Great Throughts Treasury

"In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn't necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it."

"In a competitive world, adversity is your ally."

"In a world of free, everyone can play."

"In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible."

"In a world where access to data was always limited, the ability to remember what you were taught, without fresh access to all the date, was a critical success factor."

"In fact, every single function of an organization has a wind problem."

"In our desire to please everyone, it?s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre."

"In the connected world, reputation is worth more than test scores."

"In business you cannot discover new heights unless you have the courage to leave the ground."

"In the googleworld, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more."

"In the connection revolution, value is not created by increasing the productivity of those manufacturing a good or a service. Value is created by connecting buyers to sellers, producers to consumers, and the passionate to each other."

"In the connected age, reading and writing remain the two skills that are most likely to pay off with exponential results."

"Industries don?t die by surprise. It?s not as if you didn?t know it was coming."

"Indispensable Linchpins are not waiting for instructions, but instead, figuring out what to do next. If you have a job where someone tells you what to do next, you?ve just given up the chance to create value."

"Initiative = Happiness"

"Initiative and starting are about neither of these. They are about let?s see and try. If there?s no clear right answer, perhaps the thing you ought to do is something new. Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated."

"Innovation is repeated failure until something works."

"Instead of speed dating your way to interruption, instead of yelling at strangers all day trying to make a living, coordinating a tribe of 1,000 requires patience, consistency and a focus on long-term relationships and life time value. You don?t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers."

"Instead of trying to use your technology and expertise to make a better product for your users? standard behavior, experiment with inviting the users to change their behavior to make the product work dramatically better."

"Innovative solutions to new problems don?t get old."

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don?t need to escape from."

"Instead of spending $5 million on advertising, spend $5 million on a great product that people want to talk about."

"Is it any wonder we teach this mindset? Factories and managers don?t want spunk, or even innovation. They generally seek compliance. We rely on the disobedient few for innovation, but today, innovation is our only option."

"Interruption Marketing is doomed as a mass marketing tool. The cost to the consumer is just too high. The alternative is Permission Marketing, which offers the consumer an opportunity to volunteer to be marketed to."

"Invent your own next chapter."

"Is Purple Cow for people. Someone worth talking about, someone worth crossing the street to say hello to, someone who refuses to be an interchangeable cog in a vast machine. This isn?t easy to do, which is precisely why it?s worth so much."

"It doesn?t matter if you are always right. It matters that you?re always moving."

"It doesn?t hurt to ask? Actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right."

"It takes confidence and guts to intentionally create tension."

"It is the art and the insight and the bravery of value creation that are rewarded."

"It?s all a risk. Always. That?s not true, actually. The only exception: it?s a certainty that there?s risk. The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is. That?s because the world is certainly, definitely, and more than possibly changing."

"It takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: (1) A shared interest (2) A way to communicate. The communication can be one of four kinds: (1) Leader to tribe (2) Tribe to leader (3) Tribe member to tribe member (4) Tribe member to outsider. So a leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members by transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change; providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members. Most leaders focus only on the third tactic. A bigger tribe somehow equals a better tribe. In fact, the first two tactics almost always lead to more impact. Every action you take as a leader can affect these three elements, and the challenge is to figure out which one to maximize."

"It?s difficult to overcome a lifetime of education (and brainwashing). New habits will have to be created, and new expectations to go with them."

"It would be a mistake to say that scientific education doesn?t work. It does work.It creates what we test."

"It?s better to make a decision, even the wrong one, than to be in limbo."

"It?s a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change anything. Real change is uncomfortable. If it?s not feeling that way, you probably just adopted new words."

"It?s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back."

"It?s entirely possible that there won?t be a standing ovation at the end of your journey. That?s okay. At least you lived."

"It?s never too late... to start heading in the right direction."

"It?s never too late to redefine self-control, to change long-ingrained habits, and to do the work you?re capable of."

"It?s okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does."

"It?s time to quit when you secretly realize you?ve been settling for mediocrity all along. It?s time to quit when the things you?re measuring aren?t improving, and you can?t find anything better to measure. Smart quitters understand the idea of opportunity cost. The work you?re doing on project X right now is keeping you from pushing through the Dip on project Y. If you fire your worst clients, if you quit your deadest tactics, if you stop working with the people who return the least, then you free up an astounding number of resources. Direct those resources at a Dip worth conquering and your odds of success go way up. What?s the worst time to quit? When the pain is the greatest. Decisions made during great pain are rarely good decisions."

"It?s not enough to find a niche that shares a worldview. That niche has to be ready and able to influence a large group of their friends."

"It?s the incredibly difficult challenges (the Dips) that give you the opportunity to pull ahead."

"It?s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo."

"It?s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It?s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It?s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It?s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you?ve found the place where a leader is needed."

"It?s unlikely that you?ll create something scarce without doing something risky to get there."

"It?s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle."

"It?s what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view."

"It's clearly more fun to make the rules than to follow them."