“You are not your work. Your work is a series of choices made with generous intent to cause something to happen. We can always learn to make better choices.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 181)
Seth Godin Quotes
“When we stop worrying about whether we’ve done it perfectly, we can focus on the process instead. Saturday Night Live doesn’t go on at 11:30 p.m. because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30. We don’t ship because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship. Take what you get and commit to a process to make it better.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 171)
“If you run a marathon, you’re going to get tired. It would make no sense to hire a coach and say, ‘I want you to help me train so I don’t get tired when I run a marathon.’ The only difference between the tens of thousands of people who finish the marathon and those that don’t is that the finishers figured out where to put their tired.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 169)
“The infinite game is the game we play to play, not to win. The infinite game is a catch in the backyard with your four-year-old son. You’re not trying to win catch; you’re simply playing catch. The most important parts of our lives are games that we can’t imagine winning.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 167)
“Every creator who has engaged in the practice has a long, nearly infinite string of failures. All the ways not to start a novel, not to invent the light bulb, not to transform a relationship. Again and again, creative leaders fail. It is the foundation of our work. We fail and then we edit and then we do it again.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 164)
“All of us get an endless supply of ideas, notions, and inklings. Successful people, often without realizing it, ignore the ones that are less likely to ‘work,’ and instead focus on the projects that are more likely to advance the mission. Sometimes we call this good taste. It’s possible to get better at this pre-filtering. By doing it out loud. By writing out the factors that you’re seeking, or even by explaining to someone else how your part of the world works. Instinct is great. It’s even better when you work on it.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 143)
“Money supports our commitment to the practice. Money permits us to turn professional, to focus our energy and our time on the work, creating more impact and more connection, not less. And more importantly, money is how our society signifies enrollment. The person who has paid for your scarce time and scarce output is more likely to value it, to share it, and to take it seriously.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 108)
“It’s insulting to call a professional talented. She’s skilled, first and foremost. Many people have talent, but only a few care enough to show up fully, to earn their skill. Skill is rarer than talent. Skill is earned. Skill is available to anyone who cares enough.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 103)
“Everything that matters is something we’ve chosen to do. Everything that matters is a skill and an attitude. Everything that matters is something we can learn. The practice is choice plus skill plus attitude. We can learn it and we can do it again.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 102)
“The time we spend worrying is actually time we’re spending trying to control something that is out of our control. Time invested in something that is within our control is called work. That’s where our most productive focus lies.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 99)
“If the problem can be solved, why worry? And if the problem can’t be solved, then worrying will do you no good.”
Shantideva, via The Practice (Page 99)
“Any idea withheld is an idea taken away. It’s selfish to hold back when there’s a chance you have something to offer.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 98)
“If we failed, would it be worth the journey? Do you trust yourself enough to commit to engaging with a project regardless of the chances of success? The first step is to separate the process from the outcome. Not because we don’t care about the outcome. But because we do.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 92)
“The ability to eagerly suggest an alternative to your work is a sign that your posture is one of generosity, not grasping.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 88)
“When we get really attached to how others will react to our work, we stop focusing on our work and begin to focus on controlling the outcome instead.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 86)
“If the only measure of your worth is in the outcome of a transaction, not in the practice to which you’ve committed, then of course it makes sense to cut corners and to hustle.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 85)
“If our focus is on external validation, then the journey will always be fraught. It’s culturally impossible to do important work that will be loved by everyone. The very act of being ‘important’ means that it will have a different impact on people.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 72)
“A key component of practical empathy is a commitment to not be empathic to everyone. A contemporary painter must ignore the criticism or disdain that comes from someone who’s hoping for a classical still life. The tech innovator has to be okay with leaving behind the laggard who’s still using a VCR. That’s okay, because the work isn’t for them. ‘It’s not for you’ is the unspoken possible companion to ‘Here, I made this.'”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 71)
“Selling can feel selfish. We want to avoid hustling people, and so it’s easy to hold back in fear of manipulating someone. Here’s an easy test for manipulation: if the people you’re interacting with discover what you already know, will they be glad that they did what you asked them to?”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 46)
“Writers write. Runners run. Establish your identity by doing your work.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 35)