“I was happily pedaling along on the rail trail when three spandex speedsters blew by me on their handmade carbon bikes. For a moment, I was disheartened. What’s the point–they’re speedy, I’m not. Then I realize that it’s not a bike race, it’s a bike ride. There is no winning, just the riding.”
Seth Godin
“’Do you want to know what I think?’ The best answer might be, ‘no.’ Because this person is not very good at offering useful feedback. Because you didn’t create this product or service or performance to please this person. They’re not the customer. Because you’re not going to revise this any time soon. The movie is made, and specific feedback isn’t going to get the movie remade. Just because criticism is on offer doesn’t mean you have to seek it out or even listen to it.”
Seth Godin
“What do we say when a customer or colleague says, ‘thank you’? For a long time, it was ‘you’re welcome.’ This indicates that you put in some effort and you’re willing to do it again on request. Recently ‘no problem’ has become more common. This implies that the effort could have been a huge hassle, but this time, it was okay. For people who are choosing to do the work of hospitality and connection, though, the most accurate answer might be, ‘my pleasure.’ After all, you had a choice, and you chose to do this work precisely so that it could have an impact on someone else. The story we tell ourselves about the work can be fuel for finding ways to do it better. If it’s not a pleasure, and you’re doing things like this all day, it might be a good time to find something else to do.”
Seth Godin
“Mike Schur, co-creator of Parks and Recreation, said of his career, ‘This is not stuff you can read in a book,’ he said. ‘This is stuff that you have to experience.’ I think it’s also useful to flip it around. There are things you will have trouble experiencing until you read them in a book. A useful non-fiction book is a map, not the territory. It’s a chance to safely experience what might be, to experience it before it happens. And a book makes it easy to talk about what you’re doing. It gives you the structure and the words to explain to someone else why they might want to come along with you on the journey.”
Seth Godin
“Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the chores, but to create and innovate. And yet, some days feel more conducive than others. There are moments when it simply flows. When the surf’s up, cancel everything else. Don’t waste it. Postpone the dentist, outsource the grocery shopping and leave your email for now. Make hay.”
Seth Godin
“There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status); Safety (survival and peace of mind); Meaning (hope and the path forward). The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to overdo one or the other and perhaps ignore a third. When a social network finds your button and presses it over and over, it’s hard to resist. New cultural forces catch on because they hit on one or more of these. And politics is understood through this lens as well. See the braid and it’s a lot easier to figure out why we might be stressed.”
Seth Godin
“One way to show status is by demonstrating how many resources you have. A bespoke suit, a huge graduation party, a fancy building… A bully who physically intimidates or an angry driver who cuts you off in traffic are each working to show their status and strength. But it’s also possible to demonstrate security and confidence by doing precisely the opposite. The billionaire in a t-shirt. The person who holds the door open and lets you go first in line… these are also demonstrations of status. The interesting question isn’t whether someone has status. It’s whether they’re gutsy enough to demonstrate it by making things better for others.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Problems don’t really care whether we acknowledge them or not. They still exist. What matters is how we choose to direct our energy, because our tomorrow is the direct result of the way we spend our resources today. Pick your problems, pick your future.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“An event or a journey? They’re easy to confuse. An event happens at date certain, then it’s over, nothing more to be done. A journey might include an event, but it’s bigger than that, and ongoing. A wedding is an event, a marriage is a journey. The week a book is published is an event, while the creation, publication and lifespan of the ideas in the book are a journey. The focus and energy we lavish on events can easily distract us from the journeys we care about.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Everyone has one. It’s the part of ourselves we won’t look at, acknowledge or risk disturbing. It’s the story or trauma or situation that must be avoided at all costs. People will choose careers, families and opportunities simply to avoid confronting the little tiny voice that is hiding inside. And marketers with low standards will brazenly manipulate us to extract money spent to protect the sore spot. It’s almost impossible to make it go away. But if we’re brave enough to acknowledge it exists, it’s possible to help it take up far less room.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“In a competition between someone who knows the most and someone who is willing to learn the most, the edge usually goes to the curious and empathic professional, not the one who is simply protecting what’s already known.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Some problems lend themselves to reexamination. A second, third or even fourth thought is productive, because our initial impulses might not reflect our best effort at understanding the nuances of the situation. But many problems simply create more thoughts, without productive output. As we confront something that is unlikely to have a simple or productive way forward, it’s easy to go into a mental tizzy imagining solutions. The art is understanding which sort of problem we’re facing. And devoting the right amount of thought (not less and definitely not more) to the situation we’re in. Spending cycles on categorizing the problem is probably more productive than wasting time on problems that don’t deserve our effort.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Pushing your way through some critical choices now will probably pay off in far more good days later. How many good days later does hard decision work today earn us? Stalling costs us more than we expect. We get stressed from the act of stalling, and then later, we will have to pay the ongoing cost of putting off work and decisions that would have been easier and more profitable a while ago.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Even the longest biography is only 66 hours on audio. This means that the author has to leave out almost everything. We write our own autobiography each day by deciding what to focus on, what to rehash, and what to worry about. The same life story can be told in many ways, and the way we tell it changes who we are and who we become. Who is editing your version?”
Seth Godin, Blog
“If, every time there’s a dish in the sink, you load and run the dishwasher and scrub the entire kitchen, you’re never going to get anything else done. On the other hand, if you wait until the sink is overflowing and the kitchen is filthy before you work on it, you’re going to spend a lot of time living with a dirty kitchen. Somewhere in between the two extremes is a productive steady state. The same goes for your relationship with a customer, your staffing decisions and just about everything else we do all day. Setting the triggers for action is best done in advance, and maintained regularly. Waiting for a crisis is expensive and risky.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“If you do anything at the last minute that takes more than a minute, you’re not organizing your project properly. The last minute is not a buffer zone, nor is it the moment to double-check your work. The last minute is simply sixty seconds to enjoy and to remind yourself that you successfully planned ahead.”
Seth Godin
“The math is simple: many people do less than they should. They might be selfish, but it’s likely that they’re struggling with a lack of resources or a story of insufficiency. Either way, in any community or organization, many people contribute less than their peers. Whether it’s splitting a check, getting a project done or making an impact on the culture or a cause, if you want things to get better, the only way is to be prepared to do more than your fair share. Because we need to make up for the folks who don’t.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“If your plan, your idea or your art doesn’t involve any significant hurdles in moving forward, it’s probably not worth that much. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The tactic is to seek a path where you see and understand the significant hurdles that kept others away. And then dance with them. They’re not a problem, they’re a feature.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“The worst golfer in town came in last in the club tournament. Actually, that’s not true. The worst golfer didn’t even enter. Well, that’s not true either. The worst golfer doesn’t even play.”
Seth Godin, Blog