My Notes: Tribes by Seth Godin

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My notes:



  • A group needs only two things to be a tribe: A shared interest and a way to communicate.
  • Tribes need leadership.  Sometimes one person leads sometimes more. People want connection and growth and something new. They want change.
  • You cant' have a tribe without a leader - and you can't be a leader without a tribe.
  • Human beings can't help it: we need to belong.
  • We are drawn to leaders and to their ideas, and we can't resist the rush of belonging and the thrill of the new.
  • We want to belong not to just one tribe, it turns out, but to many.
  • Tribes make our lives better.  And leading a tribe is the best life of all.
  • All of it is worthless if you don't decide to lead.  All of it goes to waste if your leadership is compromised, if you settle, if you don't commit.
  • The market needs you (we need you) and the tools are there, just waiting.  All that's missing is you, and your vision and your passion.




  • A movement is thrilling.  It's the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.
  • The new technologies are all designed to connect tribes and to amplify their work.
  • The Internet is just a tool.
  • The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.  You don't need a keyboard to lead... you only need the desire to make something happen.
  • The power of this new era is simple: If you want to (need to, must!) lead, then you can.
  • Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.
  • The question isn't, Is it possible for me to do that? Now, the question is, Will I choose to do it?
  • Without leaders, there are no followers.  You're a leader.  We need you.
  • Heretics are the new leaders.  The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements.
  • It's clearly more fun to make the rules than to follow them, and for the first time, it's also profitable, powerful, and productive to do just that.



  • Management is about manupulating resources to get a known job done.
  • Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.
  • Movements have leaders and movements make things happen.
  • Leaders have followers.  Managers have employees.
  • If the tribe doesn't like the king, they're now free to leave.
  • The big news is that this has changed.  People yearn for change, they relish being part of a movement, and they talk about things that are remarkable, not boring.
  • What do you do for a living? What do you make?  Leaders make a ruckus.
  • If leadership is the ability to create change your tribe believes in, and the market demands change, then the market demands leaders.
  • Leadership doesn't always start at the top, but it always manages to affect the folks at the top.
  • 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.
  • Tribes, though, aren't about stuff.  They're about connection.
  • He didn't tell them what to do.  He didn't manage the effort; he led it.
  • Everything I did was for us, not for me.  I didn't manage; I led.
  • "Good enough" stopped being good enough a long time ago.  So why not be great?
  • An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe.  It's enough.
  • Too many organizations care about numbers, not fans.
  • Fans, true fans, are hard to find and precious.  Just a few can change everything.  What they demand, though, is generosity and bravery.
  • Organizations that destroy the status quo win.
  • Tribes are just waiting to be turned into movements.
  • What's missing is the will to make ideas happen.
  • Ideas that spread, win.
  • What people are afraid of isn't failure.  It's blame. Criticism.
  • How was your day? If your answer is "fine", then I don't think you were leading.
  • Heretics must believe.
  • It's nice to get paid, but it's essential to believe.
  • Great leaders focus on the tribe and only the tribe.


  • Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.  This scarcity makes leadership valuable.
  • When you identify the discomfort, you've found the place where a leader is needed.
  • If you're not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it's almost certain you're not reaching your potential as a leader.
  • Some tribes do better when they're smaller. More exclusive. Harder to get into. Some tribes thrive precisely because they're small.
  • It's always a choice. Your choice.
  • No one anoints you a leader.
  • Change isn't make by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness later.
  • Heretics don't settle.
  • The art of leadership is understanding what you can't compromise on.
  • When you call in love with the system, you lose the ability to grow.
  • If you're not over the top, you're not going to have any chance at all of making things happen.
  • Leaders on the other hand, don't have things happen to the. They do things.
  • The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong!  The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal.
  • The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.
  • The timid leave a vacuum.
  • The largest enemy of change and leadership isn't a "no".  It's a "not yet".  Not yet is the safest, easiest way to forestall change. Not yet gives the status quo a change to regroup and put off the inevitable for just a little while longer.
  • Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.
  • The longer you wait to launch an innovation, the less your effort is worth.
  • Caring is the key emotion at the center of the tribe.
  • Listen, really listen.  Then decide and move on.
  • What's hard now is breaking the rules.
  • If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.
  • I don't think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.
  • Credit isn't the point. Change is.
  • Quality is not only not necessary, for many items it's undesirable.
  • All you have to do to become a leader is make a choice to lead.




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