Insight
Godin: Compulsory education is coercion; genuine learning requires serial incompetence
“Education is compliance, education is Compulsory education is coercion. Learning is serial incompetence on our way to getting better, and so the flip, the pairing, the tandem of emotional labor is, do you care enough to learn something?”
Insight
Godin: Stock options are a massive demotivator in almost every organization
“You know, one of the challenges of the whole stock option thing is entrepreneurs and founders think that other people will be as motivated by owning part of the company as they are. They're not, not even close. It's a sort of a prize pool at the end of the gam…”
Insight
Seth Godin: Quality is defined solely by whether work meets specifications
“Quality is not luxury. Quality is not expensive. Quality is not that you love it. Quality is just one thing. It meets spec.”
Insight
Godin: The internet is a micro medium, not a mass medium
“The internet is not a mass medium. We haven't had a new mass medium since television. The internet is a micro medium. It is the best medium ever developed to reach specific people, but it is terrible at reaching everyone. There is no homepage. It is impossible…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Godin: Any Book Written for 'Everybody' Is Guaranteed to Fail
“So that book is going to fail. I happily put that in writing right this minute. That book is going to fail.”
Insight
Godin: Creating for 'Everyone' Is an Excuse to Avoid Accountability
“The way to be on the hook is to say, this is only for people who are like this. Because if those people hate it, then you were wrong. Whereas if you say, this is for everyone, you're allowed to hide behind, well, everyone hasn't found it yet.”
Opinion
Godin: Forbes wealth rankings are a toxic pox on culture
“I think the Forbes is actually a toxic pox on our culture because that's no way to measure someone's contribution.”
Insight
Godin: Live verbal presentations should transfer emotion, not information
“If you want to exchange or deliver information to a group of people, one of the worst ways to do it is with a live verbal presentation. If your goal is actually to deliver that scientific paper or that insight, then you should either write a book or write a me…”
Insight
Godin: Most authors chase status and defer too much to risk-averse editors
“The authors of most books are looking for many of the magical elements of status that come from successfully being published. They pay attention to the bestseller list. They game it. They pay attention to reviews. They worry about what their friends think of t…”
Insight
Godin: Claiming Lack of Ideas Stems from Fear of Embarrassment
“What you're actually saying is, I don't care enough to ask a question that might embarrass me. That's what you're actually saying. And That's a euphemism for, I don't want to make the choice to be creative.”
Insight
Godin: Quality simply means meeting specifications, not luxury or personal love
“Quality is not luxury. Quality is not expensive. Quality is not that you love it. Quality is just one thing. It meets spec.”
Insight
Godin: Making someone's idea one percent better disincentivizes them
“You make someone's idea one percent better, you actually disincentivize them, not incentivize them.”
Insight
Godin: Do not work for intuitive tastemakers who lack a domain taxonomy
“And if you can hire somebody like that, you should do it, but you shouldn't work for somebody like that, and you shouldn't have somebody like that as a client, because it's going to be really hard for you to get better.”
Insight
Seth Godin: Professionals keep promises regardless of mood; amateurs rely on feelings
“A professional makes a promise and then keeps the promise whether or not they feel like it. Amateurs get to be authentic, whatever that means. Amateurs show up when they want to and make what they want to make.”
Insight
Seth Godin: Deciding once creates an enduring creative practice
“If you have a practice, You get through them. You get through them because you already decided there was going to be a blog post tomorrow, and you already decided that the podcast comes out on a regular basis, and you already decided whatever it is. Make the d…”
Insight
Godin: True creativity requires deciding to make change rather than following instructions
“And in the case of a creative, it involves somebody who has made the decision That they want to change things. And that is different than adopting the brainwashed mindset of, I will do what I am told.”
Insight
Godin: Creators must produce distinctive work that puts them on the hook
“What I'm arguing is you want to be doing work where people can tell the difference because that puts you on the hook.”
Insight
Godin: Creators and startups must target the smallest viable audience
“That our goal cannot be to be for everyone. That we have to be for someone, the smallest viable audience, not the biggest possible audience, and so for people who are, you know, taking notes in search of a nugget, that's one that can change how you do your wor…”
Insight
Seth Godin: Builders Mistakenly Focus on Feedback From Non-Target Users
“And the mistake that so many people building something make is they get hung up on the feedback of people who it's not for, as opposed to being obsessed with the people who it is for.”
Insight
Godin: Harry Potter Succeeded by Targeting Precocious Twelve-Year-Olds, Not Everyone
“Harry Potter, the most successful book franchise in history. It made the author over a billion dollars. That book is for almost no one, right? That book is for precocious Twelve-year-olds, and people who like to remember what it was like to be a precocious twe…”
Insight
Godin: People discover their identity by taking deliberate action first
“And I would like to flip Dolly's phrase upside down, and I'd like to say, do it on purpose, and you'll find out who you are. Asking for a guarantee before you start isn't helpful. Instead, we need to look at a concept, an idea, and be willing to try it out wit…”
Assertion Supported
Godin: Acton Academy bans students from asking adults questions
“I like to talk about the Acton Academy which is now, there's more than a hundred of them. It's basically a one-room schoolhouse. Typically, there are 50 kids and two adults in the whole building, and one of them is the custodian. And one of the rules at Acton …”
Insight
Godin: A sunk cost is a gift from your former self
“A sunk cost is a gift from your former self.”
Insight
Godin: Define media boundaries and constraints before creating content
“I always come up with
My media boundaries before I come up with the media content. And I learned that when I was a book packager, meaning I don't say I have a good idea. I'm going to make a book. I say, what are the constraints of books? How do I explore that?…”
Seth Godin