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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.

-Seth Godin

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Yes, I Think It's

Seth Godin

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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.

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You Can't Have Good Ideas Unless You're Willing To Generate A Lot Of Bad Ones.

If Not Enough People Doubt You, You're Not Making A Difference.

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Isn't The Drawing Board The Place Where All The Best Work Happens? It's Not A Bad Thing To Go Back There. It's The Entire Point.

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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.

If It's Work, We Try To Figure Out How To Do Less, If It's Art, We Try To Figure Out How To Do More

We Need To Care Enough To Connect, To Put Ourselves At Emotional Risk And Play One Note Worth Hearing.

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

Stand For Something

Emotions Are Far More Contagious Than Any Disease. A Smile Or A Panic Will Spread Through A Group Of People Far Faster Than Any Virus Ever Could. When You Walk Into The Office Or A Negotiation, Then, Wash Your Bad Mood Away Before You See Us. Don't Cough On Us, Don't Sneeze On Us, Sure, But Don't Bring Your Grouchiness, Your Skepticism Or Your Fear In Here Either. It Might Spread.

Leaders Have Followers, Managers Have Employees. Managers Make Widgets, Leaders Make Change.

If You Don't Get It Built, The Work Doesn't Matter.

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

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.

We Fail When We Give Up Too Soon.

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.

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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If You Have No Wish, How Can It Possibly Come True?

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

Products That Are Remarkable Get Talked About.

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

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.

I Learned That A Long Walk And Calm Conversation Are An Incredible Combination If You Want To Build A Bridge.

The Reason It Seems That Price Is All Your Customers Care About Is That You Haven't Given Them Anything Else To Care About.

Don't Save The Canary. Fix The Coal Mine.

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

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.

Surprise And Differentiation Have Far More Impact Than Noise Does.

Differentiation

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The Internet Has Opened The Door For Millions Of Businesses To Do Things Differently, Because There Are Other Assets Now, Assets That Can Transcend Location. Your Permission To Talk To Customers, Your Reputation, Your Unique Products-you Can Build A Business Around Them Online.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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The Application Process Changes The List Of Who Applies. Your Applicants Reflect Your Methods.

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If You Can't Sell To 1 In 1000, Why Market To A Million?

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.

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Making A Difference

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The Only Purpose Of Customer Service Is To Change Feelings.

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

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A Business Owner Is The Boss, But It's A Job, A Place That Is Stable And Profitable. An Entrepreneur Is An Artist Of Sorts, Throwing His/herself Into Impossible Situations And Seeking Out Problems That Require Heart And Guts To Solve. Both Are Fine, But Choose.

The People Who Are The Best In The World Specialize At Getting Really Good At The Questions They Don't Know.

Basically You Create Your Experience Through Your Beliefs About Yourself And The Nature Of Reality. Another Way To Understand This Is To Realize That You Create Your Experiences Through Your Expectations.

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Here's Conventional Wisdom: Success Makes You Happy. Happiness Permits You To Be Generous. In Fact, It Actually Works Like This: Generosity Makes You Happy. Happy People Are More Likely To Be Successful.

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Difficult Tasks

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Falling In Love

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

The Status Quo Is Leaving The Building, And Quickly.

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

The Myth That The Ceo Is Going To Discover You And Nurture You And Ask You To Join Her For Lunch Is Just That, A Hollywood Myth.

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.

Taking Delight In The Journey Takes Confidence. It Pushes The Envelope Of Design.

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

... Outsiders Are Way More Likely To Approach Your Organization With Fabulous Projects If They Think They're Likely To Both Get A Good Reception And Succeed When They Get To Market.

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

If You're Not Willing To Face The Abyss Of Choice, You Will Almost Certainly Not Spend Enough Time Dancing With Opportunity.

If You're Different Somehow And Have Made Yourself Unique, People Will Find You And Pay You More.

Everyone Is Not Your Customer.

All The Creativity Books In The World Aren’t Going To Help You If You’re Unwilling To Have Lousy, Lame, And Even Dangerously Bad Ideas.

The Best Marketing Strategy Is To Destroy Your Industry Before Your Competition Does.

Speak Up. Not Just Tomorrow, But Every Day.

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

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.

The Challenge With Being An Initiator Of Projects Is That You Are Never, Ever Done.

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.

Doing Justice To The Work Is Your Task, Not Setting A World Record.

Understanding The Mythology Of Your Partner, Your Customer And Your Audience Is Far More Important Than Watching The Instant Replay Of What Actually Happened.

Faced With The Opportunity To Become The Category Of One, We Almost Always Hesitate, Almost Always Compromise, Almost Always Dumb It Down To Play It A Little Bit Safer

The Thing Is, The Future Happens. Every Single Day, Like It Or Not. Sure, Tomorrow Is Risky, Frightening And In Some Way Represents One Step Closer To The End. But It Also Brings With It The Possibility Of Better And The Chance To Do Something That Matters.

In A Digital World, The Gift I Give You Almost Always Benefits Me More Than It Costs.

What You Do For A Living Is Not Be Creative, What You Do For A Living Is Ship.

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

We Don't Need To Be Taught To Make Art, But Sometimes We Need Permission To Do So. Following Instructions Is Overrated.

Following Instructions

How Often Do Our Heroes Stand Still? It's Hard To Imagine Spock And Kirk Landing On A Planet And Just Relaxing For A Month Or Two. Just Hanging Out Has Nothing To Do With Boldly Going Where No One Has Gone Before. What Makes Us Different From Every Other Creature Is That We Go Places, Places We've Not Gone Before. We Do It Willingly, And Often. What Makes Our Work And Our Life Interesting Is Discovery, Surprise, And The Risk Of Exploration.

Seizing New Ground, Making Connections Between People Or Ideas, Working Without A Map-these Are Works Of Art, And If You Do Them, You Are An Artist, Regardless Of Whether You Wear A Smock, Use A Computer, Or Work With Others All Day Long.

Inspirational Life

The People That Are Doing Work That Matters Aren't Doing Work Thats Popular. They're Just Doing Work That Changes Some People.

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

Life Is Like Skiing. Just Like Skiing, The Goal Is Not To Get To The Bottom Of The Hill. It's To Have A Bunch Of Good Runs Before The Sun Sets.

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.

The World Is Begging For You To Lead.

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