
The Opposite Of Coherent Is Interesting.
Opposites
Interesting
Success Comes From Doing The Hard Part. When The Hard Part Is All You've Got, You're More Likely To Do It. And This Is Precisely Why It's Difficult To Focus. Because Focusing Means Acknowledging That You Just Signed Up For The Hard Part.
Mean
Focus
Difficult
The Easiest Way To Thrive As An Outlier Is To Avoid Being One. At Least Among Your Most Treasured Peers. Surround Yourself With People In At Least As Much Of A Hurry, At Least As Inquisitive, At Least As Focused As You Are.
People
Peers
Way
Marketing Used To Be What You Say Now, Marketing Is What You Do. What You Make. How You Act. The Choices You Make When You Are Sure No One Is Looking.
Choices
Marketing
Used
The Goal Has Never Been To Always Succeed. The Goal Is To Be Allowed To Keep Initiating.
Goal
Succeed
Too Often, The Person Who Wrecks Our Work Is Us.
Wrecks
Persons
You Don't Need More Time In Your Day. You Need To Decide.
Needs
More Time
If You're In The Idea Business, It Doesn't Matter Where You're From. It Matters If We Care About The Change You're Making.
Ideas
Care
Matter
Make A Decision. It Doesn't Have To Be A Wise Decision Or A Perfect One. Just Make One.
Wise
Business
Perfect One
Make More Decisions. That's The Only Way To Get Better At It.
Decision
Get Better
Way
Our Job Is Obvious: We Need To Get Out Of The Way, Shine A Light, And Empower A New Generation To Teach Itself And To Go Further And Faster Than Any Generation Ever Has.
Jobs
Learning
Light
The Best Marketing Strategy Is To Destroy Your Industry Before Your Competition Does.
Competition
Marketing
Doe
Remarkable Visions And Genuine Insight Are Always Met With Resistance. And When You Start To Make Progress, Your Efforts Are Met With Even More Resistance. Products, Services, Career Paths... Whatever It Is, The Forces For Mediocrity Will Align To Stop You, Forgiving No Errors And Never Backing Down Until It's Over
Careers
Errors
Effort
Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty.
Entrepreneur
Thirsty
Wells
Set Up A Life You Don't Need To Escape From.
Inspirational
Work
Needs
People Are Not Afraid Of Failure, They're Afraid Of Blame.
Leadership
People
Engagement
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.
Believe
People
Shortcuts
In Nearly Every Case, Trying To Lead Everyone Results In Leading No One In Particular.
Motivational
Leadership
Trying
You Can Risk Being Wrong Or You Can Be Boring.
Motivational
Risk
Boring
Nobody Says, 'yeah, I'd Like To Set Myself Up For Some Serious Criticism!' And Yet, The Only Way To Be Remarkable Is To Do Just That.
Criticism
Way
Serious
The Secret Of Getting On The Shortlist Is Doing Your Best Work Fearlessly For A Long Time Before You Get On The List.
Long
Secret
Lists
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
Quit Or Be Exceptional. Average Is For Losers.
Average
Quitting
Loser
When You Are Trusted Because You Care, It's Quite Likely The Revenue Will Take Care Of Itself
Care
Take Care
Revenue
After You Produce You Can Select. You Can Curate. You Can Censor. But For Now, Have Bad Ideas, Lots And Lots Of Bad Ideas.
Ideas
Select
Produce
Making Promises And Keeping Them Is A Great Way To Build A Brand.
Promise
Marketing
Way
Increasingly, There Are Only Two Kinds Of Companies: Brave And Dead.
Two
Brave
Kind
All The Good Things In My Career Are A Direct Descendant Of What I Did And Learned At #‎ Camp
Careers
Good Things
Camps
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
You Don't Have To Settle. It's A Choice You Get To Make Every Day.
Choices
Mediocrity
Settling
I'm Not A Psychopath-i'm Wearing A Tie!
Ties
Psychopath
The Industrial Age Brought Compliance And Compliance Brought Fear And Fear Brought Us Mediocrity.
Age
Mediocrity
Compliance
Black Friday Is A Media Trap, An Orchestrated Mass Hallucination Based On Herd Dynamics And The Media Cycle.
Friday
Media
Black
Not Only Are Bloggers Suckers For The Remarkable, So Are The People Who Read Blogs.
People
Marketing
Blogging
Deadlines Have A Lousy Name. Call Them Live-lines Instead. That´t What They Are.
Names
Lines
Deadline
Finding New Ways, More Clever Ways To Interrupt People Doesn't Work.
Clever
People
Marketing
...treasure What It Means To Do A Day's Work. It's Our One And Only Chance To Do Something Productive Today, And It's Certainly Not Available To Someone Merely Because He Is The High Bidder. A Day's Work Is Your Chance To Do Art, To Create A Gift, To Do Something That Matters. As Your Work Gets Better And Your Art Becomes More Important, Competition For Your Gifts Will Increase And You'll Discover That You Can Be Choosier About Whom You Give Them To.
Motivational
Art
Business
It's More Important That You Be Passionate About What You Do All Day Than It Is To Be Passionate About The Product That Is Being Sold.
Important
Passionate
Products
The Only Thing Worse Than Starting Something And Failing... Is Not Starting Something.
Inspirational
Motivational
Inspiring
What People Want Is The Extra, The Emotional Bonus They Get When They Buy Something They Love.
Emotional
People
Marketing
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.
Blow
Years
Wind
Art Is The Work Of A Human, An Individual Seeking To Make A Statement, To Cause A Reaction, To Connect. Art Is Something New, Every Time, And Art Might Not Work, Precisely Because It's New, Because It's Human And Because It Seeks To Connect.
Art
Might
Causes
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.
Mean
Thinking
Essence
You Can't Lose. Go, Go, Go!
Positivity
Loses
What I Mean By Art Is The Human Act Of Doing Something That Connects Us To Someone Else
Art
Mean
Art Is
If I Fail More Than You Do, I Win.
Winning
Failing
Ifs
If You're Going To Invest A Valuable Asset (like Time), Go Ahead And Make It Productive. Use A Postit Or Two, Or Some Index Cards Or A Highlighter. Not To Write Down Stuff So You Can Forget It Later, But To Create Marching Orders. It's Simple: If Three Weeks Go By And You Haven't Taken Action On What You've Written Down, You Wasted Your Time.
Business
Taken
Writing
If You Work In An Urgent-only Culture, The Only Solution Is To Make The Right Things Urgent.
Appreciation
Culture
Employee Engagement
Seek Out Habits That Help You Overcome Fear Or Inertia. Destroy Those That Do The Opposite.
Opposites
Overcoming
Helping
Competence Is The Enemy Of Change!
Change
Enemy
Competence
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.
Ideas
Patents
Bread
The People Who Are Good In The Long Run Fail A Lot, Especially At The Beginning. So, When You Fail Early, It Might Be Worth Realizing That This Is Part Of The Deal, The Price You Pay For Being Good In The Long Run. Every Rejection Is A Gift. A Chance To Learn And To Do It Better Next Time. An Opportunity To Figure Out How To Bounce, Not Break. Don't Waste Them.
Motivational
Running
Opportunity
Attention Is A Bit Like Real Estate, In That They're Not Making Any More Of It. Unlike Real Estate, Though, It Keeps Going Up In Value.
Real
Attention
Estates
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
The People Who Are The Best In The World Specialize At Getting Really Good At The Questions They Don't Know.
People
World
Knows
Most People Have Been Brainwashed Into Believing That Their Job Is To Copyedit The World, Not To Design It.
Jobs
Believe
People
The Way You Make Something Happen Is To Do Something That A Fool Could Screw Up.
Screw Ups
Way
Fool
Figure Out The People Part And The Technology Gets A Whole Lot Simpler.
Technology
People
Figures
Entertainment Has Seduced Us Into Believing That We Have A Chance To Live The Life They Live In The Movies. Even The People In The Movies Don't Live That Life. It Doesn't Take 135 Minutes To Make A Life, It Takes Almost A Century. Everything Doesn't Depend On What Happens In The Next Ninety Seconds. Ever.
Believe
Live Life
People
An Artist Is Someone Who Uses Bravery, Insight, Creativity, And Boldness To Challenge The Status Quo. And An Artist Takes It Personally.
Art
Business
Creativity
More And More People Now Have Jobs That Require Them To Confront The Risk Of Appearing Stupid On A Regular Basis.
Jobs
Stupid
People
Competence Is No Longer Scarce.
Competence
Scarce
The Only People Who Get Paid What They're Worth Are People Who Don't Follow The Instruction Book, Who Create Art, Who Are Innovative, Who Work Without A Map.
Art
Book
People
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.
Home
Space
Decision
If You're Remarkable It's Likely That Some People Won't Like You.
People
Like You
Remarkable
You Can't Shrink Your Way To Greatness!
Greatness
Way
Shrinks
If You're Not The Best In The World At What You Do, Then You Have To Get Better.
Get Better
World
Ifs
What Is School For? If You're Not Asking That, You're Wasting Time And Money.
School
Asking
Wasting Time
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.
Educational
Competition
Maximizing
The Person Who Fails The Most Wins.
Winning
Failing
Persons
If You Are Afraid To Write Or Edit Or Assemble Or Disassemble, You Are Merely A Spectator. And You Are Trapped, Trapped By The Instructions Of Those You've Chosen To Follow. Twenty People In The Field And Eighty Thousand In The Stands. The Spectators Are The Ones Who Paid To Watch, But It's The Player On The Field Who Are Truly Alive.
Motivational
Writing
Player
The Cul-de-sac ( French For "dead End" ) ... Is A Situation Where You Work And Work And Work And Nothing Much Changes
Dead Ends
Ends
Situation
I Have Something To Say. I Know How To Do Something. I’m Doing It. If You Want Me To Do It With You, Raise Your Hand.
Hands
Want
Raises
Don't Have Any Meetings About Your Web Strategy. Just Do Stuff. First You Have To Fail, Then You Can Improve.
Failure
Stuff
Firsts
Creating Art Is A Habit, One That We Practice Daily Or Hourly Until We Get Good At It
Art
Practice
Creating
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.
Obvious Things
Choices
Littles
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
Making A Difference
News
Yes, I Think It's Okay To Abandon The Big, Established, Stuck Tribe. It's Okay To Say To Them, "you're Not Going Where I Need To Go, And There's No Way I'm Going To Persuade All Of You To Follow Me. So Rather Than Standing Here Watching The Opportunities Fade Away, I'm Heading Off. I'm Betting Some Of You, The Best Of You, Will Follow Me.
Opportunity
Thinking
Needs
We Need To Care Enough To Connect, To Put Ourselves At Emotional Risk And Play One Note Worth Hearing.
Emotional
Play
Risk
Take The Long Way. Do The Hard Work, Consistently And With Generosity And Transparency. And Then You Won't Waste Time Doing It Over.
Hard Work
Long
Generosity
Art Isn't Only A Painting. Art Is Anything That's Creative, Passionate, And Personal. And Great Art Resonates With The Viewer, Not Only With The Creator... Art Is A Personal Gift That Changes The Recipient. The Medium Doesn't Matter. The Intent Does. Art Is A Personal Act Of Courage, Something One Human Does That Creates Change In Another.
Art
Creative
Doe
Don't Waste Time Looking For A Better Pencil: Learn To Write Better.
Writing
Waste
Wasting Time
Every Activity Worth Doing Has A Learning Curve.
Curves
Activity
Learning Curve
One Reason People Who Spend A Lot Of Time Thinking About And Working On A Problem Or A Craft Seem To Find Breakthroughs More Often Than Everyone Else Is That They've Failed More Often Than Everyone Else.
Thinking
People
Crafts
Marketing Is A Contest For People's Attention.
People
Marketing
Attention
I Think The Most Productive Thing To Do During Times Of Change Is To Be Your Best Self, Not The Best Version Of Someone Else.
Thinking
Self
Things To Do
Loving What You Do Is Almost As Important As Doing What You Love, Especially If You Need To Make A Living At It.
Loving What You Do
Doing What You Love
Important
Marketing Tells A Story That Spreads. Sales Overcomes The Natural Resistance To Say Yes.
Marketing
Overcoming
Stories
Human Beings, Thanks To Culture And Genetics, Are Inclined To Be Pessimistic, Fearful, Skeptical And Believers In Conspiracy Theories. We Also Don't Like Change.
Culture
Pessimistic
Thanks
Anxiety Is Practising Failure In Advance. Anxiety Is Needless And Imaginary. It's Fear About Fear, Fear That Means Nothing.
Mean
Anxiety
Imaginary
Being Aware Of Your Fear Is Smart. Overcoming It Is The Mark Of A Successful Person.
Inspirational
Fear
Smart
Marketers Have To Move Upstream Now. We Have To Stop Being The Last Step In The Process And Start Being The First Step.
Moving
Lasts
Firsts
Ideas Aren't A Sideshow That Make Our Factory A Little More Valuable. Our Factory Is A Sideshow That Makes Our Ideas A Little More Valuable!
Ideas
Littles
Factories
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.
Thinking
Expectations
Bars
Sooner Or Later, Many Idealists Transform Themselves Into Disheartened Realists Who Mistakenly Believe That Giving Up Is The Same Thing As Being Realistic.
Giving Up
Believe
Being Real
Taking Delight In The Journey Takes Confidence. It Pushes The Envelope Of Design.
Journey
Design
Delight
The Reason It Seems That Price Is All Your Customers Care About Is That You Haven't Given Them Anything Else To Care About.
Marketing
Care
Reason
People Watch What You Do More Than Listen To What You Say.
People
Watches
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.
Inspirational
Goal
Support
I Believe That Uncertainty Is Really My Spirit's Way Of Whispering, I'm In Flux. I Can't Decide For You. Something Is Off-balance Here.
Believe
Choices
Balance
It's Clearly More Fun To Make The Rules Than To Follow Them.
Fun
For Most Modern Marketers, Quantity Isn't The Point. What Matters Is To Matter. Lives Changed. Work That Made An Actual Difference. Connection.
Life Changing
What Matters
Differences
You Are Not Your Resume, You Are Your Work.
Motivational
Inspiring
Business
One Way To Work The System Is To Work The System. The Other Way Is To Refuse To Work It.
Way
Working It
Refuse
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.
Responsibility
Rocks
Organization
Tell Your Lizard (brain) To Shut Up.
Brain
Lizards
Shut Up
Here's The Thing: The Book That Will Most Change Your Life Is The Book You Write.
Book
Writing
Inspire
It's Impossible To Have A Coin With Only One Side. You Can't Have Heads Without Tails. Innovation Is Like That. Initiative Is Like That. Art Is Like That. You Can't Have Success Unless You're Prepared To Have Failure. As Soon As You Say, 'failure Is Not An Option,' You've Just Said, 'innovation Is Not An Option.'
Art
Innovation
Tails
You Have Everything You Need To Build Something Far Bigger Than Yourself.
Inspirational
Motivational
Entrepreneur
Treat Different People Differently. Anything Else Is A Compromise.
People
Different
Compromise
Turn Strangers Into Friends. Turn Friends Into Donors. And Then Do The Most Important Job: Turn Your Donors Into Fundraisers.
Jobs
Important
Stranger
If You Can Influence The Outcome, Do The Work. If You Can't Influence The Outcome, Ignore The Possibility. It's Merely A Distraction.
Outcomes
Influence
Distraction
We Don't Need To Be Taught To Make Art, But Sometimes We Need Permission To Do So. Following Instructions Is Overrated.
Art
Following Instructions
Needs
If Failure Is Not An Option, Then Neither Is Success.
Failure Is Not An Option
Ifs
Authenticy In Marketing Is Telling A Story People Want To Hear.
People
Marketing
Stories
All Marketers Are Liars Tell Stories.
Liars
Stories
Marketers
I'm Not Proposing That You Let The Crowd Dictate, Or That You Work Hard To Fit In. Far From It. I'm Proposing That You Know The Impact Your Choices Are Having And Act Accordingly.
Book
Hard Work
Impact
The Secret Of Leadership Is Simple: Do What You Believe In. Paint A Picture Of The Future. Go There. People Will Follow.
Leadership
Believe
Simple
Don't Fix Me; Love Me For What's Broken.
Love
Motivational
Broken
There Are Always Limits, And Opportunities. The Ones We Rehearse And Focus On Are The Ones That Shape Our Future.
Opportunity
Focus
Shapes
I Was Amplifying The Negative At The Expense Of The Positive, Not To Serve Any Useful Function, Not To Make My Writing Better, But To Destroy It. The Lizard Brain, So Attuned To People Laughing Behind Our Backs, Was On High Alert For This Sort Of Criticism And Would Do Anything It Could To Stop Me From Writing Again. I Haven't Sought Out And Read A Review Or A Tweet Since.
Life
Work
Writing
Pain S The Truth Of Art. Art Is Not A Hobby Or A Pastime. It Is The Result Of An Internal Battle Royal, One Between The Quest For Safety And The Desire To Matter.
Art
Pain
Safety
The Combination Of Passion And Art Is What Makes Someone A Linchpin.
Art
Passion
Combination
As Our Society Gets More Complex And Our People Get More Complacent, The Role Of The Jester Is More Vital Than Ever Before. Please Stop Sitting Around. We Need You To Make A Ruckus.
People
Needs
Roles
No One Can Be Responsible For Where Or How We Each Begin. No One Has The Freedom To Do Anything Or Everything, And All Choices Bring Consequences. What We Choose To Do Next, Though, How To Spend Our Resources Or Attention Or Effort, This Is What Defines Us.
Motivational
Choices
Effort
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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