Boldly, Bravely Stand Out

Let's look at some more juicy Godin quotes.

"Wait, are you saying that I have to stop following instructions and start being an artist? Someone who dreams up new ideas and makes them real? Someone who finds new ways to interact? New pathways to deliver emotion? New ways to connect? Someone who acts like a human, not a cog? You mean me? Yes."

"When it is time for the layoffs, the safest job belongs to the artist, the linchpin, the one who can't be easily outsourced or replaced."

"Passion isn't project specific, it's people specific. Some people are hooked on passion, deriving their sense of self from the act of being passionate. Perhaps your challenge isn't finding a better project or a better boss. Perhaps you need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate."

"Art for everyone is mediocre. If you don't pinpoint your audience, you end up making your art for the loudest, crankiest critics, and that's a waste. Instead, focus on the audience that you choose and listen to them, to the exclusion of all the others. Go ahead and make this sort of customer happy, and the other guys can go pound sand."

I like that. The other guys can go pound sand. That's a good attitude to take when you have cranky, noisy, disgruntled critics criticizing you for your art, and you will have them, especially as you start to develop a little bit of success, a little bit of notoriety in your marketplace, you will get critics.

So you're going to need to build a tough skin. You're also going to need to distinguish between the general population of critics and also your actual audience and your actual fans, and those are two different things. One of your challenges on your life journey that though you're building your skills and building your vision, you also need to go out there and find your audience. 

Who are they? Who's going to benefit the most from your work? Who's going to love your work the most? And what kind of things do they want? 

You're going to custom tailor your message and your art to those people. Not in the sense that you just do what they tell you, but in the sense that you listen to them more than you listen to other people, and you take their feedback into account, and you study what they need.