Graceful Quotes

“To be willing to do new things you don't think you'll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just tolerate it, but to prefer it.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Graceful? There’s a never-ending worldwide shortage. Graceful is artistic, elegant, subtle and effective. Graceful makes things happen and brings light but not heat. Graceful doesn’t mean invisible, hiding, fearful or by the book. And graceful certainly doesn’t include hectoring, lecturing or bullying. Audrey Hepburn was graceful. Wayne Gretzky too. A graceful person gets things done, but does it in a way you’d be happy to have repeated. A graceful person raises the game of everyone nearby, causing a race to the top, not the bottom. Graceful is the person we can’t live without, the one who makes a difference. The linchpin. Everywhere I turn, I see people bringing grace to their families, their communities and their work. The thing is, no one is born graceful. It’s not a gift, it’s a choice. Every day, we get a chance to give others the benefit of the doubt. Every day, we get the opportunity to give others our support, our confidence and our trust. And yet most days, we hesitate. There are so many things on our agenda, so many people who want a piece of us, so many things to do, so many obligations—of course it’s tempting to merely get it done, to phone it in. None of those shortcuts will make the impact you’re capable of making, and none of those approaches will bring you closer to those you’re here to serve. The industrial age is ending, and a new one is beginning. It produces art instead of stuff and it rewards gracefulness.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Kindness creates connection. It generates respect (on both sides) and it scales.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“we’re seeing an explosion in new approaches, new models and new forms of interaction. This growth comes from change, insight and exploration, not obedience.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“The factory is a dead end and so is compliance. More obedience will not make us better. That’s why graceful is in such demand.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“A factory demands a compliant workforce in order to succeed. And so we’ve organized around this idea of compliance in all things—in school, in the foods we eat, in the way we respond to marketing. And it’s a dead end.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“It encourages you to focus on your work and the generosity that comes from interacting with (and helping) your community.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“The abundance mindset makes it easier to be graceful.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Cupcakes The first time you bake cupcakes, you will certainly follow the recipe with rigor. The third time, you might improvise and screw up. Learning your lesson, you will follow the recipe again and again as closely as you can. At this point, by the fifth time, some people actually learn to bake. They improvise successfully. They understand the science and the outcomes. They develop a kind of gracefulness in the kitchen. Others merely plod along. They’re cooks, not chefs. A cook follows a recipe. A chef invents one. We have too many cooks. The world is begging for chefs.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“To be willing to do new things you don’t think you’ll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just to tolerate it, but to prefer it. One way to achieve that is to set out to experience things you’re sure you won’t like. To have conversations that are frightening. Becoming generous beyond measure, just to see what happens. And most of all, setting out to fail. Failing helps you see how far is too far, failing helps remind you that failing isn’t fatal, and most of all, failing opens you up to succeeding.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“insulation prevents you from making the change and finding the understanding you set out to achieve in the first place.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“The alternative to tourism The linchpin, the engaged one, the graceful actor in an unfolding play—these people don’t seek to only inspect. They’re not traveling in order to tick a checkbox. Instead, they open themselves to the world they bought a ticket to, knowing full well that they will be changed.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Leading, not following We’ve been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don’t have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person—to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“Modern society is based on a modern idea: get the work done by replaceable cogs, by individuals programmed to do what they’re told, follow instructions and work cheap. The attraction of this system is evident by how easily ordinary organizations replace ordinary employees, and how eagerly schools indoctrinate their students.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“A graceful person gets things done, but does it in a way you’d be happy to have repeated.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“My friend didn’t understand what it means to be in the world, to be present and aware.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“A successful manager told me that stopped wearing a watch. She found that the work was so immersive, anchoring it to whatever hour it happened to be was pointless. The watch reminded her of the rigors of appointments and the status quo, while her goal was to be there, right here, right now, in the moment, and to do the work in front of her. The watch had no role in doing that right, so, for now, it’s gone.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“The industrial age is ending, and a new one is beginning. It produces art instead of stuff and it rewards gracefulness.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“When you learn to listen to your fear, you’ve found a compass that can show you what matters.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful

“To be willing to do new things you don’t think you’ll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just to tolerate it, but to prefer it.”
― Seth Godin, Graceful