[...]... affixing the wings with wax, they set out to escape Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun Entranced by his magical ability to fly, Icarus disobeyed and flew too high We all know what happened next: The wax melted, and Icarus, the beloved son, lost his wings, tumbled into the sea, and died The lesson of this myth: Don’t disobey the king Don’t disobey your dad Don’t imagine that you re... better than you are, and most of all, don’t ever believe that you have the ability to do what a god might do The part of the myth you weren’t told: In addition to telling Icarus not to fly too high, Daedalus instructed his son not to fly too low, too close to the sea, because the water would ruin the lift in his wings Society has altered the myth, encouraging us to forget the part about the sea, and... the other hand, if you lose your customers, even your factory isn’t going to help you Detroit is filled with empty factories If your team is filled with people who work for the company, you ll soon be defeated by tribes of people who work for a cause If you use your money to buy advertising to promote the average products you produce for average people, soon you ll run out of money But if you use your... tell me you have to be a born artist to do art I’m not buying it Your Pain Is Real It’s the pain of possibility, vulnerability, and risk Once you stop feeling it, you ve lost your best chance to make a difference The easiest way to avoid the pain is to lull it to sleep by finding a job that numbs you Soon the pain of the artist will be replaced by a different sort of pain, the pain of the cog, the pain... day, and they’re not read by a person; they’re read by a computer The computer is looking for signals—signals of conformity Did you go to a famous college, did you work for a well-known brand, did you have a title that matches what the company thinks it’s looking for? There’s so much mass, there are so many people, how can the system process the masses any other way? — College has changed The founders... us For a long time to come the masses will still clamor for cheap and obvious and reliable But the people you seek to lead, the people who are helping to define the next thing and the interesting frontier, these people want your humanity, not your discounts All of these assets, rolled into one, provide the foundation for the change maker of the future And that individual (or the team that person leads)... skills more quickly and at a higher level than ever before This abundance leads to two races The race to the bottom is the Internet-fueled challenge to lower prices, find cheaper labor, and deliver more for less The other race is the race to the top, the opportunity to be the one they can’t live without, to become a linchpin (whom we would miss if he didn’t show up) The race to the top focuses on delivering... from the comfort zone into the unknown The unknown is the black void, the place where failure can happen (and so can success) Our instinct, then, particularly if we’re successful at one thing, is to avoid the unknown To stay in the comfort zone and ignore the fact that the safety zone has moved No one taught you how to do art There are generations of thinking about what it means to challenge your fear... Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The search for the right answer is the enemy of art The right answer belongs to the productivityminded industrialists, to Taylor and the denizens of Scientific Management Icarus was told not to fly too high and not to fly too low But what’s the right altitude? Where’s the map, where’s the safe middle? Art has no right answer The best we can hope for is an interesting... asset that makes the new economy work is the story that spreads Before the revolution, in a world of limited choice, shelf space mattered a great deal You could buy your way onto the store shelf, or you could be the only one on the ballot, or you could use a connection to get your résumé in front of the hiring guy In a world of abundant choice, though, none of these tactics is effective The chooser has . Enough Unleashing the Ideavirus Permission Marketing The Big Red Fez The Big Moo (editor) Small Is the New Big Poke the Box We Are All Weird Find them all at sethgodin.com The ICARUS DECEPTION How High Will. (for the work). Photo: Harry Shunk-John Kender. Shunk-Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Godin, Seth. The Icarus deception : how high will you. Now How Long Are You Going to Wait? They told you to get your résumé in order, to punch your ticket, to fit in, and to follow instructions. They told you to swallow your pride, not to follow your