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We Have Little Choice But To Move Beyond Quality And Seek Remarkable, Connected, And New. Remarkable, As You've Already Figured Out, Demands Initiative.

-Seth Godin

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We Have Little Choice

Seth Godin

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We Have Little Choice But To Move Beyond Quality And Seek Remarkable, Connected, And New. Remarkable, As You've Already Figured Out, Demands Initiative.

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In Fact, Most Of The Time, People With Similar Information, Similar Beliefs And Similar Apparent Choices Will Choose Similar Actions. So If You Want To Know Why Someone Does What They Do, Start With What They Know, What They Believe And Where They Came From. Dismissing Actions We Don't Admire Merely Because We Don't Care Enough To Have Empathy Is Rarely Going To Help Us Make The Change We Seek. It Doesn't Help Us Understand, And It Creates A Gulf That Drives Us Apart.

Fear Is The Workout We Give Ourselves Imagining What Will Happen If Things Don't Work Out. . . . Worry Is Our Effort To Imagine Every Possible Way To Avoid The Outcome That Is Causing Us Fear, And Failing That, To Survive The Thing That We Fear If It Comes To Fruition.

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.

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Difficult Choices

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Every Great Company, Brand, Career Has Been Built In Exactly The Same Way: Bit By Bit, Step By Step, Little By Little.

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.

Instead Of Working So Hard To Prove The Skeptics Wrong, It Makes A Lot More Sense To Delight The True Believers. They Deserve It, After All, And They're The Ones That Are Going To Spread The Word For You.

Denigrating Art You Don't Understand Doesn't Hurt The Art - It Reveals Something About Your Willingness To Learn.

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I'm Not A Psychopath-i'm Wearing A Tie!

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We Fail When We Give Up Too Soon.

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

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Making An Average Pitch To Average People, Or Having An Average Gala For Average People Isn't Going To Scale Anymore. You've Got To Find The People Who Care. Those People Are Worth All Of Your Time.

You Can't Control Other People, And Giving Them The Power To Decide If You Will Continue To Produce Good Work Is Foolish.

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.

Mass Marketing Means Appealing To The Masses Which Means Appealing To The Average.

The Secret Of Getting On The Shortlist Is Doing Your Best Work Fearlessly For A Long Time Before You Get On The List.

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.

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For Most Modern Marketers, Quantity Isn't The Point. What Matters Is To Matter. Lives Changed. Work That Made An Actual Difference. Connection.

Deadlines Have A Lousy Name. Call Them Live-lines Instead. That´t What They Are.

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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.

Making A Difference

...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.

Great Boss Is Challenging People In The Right Way. Leading, Not Managing. Supporting Them By Giving Them Both A Platform They Can Count On And Expectations They Can Stretch For.

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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.

If You've Got The Platform And The Ability To Make A Difference, Then This Goes Beyond 'should' And Reaches The Level Of 'must.' You Must Make A Difference Or You Squander The Opportunity. Wasting The Opportunity Both Degrades Your Own Ability To Contribute And, More Urgently, Takes Something Away From The Rest Of Us.

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Risking The Appearance Of Weakness Takes Strength. And The Market Knows It.

All Artists Are Entrepreneurs. All Entrepreneurs Are Artists.

Conversations Among The Members Of Your Marketplace Happen Whether You Like It Or Not. Good Marketing Encourages The Right Sort Of Conversations.

Networking That Matters Is Helping People Achieve Their Goals.

People Talking About You Is Far More Effective Than Talking About Yourself.

Fire The Committee. No Great Website In History Has Been Conceived Of By More Than Three People. Not One. This Is A Deal Breaker.

You Cannot Create A Piece Of Art Merely For Money. Doing It As Part Of Commerce So Denudes Art Of Wonder That It Ceases To Be Art.

'teamwork' Is The Word That Bosses Use When They Actually Mean 'do What I Say'

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.

Marketers Have To Move Upstream Now. We Have To Stop Being The Last Step In The Process And Start Being The First Step.

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.

Keep Starting Until You Finish.

If You Have A Book To Write, Write It. If You Want To Record An Album, Record It. No Need To Wait For Someone In A Cubicle Halfway Across The Country To Decide If You're Worthy.

A One-hit Wonder Is A Legend Who Stopped Early.

Put Aside Your Need For A Step-by-step Manual And Instead Realize That Analogies Are Your Best Friend.

An Artist Is Someone Who Uses Bravery, Insight, Creativity, And Boldness To Challenge The Status Quo. And An Artist Takes It Personally.

Surprise And Delight And Connection Are Remarkable.

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.

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If You Demand That Everything That Happens Be Something You Are Adequately Prepared For, I Wonder If You’ve Chosen Never To Leap In Ways That We Need You To Leap. Once We Embrace This Chasm, Then For The Things For Which We Can Never Be Prepared, We Are Of Course, Always Prepared.

Traditional Sales And Marketing Involves Increasing Market Shares, Which Means Selling As Much Of Your Product As You Can To As Many Customers As Possible. One-to-one Marketing Involves Driving For A Share Of Customer, Which Means Ensuring That Each Individual Customer Who Buys Your Product Buys More Product, Buys Only Your Brand, And Is Happy Using Your Product Instead Of Another To Solve His Problem. The True, Current Value Of Any One Customer Is A Function Of The Customer's Future Purchases, Across All The Product Lines, Brands, And Services Offered By You.

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

No Niche Is Too Small If It's Yours.

You Have To Find A Group That Really Desperately Cares About What It Is You Have To Say. Talk To Them. They Have Something I Call Otaku. It's A Great Japanese Word. It Describes The Desire Of Someone Who's Obsessed To, Say, Drive Across Tokyo To Try A New Ramen Noodle Place 'cause That's What They Do, They Get Obsessed With It.

Good Advice Is Priceless. Not What You Want To Hear, But What You Need To Hear. Not Imaginary, But Practical. Not Based On Fear, But On Possibility. Not Designed To Make You Feel Better, Designed To Make You Better. Seek It Out And Embrace The True Friends That Care Enough To Risk Sharing It. I'm Not Sure What Takes More Guts-giving It Or Getting It.

If We Live In A World Where Information Drives What We Do, The Information We Get Becomes The Most Important Thing. The Person Who Chooses That Information Has Power.

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.

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.

Winners Quit All The Time. They Just Quit The Right Stuff At The Right Time.

We Don't Need More Stuff, We Need More Humanity.

All The Good Things In My Career Are A Direct Descendant Of What I Did And Learned At #‎ Camp

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.

But This Is A Remarkable Egg, An Egg Worth Talking About, An Egg Worth Crossing The Street For, An Egg Worth Writing About.

Change Is Not A Threat, It's An Opportunity. Survival Is Not The Goal, Transformative Success Is.

Leadership Is Scarce Because Few People Are Willing To Go Through The Discomfort Required To Lead. This Scarcity Makes Leadership Valuable...it's Uncomfortable To Stand Up In Front Of Strangers. It's Uncomfortable To Propose An Idea That Might Fail. It's Uncomfortable To Challenge The Status Quo. It's Uncomfortable To Resist The Urge To Settle...if You're Not Uncomfortable In Your Work As A Leader, It's Almost Certain You're Not Reaching Your Potential As A Leader.

Figure Out The People Part And The Technology Gets A Whole Lot Simpler.

Repeating Easy Tasks Again And Again Gets You Not Very Far. Attacking Only Steep Cliffs Where No Progress Is Made Isn’t Particularly Effective Either. No, The Best Path Is An Endless Series Of Difficult (but Achievable) Hills.

Low Price Is A Great Way To Sell A Commodity. That's Not Marketing Though, That's Efficiency.

The Best Way To Be Missed When You're Gone Is To Stand For Something When You're Here.

Stand For Something

Speak Up. Not Just Tomorrow, But Every Day.

The Problem With Competition Is That It Takes Away The Requirement To Set Your Own Path, To Invent Your Own Method, To Find A New Way.

Market-driven Design Builds The Success Of The Product's Marketing Into The Product Itself.

Human Nature Is To Need A Map. If You’re Brave Enough To Draw One, People Will Follow.

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.

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.

Organizations Grow When They Persuade A Tiny Cadre To Be Passionate, Not When They Touch Millions With A Mediocre Message

If It's Worth Listening To, It's Worth Questioning Until You Understand It.

Studying Entrepreneurshi P Without Doing It... Is Like Studying The Appreciation Of Music Without Listening To It.

The Largest Enemy Of Change Isn't 'no', It's 'not Yet' - That Is The Easiest Way To Forestall Change.

Decide, Before You Start, That You're Going To Change Three Things About What You Do All Day At Work. Then, As You're Reading, Find The Three Things And Do It. The Goal Of The Reading, Then, Isn't To Persuade You To Change, It's To Help You Choose What To Change.

You Can't Lose. Go, Go, Go!

Marketing Is The Act Of Inventing The Product. The Effort Of Designing It. The Craft Of Producing It. The Art Of Pricing It. The Technique Of Selling It.

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

Developing Expertise Or Assets That Are Not Easily Copied Is Essential; Otherwise You're Just A Middleman.

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.

The Object Isn't To Be Perfect. The Goal Isn't To Hold Back Until You've Created Something Beyond Reproach. I Believe The Opposite Is True. Our Birthright Is To Fail And To Fail Often, But To Fail In Search Of Something Bigger Than We Can Imagine. To Do Anything Else Is To Waste It All.

Play A New Game, Not The Older Game But Faster.

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.'

If You Want Customers To Hear About You, Make Something Worth Talking About.

All Motivation Is Self-motivation. Your Family, Your Boss, Or Your Co-workers Can Try To Get Your Engine Going, But Until You Decide What To Accomplish, Nothing Will Happen.

Accomplish Nothing

No One Knows More About The Way You Think Than You Do.

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

One Bad Review Doesn't Ruin My Day Because I Realize What A Badge Of Honor It Is To Get A Bit Of Criticism At All.

The Notion That I Do My Work Here, Now, Like This, Even When I Do Not Feel Like It, And Especially When I Do Not Feel Like It, Is Very Important. Because Lots And Lots Of People Are Creative When They Feel Like It, But You Are Only Going To Become A Professional If You Do It When You Don't Feel Like It. And That Emotional Waiver Is Why This Is Your Work And Not Your Hobby.

Go For The Edges. Challenge Yourself And Your Team To Describe What Those Edges Are, And Then Test Which Edge Is Most Likely To Deliver The Marketing Results You Seek.

If You Speak Up Online And Your Ideas Have Currency, People Are Going To Show Up And Want To Connect With You. What We Need More Of Are People With The Guts And Emotional Labour To Do This. The Greatest Shortage In Today's Society Is An Instinct To Produce.

The Second Person To Write A Story About A Young Boy And An Escaped Slave On The Mississippi Wasn't A Novelist, He Was A Typist.

Traditional Corporations, Particularly Large-scale Service And Manufacturing Businesses Are Organized For Efficiency. Or Consistency. But Not Joy. Joy Comes From Surprise And Connection And Humanity And Transparency And New...if You Fear Special Requests, If You Staff With Cogs, If You Have To Put It All In A Manual, Then The Chances Of Amazing Someone Are Really Quite Low.

The Combination Of Passion And Art Is What Makes Someone A Linchpin.

Leaders Who Set Out To Give Are More Productive Than Leaders Who Seek To Get.

Dreamers Don't Have Special Genes. They Find Circumstances That Amplify Their Dreams.

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.

In General, Organizations Are Afraid To Fire Customers, No Matter How Unreasonable. This Is A Mistake. It's Good For You.

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