Seth Godin Thinking Quotations

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.

I intentionally abandoned the hard stuff early on because not only do I think it's useless, I think it's a distraction.

I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.

Positive thinking doesn't guarantee results, all it offers is something better than negative thinking.

I don't think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.

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.

The problem with putting it all on the line is that it might not work out. The problem with not putting it all on the line is that it will never (ever) change things for the better. Not much of a choice, I think.

Successful people are successful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently.

I do not think you can get rid of the fear... but you can dance with it.

If you think your organization needs a bigger marketing budget, maybe you just need to be less average instead.

How was your day? If your answer was "fine," then I don't think you were leading.

I don’t think the shortage of artists has much to do with the innate ability to create or initiate. I think it has to do with believing that it’s possible and acceptable for you to do it. We’ve had these doors open wide for only a decade or so, and most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

No one knows more about the way you think than you do.

There's no life-work balance. I think you have to have the discipline to have the life you want to have. And if you are stealing from one part of your life in order to make the other part work, you are going to pay for it.

... 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.

No, the only way to know what people think is to watch what they do, not what they say. Do they come back for more? Do you cause them to change their behavior? Can you make them smile?

Don't scale because you think there's a pot of gold over that rainbow. Scale because you're ready and eager to do heroic work, every day, forever.

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.

I think if your goal is for everything to be okay, that's a mistake. To achieve that goal, the only obstacle you'd have to face tomorrow is to eliminate all risk ... I've made the decision that I'm never trying to make everything okay. I'm trying for there to be more loose ends, not fewer loose ends.

Think big. Start small.

I think that any time reality doesn't match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved.

What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.

I think "creativity" is better described as failing repeatedly until you get something right.

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.

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.

When we think about what might go wrong, we're more likely to design something that goes right.

If you think cat food is for cats, how come it doesn't come in mouse flavor?

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.

Reputation is what people expect us to do next. It's their expectation of the quality and character of the next thing we produce or say or do. We control our actions (even when it feels like we don't) and our actions over time (especially when we think no one is looking) earn our reputation.

The way the world works now, the way the rules of engagement operate, you can't claim to make sense out of the exterior without booking voyages into the interior. Think about it: How can you understand 'it' if you haven't made any effort to understand 'you'? Because what you're really doing is establishing a living, electrical, vital, energetic connection between it and you. You're creating both of them, simultaneously. A lot like quantum physics.

Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.

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.

Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.

I think if you're remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn't have a resume at all.

I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.

You gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn't think was so important.

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.

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.

Everyone will think it's stupid!" "Everyone says it's impossible." Guess what? Everyone works in the balloon factory and everyone is wrong.

More than anything else, I think prospects, customers and citizens watch what you do more than they listen to what you say.

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 !

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.

Way more productive, I think, to push yourself to be more in the world, not to encourage yourself to hide.

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.

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.

What marketers used to do is make average products for average people. That's what mass marketing is. They would ignore the geeks, and - God forbid - the laggards. It was all about going for the center. I don't think that's the strategy we want to use anymore.

I've found that giving gifts is transformative. It makes me better. It clarifies my thinking and allows me to do better work.