The Big Moo

Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable

by Seth Godin

Number of pages: 208

BBB Library: Creativity and Innovation, Personal Success

ISBN: 9781591841036

About the Author

Seth Godin is the author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the world. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.

Editorial Review

Good enough is no longer good enough because now everything is good enough. Our expectations of quality are unrealistic, and are being met every single day. We don’t just want to be satisfied, we want to be blown away. A few months after the book came out, Seth ran into a group that was brainstorming about ways to make their company remarkable. After a while, one participant blurted out, That’s not good enough. We need to create a big moo! Every once in a while, though, a product or service is so remarkable that it changes the game. Your innovation becomes something even bigger than a purple cow.

Book Reviews

"The book’s title comes from Godin’s previous best seller, Purple Cow which shows how to stand out in a world of brown cows. According to the book’s synopsis, '… sometimes you need something even bigger than a purple cow. You need a big moo— an insight so astounding that people can’t help but remark on it.'" Blogcrtics.org

"The selections are for the most part brief and pithy, and while they don't add up to a coherent viewpoint, browsers are bound to find something that hits a chord." Publishers Weekly

"To the great benefit of all of us, Godin has rounded up 33 of these gurus and put together their best ideas in a book called “The Big Moo.” Godin wrote an earlier book titled “Purple Cow,” about creating innovative companies. Now he wants to invent the “big moo,” a phrase that means that organizations and their leaders need to “stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable!” Nonprofit managers and their key staffers would profit greatly from reading this book." Stanford Social Innovation Review

"Written by Seth Godin in collaboration with 33 other renowned business forward thinkers and best selling authors in their own right, The Big Moo focuses on convincing and inspiring its readers to be daring, to go the extra mile, to take a risk (not as risky as not risking The Big Moo) and to let go of their traditional ways of thought to embrace being 'exceptional'." No-TEARS Marketing

Books on Related Topics

Wisdom to Share

Remarkable is being unafraid to stand out. It is having a fire in your mind and an idea that won’t quit.

Remarkable is telling the truth, always. It's knowing that a risky idea might fail, but a boring idea will definitely fail.

Remarkable is failing often and then trying again.

Remarkable is: more doing and less planning, more testing and less waiting, and more dreaming and less sleeping.

Remarkable isn’t up to you. Remarkable is in the eye of the customer. If your customer decides something you do is worth remarking on, it is remarkable.

Remarkable is when you stand for something and make it happen and change the world and your business and your life, along the way.

Reject routine and set your team on its own remarkable course, one grounded in human inspiration, storytelling, and radical collaboration that will lead you to distinction.

One step is easy: one step is not enough. If you are only one step ahead, by the time you get done working on your idea, it’ll be too late.

Your customers are your best advisers. They’ll tell you what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and what it is they want you to change, if anything.

You can choose your attitude. Your attitude changes your life and the lives of those around you.

Don’t let the seeds stop you from enjoying the watermelon. Tell this to yourself every day, it will help change your attitude.

The German philosopher-poet Goethe gave us the only bit of wisdom you need: “Whatever you can do, or dream, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now”. “But wait,” you say to Goethe, even though he says “begin it” twice to you, “I’m not ready”. Well, you’re terribly wrong.

As I learned from my father, who said this when people whined in his business, and from my dear dog Topper, “If you want gratitude, get a dog.”

Go do something remarkable. Buy books for everyone you work with. Go do something else remarkable. Repeat.

Books by the same Author

Meatball Sundae

by Seth Godin

It’s not an accident that almost all the brands, products, and careers that have succeeded with New Marketing are brand-new and fresh. The New Marketing demands more than a meatball. It insists on reinvention of the entire organization and the products it creates. Marketing is now about a lot more than

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