Quotes from Seth Godin

The reason it's difficult to learn something new is that it will change you into someone who disagrees with the person you used to be.

Don't listen to the cynics. They're cynics for a reason. For them, the resistance won a long time ago. When the resistance tells you not to listen to something, read something, or attend something, go. Do it. It's not an accident that successful people read more books. Symptoms

Do What You Want; these are the 4 most frightening words brought to us by the Connection Revolution. If you want to sing, sing. If you want to lead, lead. If you want touch, connect, describe, disrupt, give, support, build, question—Do It. You will not be picked. But, if you want to pick yourself—go for it. The cost is that you own the results.

Instead of wondering when you're next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life that you don't need to escape from.

The mass market is dying. There is no longer one best song or one best kind of coffee. Now there are a million micromarkets, but each micromarket still has a best.

Short-term pain has more impact on most people than long-term benefits do, which is why it's so important for you to amplify the long-term benefits of not quitting. You need to remind yourself of life at the other end of the Dip because it's easier to overcome the pain of yet another unsuccessful cold call if the reality of a successful sales career is more concrete.

The same is true for learning. True learning (as opposed to education) is a voluntary experience that requires tension and discomfort (the persistent feeling of incompetence as we get better at a skill).

You will never become a category of one if you run with the pack.

People don't want what you make They want what it will do for them.

A great school experience won't keep you from being remarkable, but it's usually not sufficient to guarantee that you will become so. There's something else at work here.

Art, at least art as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person.

Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing.

Commit to the frightening work of flying blind

THE RIGHT INFORMATION BRINGS KNOWLEDGE. AND KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. SHARING IT IS EMPOWERMENT.

As it becomes easier to monitor informal consumer networks, the winners will be companies that figure out what's working fastest – and do it more (and figure out what's not working – and kill it). Zara, a fast-growing retailer in Europe, changes its clothing line every three or four weeks. By carefully watching what's working and what's not, they can evolve their lineup far faster than the competition can ever hope to.

And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.

Then a deadline arrives and you have to cut it short. Is shipping that important? I think it is. I think the discipline of shipping is essential in the long-term path to becoming indispensable.

the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind of person who changes things is this: lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it's worth doing. Faith that failure won't destroy you.

We'd like to believe that efficient, useful, cost-effective products and services are the way to succeed. That hard work is its own reward. Most marketers carry around a worldview that describes themselves as innovators, not storytellers.

The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.

Don't worry about your stuff. Worry about making meaning instead.

In a competitive world, adversity is your ally. The harder it gets, the better chance you have of insulating yourself from the competition. If that adversity also causes you to quit, though, it's all for nothing.

Scarcity, as we've seen, is the secret to value. If there wasn't a Dip, there'd be no scarcity.

The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that's not going to get better is just too high.