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.

-Seth Godin

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Our Job Is Obvious:

Seth Godin

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.

Topic

Instead Of Wondering When Your Next Vacation Is, Maybe You Should Set Up A Life You Don't Need To Escape From.

Inspirational

Change

Inspiring

Marketing Is No Longer About The Stuff That You Male, But About The Stories You Tell.

Marketing

Stuff

Males

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

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

Connect, Create Meaning, Make A Difference, Matter, Be Missed.

Differences

Marketing

Making A Difference

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.

Mean

Fire

Marketing

Perhaps Marketing Is About To Transition To A New Kind Of Profession, One That Requires Insight, Dedication And Smarts.

Smart

Dedication

Marketing

Things That Look Like Shortcuts Are Actually Detours (disguised As Less Work).

Looks

Detours

Shortcuts

The Art Of Good Decision Making Is Looking Forward To And Celebrating The Tradeoffs, Not Pretending They Don't Exist.

Art

Decision

Looking Forward

Good Marketers Measure.

Business

Marketing

Marketers

Care. Care More Than You Need To, More Often Than Expected, More Completely Than The Other Guy.

Guy

Needs

Care

Rehearsing Failure Is Simply A Bad Habit, Not A Productive Use Of Your Time. When You Choose To Visualize The Path That Works, You're More Likely To Shore It Up And Create An Environment Where It Can Take Place.

Path

Use

Environment

Leadership Is Scarce Because Few People Are Willing To Go Through The Discomfort Required To Lead.

Leadership

People

Management

As Creators, Our Pursuit Of Perfection Might Be Misguided, Particularly If It Comes At The Expense Of The Things That Matter.

Perfection

Might

Matter

Competence Is No Longer A Scarce Commodity.

Commodity

Competence

Scarce

Way More Productive, I Think, To Push Yourself To Be More In The World, Not To Encourage Yourself To Hide.

Thinking

World

Way

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

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

Marketers Want To Get Their Messages In Front Of You. They Must Get Their Messages In Front Of You, Just To Survive. The Only Problem Is-do You Really Want More Marketing Messages?

Marketing

Messages

Want

If You Use Your Money To Create Exceptional Products And Services, You Won't Need To Spend It On Advertising.

Needs

Use

Advertising

Perfect Can't Possibly Be The Goal, We're Left With Generous, Important And Human Instead.

Perfect

Goal

Important

If You're Going To Buy A Real Book, A Paper Book, There Better Be A Good Reason. Perhaps Scarcity Is One Of Those Reasons.

Real

Book

Scarcity

A Brilliant Author Or Businesswoman Or Senator Or Software Engineer Is Brilliant Only In Tiny Bursts. The Rest Of The Time, They’re Doing Work That Most Any Trained Person Could Do.

Tiny

Brilliant

Software

Successful People Are Successful For One Simple Reason: They Think About Failure Differently.

Successful

Simple

Thinking

Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty.

Entrepreneur

Thirsty

Wells

The Future Of Publishing Is About Having Connections To Readers And The Knowledge Of What Those Readers Want.

Want

Connections

Reader

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

If You're Not Uncomfortable In Your Work As A Leader, It's Almost Certain You're Not Reaching Your Potential As A Leader.

Leadership

Management

Reaching

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.

Art

Writing

Blogging

Personalizatio N Wasn't Supposed To Be A Cleverly Veiled Way To Chase Prospects Around The Web, Showing Them The Same Spammy Ad For The Same Lame Stuff As Everyone Else Sees. No, It Is A Chance To Differentiate At A Human Scale, To Use Behavior As The Most Important Clue About What People Want And More Important, What They Need.

People

Important

Use

Who Gets To Decide What You Want?

Choices

Want

What You Want

If You're Remarkable, Then It's Likely That Some People Won't Like You. That's Part Of The Definition Of Remarkable. Nobody Gets Unanimous Praise - Ever. The Best The Timid Can Hope For Is To Be Unnoticed. Criticism Comes To Those Who Stand Out. Playing It Safe. Following The Rules. They Seem Like The Best Ways To Avoid Failure. Alas, That Pattern Is Awfully Dangerous. The Current Marketing “rules” Will Ultimately Lead To Failure. In A Crowded Marketplace, Fitting In Is Failing. In A Busy Marketplace, Not Standing Out Is The Same As Being Invisible.

People

Marketing

Criticism

Positive Thinking Is Hard. Worth It, Though.

Positive

Attitude

Greatness

The Problem With Holding A Grudge Is That Your Hands Are Then Too Full To Hold Onto Anything Else. It Might Be The Competition Or A Technology Or The Lousy Things That Someone Did A Decade Ago. None Of It Is Going To Get Better As A Result Of Revisiting The Grudge.

Technology

Hands

Competition

Evolution Is The Most Popular Way We Have For Dealing With Change.

Way

Evolution

Marketing Management Is Now Tribal Leadership.

Marketing

Management

I Wonder If Real Art Comes When You Build The Thing That They Don't Have A Prize For Yet.

Art

Real

Wonder

Either You Defend The Status Quo, Or You Invent The Future.

Status Quo

The Best Experiences And The Biggest Ideas Don't Fit Into A Category. They Change It.

Ideas

Best Experiences

Fit

You Gain Converts By Winning At Something The Existing Provider Didn't Think Was So Important.

Winning

Thinking

Important

Most Of The Time, Creative Entrepreneurs Lose Interest Long Before Their Marketing Message Loses Its Power.

Long

Entrepreneur

Creative

Action Or Inaction Are Both Forms Of Leadership And Standard Setting.

Action

Form

Standards

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

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.

People

Dating

Engagement

Positive Thinking Doesn't Guarantee Results, All It Offers Is Something Better Than Negative Thinking.

Positive Thinking

Negative

Guarantees

A Well-defined Backup Plan Is Sabotage Waiting To Happen. Why Push Through The Dip, Why Take The Risk, Why Blow It All When There's The Comfortable Alternative Instead? The People Who Break Through Usually Have Nothing To Lose, And They Almost Never Have A Backup Plan.

Motivational

Success

Blow

As You've Probably Discovered, Great Work Makes Us Uncomfortable.

Great Work

Uncomfortable

Art Changes Posture And Posture Changes Innocent Bystanders.

Art

Bystanders

Innocent

Copy, Not From Your Industry, From Others. You Have To Go Where There Is No Competition.

Competition

Copies

Industry

A Tribe Is A Group Of People Connected To One Another, Connected To A Leader, And Connected To An Idea. For Millions Of Years, Human Beings Have Been Part Of One Tribe Or Another. A Group Needs Only Two Things To Be A Tribe: A Shared Interest And A Way To Communicate.

Years

Ideas

Two

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

Art Is Never Defect-free. Things That Are Remarkable Never Meet Spec, Because That Would Make Them Standardized, Not Worth Talking About.

Art

Talking

Free Things

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.

Play

Broken

Trying

Mass Attention Is Almost Unattainable And It's Not Clear That You Want It.

Attention

Unattainable

Want

Little Changes Cost You. Big Changes Benefit You By Changing The Game, But Only If You Go First.

Change

Games

Cost

If I Fail More Than You Do, I Win.

Winning

Failing

Ifs

Great Innovations, Powerful Interactions And Real Art Are Often Produced By Someone In A State Of Wonder. Looking Around With Stars In Your Eyes And Amazement At The Tools That Are Available To You Can Inspire Generosity And Creativity And Connection

Art

Stars

Powerful

What Evidence Would You Need To See To Change Your Mind About This?

Mind

Needs

Evidence

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

Iphone

Uber

If You Need To Conceal Your True Nature To Get In The Door, Understand That You'll Probably Have To Conceal Your True Nature To Keep That Job.

Jobs

Doors

Needs

Selling To People Who Actually Want To Hear From You Is More Effective Than Interrupting Strangers Who Don't.

Motivation

People

Marketing

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

The Status Quo Is Leaving The Building, And Quickly.

Leaving

Mediocrity

Building

Your Generosity Is More Important Than Your Perfection.

Humor

Generosity

Perfection

Competition And The Market Are Like Water, They Go Where They Want

Water

Competition

Want

And It Doesn't Matter To Me Whether You're Running A Coffee Shop Or You're An Intellectual Or You're In Business Or Flying Hot Air Balloons. People Who Can Spread Ideas, Regardless Of What Those Ideas Are, Win. But Consumers, They Got Way More Choices Than They Used To And Way Less Time.

Running

Coffee

Winning

Data Is Not Useful Until It Becomes Information.

Data

Information

We Fail When We Give Up Too Soon.

Giving Up

Giving

Failing

Great Leaders Don't Try To Please Everyone. Great Leaders Don't Water Down Their Message In Order To Make The Tribe A Bit Bigger. Instead, They Realize That A Motivated, Connected Tribe In The Midst Of A Movement Is Far More Powerful Than A Larger Group Could Ever Be.

Powerful

Order

Water

The Goal Is To Be On The Hook, Not To Let Someone Else Do The Scary Parts.

Goal

Scary

Hook

Fear Is The Dream Killer, The Silent Voice That Pushes Us To Lose Our Passion In A Vain Attempt To Seek Safety.

Dream

Passion

Voice

The Nature Of Revolutions Is That They Destroy The Perfect And Enable The Impossible.

Perfect

Revolution

Impossible

Not Changing Your Strategy Merely Because You're Used To The One You Have Now Is A Lousy Strategy.

Strategy

Used

If You're Not Upsetting Anyone, You're Not Changing The Status Quo.

Upset

Status Quo

Ifs

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 Listen To What People Say, Sure. But You Will Be Far More Effective If You Listen To What People Do.

Success

Effectiveness

People

Organizations That Destroy The Status Quo Win. Whatever The Status Quo Is, Changing It Gives You The Opportunity To Be Remarkable.

Motivational

Winning

Opportunity

Own Your Dreams. There Is No Better Way To Make Them Happen.

Dream

Way

Happens

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 Find That It's Almost Essential To Fall In Love With An Idea To Invest The Time It Takes To Make It Good And Worth Sharing. And Then, The Hard Part: Deleting That Idea When It's Just Not What It Could Be. Too Often, Organizations Are Good At The First Part, But Struggle With The Second. And So We Defend Expired Business Models, Support The Status Quo And Have A Knee-jerk Inclination To Preserve What We've Got.

Falling In Love

Struggle

Organization

People Don't Believe What You Tell Them. They Rarely Believe What You Show Them. They Often Believe What Their Friends Tell Them. They Always Believe What They Tell Themselves.

Business

Believe

People

The Opportunity Is Not In Being Momentarily Popular With The Anonymous Masses. It's In Being Missed When You're Gone, In Doing Work That Matters To The Tribe You Choose.

Life

Work

Opportunity

As The Amount Of Inputs Go Up, As The Number Of People And Ideas That Clamor For Attention Continue To Increase, We Do What People Always Do: We Rely On The Familiar, The Trusted And The Personal. The Incredible Surplus Of Digital Data Means That Human Actions, Generosity And Sacrifice Are More Important Than They Ever Were Before.

Inspirational

Mean

Sacrifice

If You Are Deliberately Trying To Create A Future That Feels Safe, You Will Willfully Ignore The Future That Is Likely.

Inspirational

Business

Trying

The Market ... Demands A Signal From You That You're Serious, Powerful, Accepted, And Safe.

Powerful

Demand

Safe

You Don't Have To Settle For The Status Quo, For Being Good Enough, For Getting By, For Working All Night.

Night

Good Enough

Settling

In Other Words, If You Don't Take Action, You Won't Get Any Results You Are Not Your Resume, You Are Your Work

Mind Blowing

Action

Resumes

Trust Is Precious And Easily Wasted, And Guessing Is A Lousy Foundation For Future Progress.

Progress

Foundation

Guessing

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.

Goal

Gone

Maps

We Don't Become Mediocre All At Once, And We Rarely Do It On Purpose.

Entrepreneur

Purpose

Mediocre

When You Set Down The Path To Create Art, Whatever Sort Of Art It Is, Understand That The Path Is Neither Short Not Easy. That Means You Must Determine If The Route Is Worth The Effort. If It's Not, Dream Bigger.

Dream

Art

Mean

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.

Motivational

Inspiring

Leadership

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.

Writing

Mean

People

Normal Is Fading Away. Governments And Industries And Schools Like Normal, Because It's Easier, It Scales And It's Profitable. But People Don't Like It - We Want To Be Who We Are, Not Who Some Marketer Tells Us To Be.

School

Government

People

It's Never Too Late To Start Heading In The Right Direction.

Too Late

Heading In The Right Direction

Headings

More Than Anything Else, I Think Prospects, Customers And Citizens Watch What You Do More Than They Listen To What You Say.

Thinking

Watches

Citizens

That's Why There's Lots And Lots Of Kinds Of Hot Sauces, And Not So Many Kinds Of Mustard. Not Because It's Hard To Make Interesting Mustard - You Could Make Interesting Mustard - But People Don't, Because No One's Obsessed With It, And Thus No One Tells Their Friends.

Interesting

People

Hot Sauce

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. For Now.

Running

Path

Where You Are

Say What You Believe And See Who Follows.

Believe

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

It’s Okay. Let Your Ego Push You To Be The Initiator. But Tell Your Ego That The Best Way To Get Something Shipped Is To Let Other People Take The Credit. The Real Win For You (and Your Ego) Is Seeing Something Get Shipped, Not In Getting The Credit When It Does.

Real

Winning

People

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

When You Put Your Ideas In The World, Then, And Only Then, Do You Know If They're Real.

Real

Ideas

World

Being Aware Of Your Fear Is Smart. Overcoming It Is The Mark Of A Successful Person.

Inspirational

Fear

Smart

What I Learned: Shun Nonbelievers. Ignore Critics. Do Your Best For People Who Want To Dance With You.

People

Want

Critics

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

People Rarely Buy What They Need. They Buy What They Want.

Business

People

Entrepreneur

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.

True Friend

Feel Better

Giving

You Can Be Right Or You Can Have Empathy. You Can't Do Both.

Relationship

Inspiring

Empathy

Now For The First Time, You Can Choose Yourself. You Can Be Responsible For What You Do And How You Do It. You Have To Do The Hard Work Of Finding And Pleasing An Audience.

Hard Work

Firsts

Responsible

One Reason I Encourage People To Blog Is That The Act Of Doing It Stretches Your Available Vocabulary And Hones A New Voice.

Voice

Vocabulary

People

If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Well.

Best Effort

Worth Waiting For

Chinese Proverb

Turn Strangers Into Friends. Turn Friends Into Donors. And Then Do The Most Important Job: Turn Your Donors Into Fundraisers.

Jobs

Important

Stranger

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.

Dark

Night

Impact

Genius Is The Act Of Solving A Problem In A Way No One Has Solved It Before.

Genius

Way

Problem

I Think It's Fascinating To Note That Some Of The Most Successful Organizations Of Our Time Got There By Focusing Obsessively On Service, Viewing Compensation As An Afterthought Or A Side Effect. As Marketing Gets More And More Expensive, It Turns Out That Caring For People Is A Useful Shortcut To Trust, Which Leads To All The Other Things That A Growing Organization Seeks.

Successful

Caring

Thinking

You Can Game The Social Media In The Short Run, But Not For Long.

Running

Media

Games

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

The Challenge Of Our Time Is To Find A Journey Worthy Of Your Heart And Your Soul.

Heart

Journey

Challenges

If There Isn't A Good Reason, Go Home. If There Is, Then Do Something ... Loud, Now, And Memorable.

Home

Memorable

Greatness

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

Everyone Has A Comfort Zone. Worth Considering: How Hard (and How Often) Are You Willing To Work To Get Out Of It? You Can Turn That Into A Habit If You Choose.

Comfort

Habit

Considering

If There's Time For An Emergency, Why Isn't There Time For Brilliance, Generosity Or Learning?

Generosity

Choices

Emergencies

Flexible In The Face Of Change, Resilient In The Face Of Confusion. All Of These Attributes Are Choices, Not Talents, And All Of Them Are Available To You.

Confusion

Choices

Faces

We're Often In A Hurry To Finish. Or In A Hurry To Close A Sale. What Happens When We Adopt The Posture Of Being In A Hurry To Be Generous? With Resources Or Insight Or Access Or Kindness... It's An Interesting Sort Of Impatience.

Kindness

Interesting

Impatience

Art Isn't Only A Painting. Art Is Anything That Is Creative, Passionate And Personal. Art Is The Unique Work Of A Human Being Created To Touch Another. Art Is Created To Have An Impact, To Change Someone Else.

Art

Unique

Impact

And It Turns Out That Tribes, Not Money, Not Factories, That Can Change Our World, That Can Change Politics, That Can Align Large Numbers Of People. Not Because You Force Them To Do Something Against Their Will. But Because They Wanted To Connect.

Our World

Numbers

People

One Key To Moving Forward Is Knowing What To Leave Behind.

Moving

Keys

Knowing

No Is The Foundation That We Can Build Our Yes On.

Foundation

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

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.

Impossible Things

Possible And Impossible

Practice

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

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.

Believe

Risk

Want

One Key To Learning And Success Is The Willingness To Try Something New, And Feel Momentarily Incompetent.

Keys

Trying

Something New

Don't Have Any Meetings About Your Web Strategy. Just Do Stuff. First You Have To Fail, Then You Can Improve.

Failure

Stuff

Firsts

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

Thoughtful

Worry

Don't Create For The Masses. Create For The People Who Are Your Kind Of Weird.

People

Kind

Mass

Learning Is Not Done To You, It Is Something You Choose To Do.

Done

You Choose

As Long As You Want To Please Everyone, You Won't Please Anyone.

Long

Want

Please

Anticipated, Personal, And Relevant Advertising Always Does Better Than Unsolicited Junk.

Marketing

Junk

Doe

If You Try To Delight The Undelightable, You've Made Yourself Miserable For No Reason.

Trying

Delight

Miserable

Nothing About Becoming Indispensable Is Easy. If It's Easy, It's Already Been Done And It's No Longer Valuable.

Done

Becoming

Easy

You Don't Need A New Plan For Next Year. You Need A Commitment.

Commitment

Years

Needs

Where Do You Go To Get Permission To Make A Dent In The Universe ? If You Think There's A Chance You Can Make A Dent, Go !

Thinking

Chance

Permission

Who You Hang Out With Determines What You Dream About And What You Collide With. And The Collisions And The Dreams Lead To Your Changes. And The Changes Are What You Become. Change The Outcome By Changing Your Circle.

Dream

Circles

Outcomes

Will You Succeed Because You Are More Well-rounded Than Others? Because You Fit In Better Than Everyone Else? Bloody Unlikely. We Succeed When We Are Trusted To Be The Best At What We Do.

Succeed

Fit

Being The Best

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

Black Friday Is A Media Trap, An Orchestrated Mass Hallucination Based On Herd Dynamics And The Media Cycle.

Friday

Media

Black

Go Do Something Interesting. Ask If You Need Help.

Interesting

Needs

Helping

Laptop Computers Dramatically Increased The Time People Spend Doing Work. (the Internet Dramatically Decreased It, So We're Even).

People

Laptops

Computer

No One Is As Smart As All Of Us.

Smart

Ideas Don't Get Smaller When They're Shared, They Get Bigger.

Ideas

Bigger

When The Legacy You Leave Behind Lasts For Hours, Days Or A Lifetime, You Matter.

Greatness

Legacy

Matter

The Industrial Age Brought Compliance And Compliance Brought Fear And Fear Brought Us Mediocrity.

Age

Mediocrity

Compliance

You Don't Have To Settle. It's A Choice You Get To Make Every Day.

Choices

Mediocrity

Settling

More And More People Now Have Jobs That Require Them To Confront The Risk Of Appearing Stupid On A Regular Basis.

Jobs

Stupid

People

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.

Jobs

Clever

Brave

Don't Wait To Be Picked. Pick Yourself.

Waiting

Proactive

Picks

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

The Media Wants Overnight Successes (so They Have Someone To Tear Down). Ignore Them. Ignore The Early Adopter Critics That Never Have Enough To Play With. Ignore Your Investors That Want Proven Tactics And Predictable Instant Results. Listen Instead To Your Real Customers, To Your Vision And Make Something For The Long Haul. Because That's How Long It's Going To Take, Guys.

Inspirational

Real

Media

You're Competing Against People In A State Of Flow, People Who Are Truly Committed, People Who Care Deeply About The Outcome.

People

Entrepreneur

Who Cares

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

Kickstarter Isn't A Profit Center, It's An Organizer And An Instigator.

Profit

Instigators

Kickstarter

Tribes Makes Our Lives Better, And Leading A Tribe Is The Best Life Of All.

Greatness

Tribes

Our Lives

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 World Is Begging For You To Lead.

World

Begging

Optimism Is The Most Important Human Trait, Because It Allows Us To Evolve Our Ideas, To Improve Our Situation, And To Hope For A Better Tomorrow.

Inspirational

Positive

Positivity

Just About Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Better.

Anything Worth Doing

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 Key To Getting A Reputation For Being Brilliant Is Actually Being Brilliant, Not Just Acting Like You Are.

Keys

Acting

Reputation

Many People Believe That Great Designers Get Great Clients. It's The Other Way Around.

Believe

People

Way

The Goal Has Never Been To Always Succeed. The Goal Is To Be Allowed To Keep Initiating.

Goal

Succeed

I Feel Like I'm Treating People As I'd Like To Be Treated.

People

Feels

Treated

Developing Expertise Or Assets That Are Not Easily Copied Is Essential; Otherwise You’re Just A Middleman. “ “don’t Try To Be The ‘next’. Instead, Try To Be The Other, The Changer, The New. “ “everyone Is Not Your Customer. “ “fire The Committee. No Great Website In History Has Been Conceived Of By More Than Three People. Not One. This Is A Deal Breaker.

Fire

People

Trying

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

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.

Mean

Organization

Engagement

If You Are Wiling To Do Something That Might Not Work, You Are Closer To Being An Artist.

Creativity

Artist

Might

Persistent People Are Able To Visualize The Idea Of Light At The End Of The Tunnel When Others Can't See It

Tunnels

Light

Ideas

There's A Huge Difference Between Being A Replaceable Cog On The Assembly Line And Being The One Who Is Missed, The One With A Unique Contribution, The One Who Made A Difference.

Unique

Differences

Cogs

The Danger Of The Web Is That You Can Go From Idea To Public Announcement In Under Ten Minutes.

Ideas

Danger

Minutes

I See Things Differently When I'm Focused On Opening Doors For Other People, And More Often Than Not, My Doors Are Opened As Well.

Doors

People

Wells

Not Only Are Bloggers Suckers For The Remarkable, So Are The People Who Read Blogs.

People

Marketing

Blogging

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

If You Don't Like Your Definition Of 'good Enough', Then Feel Free To Change That, But The Goal Before Shipping Is Merely That. Not Perfect.

Perfect

Goal

Definitions

There Are Lots Of Good Reasons To Abandon A Project. Having A Little Competition Is Not One Of Them.

Competition

Littles

Reason

Change Almost Never Fails Because It's Too Early. It Almost Always Fails Because It's Too Late.

Inspirational

Change

Too Late

Kings Fear Change. Leaders Crave It.

Kings

Leader

Crave

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

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

People

Creative

Sure, Compare. But Compare The Things That Matter To The Journey You're On. The Rest Is Noise.

Journey

Noise

Matter

People That Take Responsibility Are Often Given Responsibility!

Responsibility

People

Taking Responsibility

What Are You Working On? If Someone Asks You That, Are You Excited To Tell Them The Answer? If You're Not, You're Wasting Away.

Answers

Excited

Asks

Leading Is A Skill, Not A Gift. You're Not Born With It, You Learn How.

Skills

Born

Art Is The Act Of Navigating Without A Map.

Art

Maps

Art Is

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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