"Good enough never is"
About this Quote
"Good enough never is" has the clipped brutality of a kitchen timer: simple, relentless, and designed to keep you moving. Coming from Debbi Fields, the founder who turned a cookie shop into a national brand, it reads less like inspirational wallpaper and more like an operating system for scaling a business where consistency is everything. In food, "good enough" is the enemy of repeat customers; one off-batch teaches people not to come back. Fields compresses that truth into four words that feel almost grammatical in their refusal to soften the message.
The intentional awkwardness of the phrasing matters. Most people would say "Good enough is never enough". Fields flips it into something more absolute, almost stubborn: good enough never even qualifies as a stopping point. It’s not just about high standards; it’s about refusing the psychological permission slip to coast. The subtext is managerial as much as personal: excellence isn’t a mood, it’s a default setting you build into process - recipes, training, quality control, customer service scripts. When you’re building a brand, your product has to taste the same even when you’re not in the room.
There’s also a hard-edged American entrepreneurial morality baked in: comfort is complacency, satisfaction is a trap. That edge is motivating, but it hints at the cost, too - a mindset that can fuel obsession, burnout, and perpetual dissatisfaction. Fields’ line works because it’s both a rallying cry and a warning label.
The intentional awkwardness of the phrasing matters. Most people would say "Good enough is never enough". Fields flips it into something more absolute, almost stubborn: good enough never even qualifies as a stopping point. It’s not just about high standards; it’s about refusing the psychological permission slip to coast. The subtext is managerial as much as personal: excellence isn’t a mood, it’s a default setting you build into process - recipes, training, quality control, customer service scripts. When you’re building a brand, your product has to taste the same even when you’re not in the room.
There’s also a hard-edged American entrepreneurial morality baked in: comfort is complacency, satisfaction is a trap. That edge is motivating, but it hints at the cost, too - a mindset that can fuel obsession, burnout, and perpetual dissatisfaction. Fields’ line works because it’s both a rallying cry and a warning label.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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