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161 " average can mean mediocre. Not worth seeking out. Boring. Life’s too short to fight the forces of change. Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff. And almost everything that’s standard is now viewed as mediocre. "
― Seth Godin , Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
162 " Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can. How "
163 " Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread. "
164 " Tribes are about faith—about belief in an idea and in a community. "
165 " I hope that’s not so simple that it gets ignored, because it’s important. It’s such an effective idea that it saves children’s lives every day. All the Sternins did was find the mom with the healthy kids. And then they helped the others in the village notice what she was doing. They gave that mom a spotlight, encouraging her to keep it up and, more important, encouraging others to follow her lead. "
166 " Life’s too short” is repeated often enough to be a cliché, but this time it’s true. You don’t have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre. It’s not just pointless, it’s painful. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from. The amazing thing is that not only is this sort of life easier to set up than ever before, but it’s also more likely to make you successful. And happy. So how was your day? "
167 " If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. "
168 " As we saw earlier, it takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: • A shared interest • A way to communicate "
169 " The communication can be one of four kinds: • Leader to tribe • Tribe to leader • Tribe member to tribe member • Tribe member to outsider "
170 " Tribes, though, aren’t about stuff. They’re about connection. "
171 " three steps: motivate, connect, and leverage. "
172 " Curious is the key word. It has nothing to do with income, nothing to do with education, and certainly nothing to do with organized religion. It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope is interesting. Leaders are curious because they can’t wait to find out what the group is going to do next. The changes in the tribe are what are interesting, and curiosity drives them. "
173 " A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it. "
174 " Too many organizations care about numbers, not fans. "
175 " Curious people count. Not because there are a lot of them, but because they’re the ones who talk to people who are in a stupor. They’re the ones who lead the masses in the middle who are stuck. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves into thinking it’s safe to do nothing, which the curious can’t abide. "
176 " Through your actions as a leader, you attract a tribe that wants to follow you. That tribe has a worldview that matches the message you’re sending. "
177 " Everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself. The people around you realize this, and they are ready to follow if you’re ready to lead. "
178 " This leads to an interesting thought: you get to choose the tribe you will lead. Through your actions as a leader, you attract a tribe that wants to follow you. That tribe has a worldview that matches the message you’re sending. "
179 " The difference between backing off and doing nothing may appear subtle, but it’s not. A leader who backs off is making a commitment to the power of the tribe, and is alert to the right moment to step back in. Someone who is doing nothing is merely hiding. Leadership is a choice. It’s the choice to not do nothing. Lean in, back off, but don’t do nothing. "
180 " Welcome to the age of leverage. Bottom-up is a really bad way to think about it because there is no bottom. In an era of grassroots change, the top of the pyramid is too far away from where the action is to make much of a difference. It takes too long and it lacks impact. The top isn’t the top anymore because the streets are where the action is. The new leverage available to everyone means that the status quo is more threatened than ever, and each employee now has the responsibility to change the rules before someone else does. "