Great Throughts Treasury

"What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love"

"What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It's about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it's something that people have wanted forever."

"What we cannot do, though, is digitize passion."

"When a CEO takes the spoils of royalty and starts acting like a selfish monarch, he?s no longer leading. He?s taking."

"What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?"

"What is school for? If you're not asking that, you're wasting time and money."

"What most people want in a leader is something that's very difficult to find: we want someone who listens...The secret, Reagan's secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said - they're less focused on whether or not you do what they said."

"When Pat Holt strings together a list of words not to overuse?Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally?she?s not being a stickler for formality and grammar. Instead she?s reminding us that words matter, that poor word use is just a red flag for someone who wants to ignore you."

"When an artist stops work before his art is received, his work is unfulfilled."

"When exactly were you brainwashed into believing that the best way to earn a living is to have a job?"

"When it is time for layoffs, the safest job belongs to the artist, the Linchpin, the one who can?t easily be outsourced or replaced."

"When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter."

"When our responses turn into reactions and we set out to teach people a lesson, we lose."

"When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate."

"When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter."

"When access to information was limited we needed to load students with facts. Now, when we have no scarcity of facts, or the access to them, we need to load them up with understanding."

"When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter."

"When those in power use shame to bully the weak into compliance, they are stealing from us. They tell us that they will expose our secrets (not good enough, not hardworking enough, not from the right family, made a huge mistake once) and will use the truth to exile us from our tribe. This shame, the shame that lives deep within each of us, is used as a threat. And when those in power use it, they take away part of our humanity."

"When you fall in love with 'the system,' you lose the ability to grow."

"When you copy something that?s already on the other side of the Dip, you?ve already lost. Microsoft ?quit? the MP3 player market when they identified the wrong Dip. They picked the obvious, ?safe? one?the one committees of people could live with, but one that is so big and so steep that even Microsoft doesn?t have the money to get through it. Microsoft has a long history of sticking through Dips, and a long history of quitting dead ends. I have no idea what they?re thinking when it comes to the Zune, but it?s a dead end, through and through."

"When times change, the resilience and speed and adaptive ability of the artist will easily outlast the lumbering, brittle industrialist."

"When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short not easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it's not, dream bigger."

"When you learn to listen to your fear, you?ve found a compass that can show you what matters."

"When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter."

"When you give something away, you benefit more than the recipient does."

"When we try to drill and practice someone into subservient obedience, we?re stamping out the artist that lives within."

"When you work under the cloud of anxiety, the best strategy is to play it safe, because if (when!) it fails, you?ll be blameless."

"When your art fails, make better art."

"When you?re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out?this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it?s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don?t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, Hey, maybe I should check my e-mail for a while, or you know, I could use a nap. If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again."

"When your people do what they do because they love it, it works. Even if they?re not as technically adept as the competition."

"While someone can attempt to shame you, shame must also be accepted to be effective. We can?t make you feel shame without your participation."

"Where does trust come from? This is what every marketer wants to know. Without trust, marketers know that there are no sales. Trust means the prospect believes not only that the product being sold will actually solve his problems, but that if for some reason it doesn't, the company will make good on its reputation of performance. We happily pay a premium to buy our jewelry from a fancy store instead of from a shady character on the street. Why? Because we trust the store to sell us the real deal, while the guy with the watches in a briefcase represents substantial risks. Corporations pay consultants billions of dollars for their advice, when they could probably find similar advice down the street at the local community college. Why the premium? Because Bain and McKinsey and the like are trusted advisers. They've built enough of a track record, and enough confidence, that they can command substantial premium."

"Who gets to decide what you want?"

"When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams."

"Why is this mediocre? We love to point out how broken our systems are. We enjoy getting angry at hotels or government agencies or airlines that are so obviously doing a poor job. Idiots! But we almost never look at merely mediocre products and wonder why they aren?t great. Mediocre services or products do what they?re supposed to, but have set the bar so low that it?s hardly worth the energy to cross the street to buy them. A resolute generic sameness pervades this mediocrity. Why isn?t every restaurant meal a fabulous buy for the money? Why isn?t every tax dollar spent with the intensity and focus it could be spent with? It seems as though we are willing to accept mediocre as long as the product, the service, or the organization isn?t totally broken."

"Why are you working so hard to bury your natural-born instincts?"

"Why waste a sentence saying nothing?"

"Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt."

"With free information available for all, why pay $200, 000 for it?"

"Worldviews run deep, and they change the way we interpret events in the world, [and] the people in it."

"Work is nothing but a platform for art and the emotional labor that goes with it."

"With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top."

"Without leaders, there are no followers. Tribes are about faith - about belief in an idea and in a community. And they are grounded in respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for the other members as well. Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy."

"Wouldn?t it be great to be gifted? In fact? It turns out that choices lead to habits. Habits become talents. Talents are labeled gifts. You?re not born this way, you get this way."

"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."

"You are not your resume, you are your work."

"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."

"You become a winner because you?re good at losing."

"You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you?ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you?re learning to say it better. ? David Marmet"

"You are responsible for your own experience."