Learning is not the same as education, and busy is not the same as productive.

People have come to the erroneous conclusion that if they’re not willing to start something separate, world-changing, and risky, they have no business starting anything. Somehow, we’ve fooled ourselves into believing that the project has...

You don’t have to settle for the status quo, for being good enough, for getting by, for working all night.

Art is what we call…the thing an artist does.It’s not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art,...

Difference between TV and the internet was how far you sat from the screen. TV was an 8 foot activity, and you were a consumer. The internet was a 16 inch activity, and you participated....

Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.

The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.

Anonymity is the enemy of civility.

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...

Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do...

Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.What makes someone an artist? I don’t think is has anything...

You need editors, not brand managers,who will push the envelope to make [a brand media property] go forward.

How was your day? If your answer was “fine,” then I don’t think you were leading.

We have little choice but to move beyond quality and seek remarkable, connected, and new. Remarkable, as you’ve already figured out, demands initiative.

No offense intended…Most people online are gorillas. When a gorilla walks into an experiment, what they say is ‘What do I do now? Where’s the banana?’

This is an addictive pastime. You take no real risk, touch the world, and it responds. Repeat.

Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you’re stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning...

You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.

How we respond to the opportunities and challenges of the outside world now determines how much the outside world values us.

Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.

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.

We’ve had people who were yoga instructors. … We have a former marine, and we have everything in between,

People don’t believe what you tell them.They rarely believe what you show them.They often believe what their friends tell them.They always believe what they tell themselves.

The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by. The challenge is getting into the habit of

A genius looks at something that others are stuck on and gets the world unstuck.So the question is: Have you ever done that?

Art isn’t only a painting; it’s anything that changes someone for the better, any nonanonymous interaction that leads to a human (not simply a commercial) conclusion.

Librarians who are arguing and lobbying for clever e-book lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending the library-as-warehouse concept, as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge,...

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A...

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt

The most popular TV show in America is a game show, … People have been playing our games for years and are playing more and more games. The relationship they build is similar to a...

Soon is not as good as now.

Starting isn’t like that. Starting something is not an event; it’s a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That’s starting. You spend...

Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.That would be you.

Art changes posture and posture changes innocent bystanders.

One of the talents of the [late] great Steve Jobs is that he [knew] how to design Medusa-like products. While every Macintosh model has had flaws (some more than others), most of them have has...

Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never...

Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.

If a lens makes a penny or a nickel or a dime a day, it doesn’t seem like much until there’s a million of them.

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...

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.

How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to...

Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.

Great design = getting people to do what you want.

Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new…If you fear special requests, if you...

No one knows more about the way you think than you do.

Without a specific reason for the consumer to behave, without a reward or benefit, the overwhelmed consumer will refuse,

At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.

One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don’t show (because it’s difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice.

The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?