Great Throughts Treasury

"Fear for a linchpin is a clue that you?re getting close to doing something important."

"Figure out why the target needs to pay attention to you? Find information they desperately need (books, blog, research, surveys, etc.) and give it to them. This is the heart of new marketing."

"Fear of living without a map is the main reason people are so insistent that we tell them what to do."

"Finding new ways, more clever ways to interrupt people doesn?t work."

"Fitting in is a short-term strategy, standing out pays off in the long-run."

"Finding security in mediocrity is an exhausting process. You can work only so many hours, fret only so much. Being a slightly better typist or a slightly faster coder is insufficient. You?re always looking over your shoulder, always trying to be a little less mediocre than the guy next to you. It wears you out."

"Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a deal-breaker."

"For many of us, the happiest future is one that's precisely like the past, except a little better"

"For the first time ever, everyone in the organization ? not just the boss ? is expected to lead."

"Forty years ago, Richard Branson, who ultimately founded Virgin Air, found himself in a similar situation in an airport in the Caribbean. They had just canceled his flight, the only flight that day. Instead of freaking out about how essential the flight was, how badly his day was ruined, how his entire career was now in jeopardy, the young Branson walked across the airport to the charter desk and inquired about the cost of chartering a flight out of Puerto Rico. Then he borrowed a portable blackboard and wrote, Seats to Virgin Islands, $39. He went back to his gate, sold enough seats to his fellow passengers to completely cover his costs, and made it home on time."

"Gardens not buildings: Great projects start out feeling like buildings. There are architects, materials, staff, rigid timelines, permits, engineers, a structure. It works or it doesn't. Build something that doesn't fall down. On time. But in fact, great projects, like great careers and relationships that last, are gardens. They are tended, they shift, they grow. They endure over time, gaining a personality and reflecting their environment. When something dies or fades away, we prune, replant and grow again. Perfection and polish aren't nearly as important as good light, good drainage and a passionate gardener. By all means, build. But don't finish. Don't walk away. Here we grow."

"Freedom isn't the ability to do whatever you want. It's the willingness to do whatever you want."

"Frames are the words and images and interactions that reinforce a bias someone is already feeling."

"Fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith before they explore it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not they want to accept the ramifications."

"Generate joy. Don't just satisfy a need for a commodity."

"Go ahead, do something impossible."

"Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can."

"Give up control and give it away ? The more you give your idea away, the more your company is going to be worth."

"Get it right for ten people before you rush around scaling up to a thousand."

"Giving up your attachment to what might happen?is an essential part of commitment."

"Good art is useless and banal. No one crosses the street to buy good art, or becomes loyal to a good artist. (Do great art.)"

"Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are, and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing results you seek."

"Good enough, stopped being good enough a long time ago. Why not be great?"

"Good marketers realize that it is an investment."

"Good marketers measure. Metrics are critical to ensuring that your marketing is aligned with your business objectives. Further, it?s not just about gathering information for the sake of data. Rather, track those elements that enable you to measure whether you?ve accomplished your goals."

"Good marketers tell stories."

"Great brands represent something bigger than themselves. You can create this accidentally if you?re lucky, but you can create it on purpose if you try."

"Good marketers tell a story."

"Great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator."

"Great design = getting people to do what you want."

"Great bosses hire motivated people, set high expectations, and give their people room to be remarkable."

"Great leaders don?t want attention, but they use it. They use it to unite the tribe and to reinforce its sense of purpose."

"Greatness is frightening. With it comes responsibility."

"Great leaders don?t try to please everyone."

"Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them."

"Group projects are the exception in school, but they should be the norm."

"Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits."

"Having a factory job is not a natural state. It wasn?t at the heart of being human until very recently. We?ve been culturally brainwashed."

"Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you?d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And after you?ve done that, to do it again the next day."

"Higher education is going to change as much in the next decade as newspapers did in the last one."

"Here?s what we know: it?s easy to record and print a CD and hard to make a hit. Easy to write a book and hard to make it a bestseller. Easy to build a website and hard to create a viral success. We also know, and I hope Dick Cheney now knows, that it?s easy to invade a country and hard to be a successful invader and to dominate and change a culture. So, the questions are simple: Are we in a Dip in Iraq? Everyone knows we?re in pain, but is it the pain that comes from being in a dead end?a cul-de-sac?situation that might very well get worse but probably won?t get better? Or is it a Dip, where sufficient effort can push us through and get us out the other side?we better know the answer. The giant mistakes were made early. Cheney didn?t tell us what the Dip would look like, nor did he outline what we would do when we hit it. That?s a big difference between the current team and Churchill or Roosevelt. If you?re not ready for the Dip, it?s a lot harder to stick through it."

"Here is one way to think about the list of what makes you indispensable: 1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization 2. Delivering unique creativity 3. Managing a situation or organization of great complexity 4. Leading customers 5. Inspiring staff 6. Providing deep domain knowledge 7. Possessing a unique talent"

"Here?s the good news: The fact that it?s difficult and unpredictable works in your advantage."

"Here?s the art of being an entrepreneur. There are almost no established Dips that are available to a big-time visionary entrepreneur. Instead, this kind of entrepreneur creates a new one?a new market, a new challenge, a new mastery. Part of the work of the successful venture capitalist is to imagine life after the Dip. For example, to fund Google because inventing a search site that dominates the market creates a new Dip, not because Yahoo can be replaced."

"Here's the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can't tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there'd be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don't you hate that? I love that there's no map."

"Heretics are engaged, passionate, and more powerful and happier than everyone else. And they have a tribe that they support (and that supports them in return.)"

"Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements."

"Heretics understand that changing the status quo is not only profitable, but fun!"

"Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it's the person who's challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs. Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It's nice to get paid. It's essential to believe."

"Highlighting what's working helps you make that happen more often."