I just finished “Linchpin” by Seth Godin. Its official release date is today, 1/26/10. You can get the book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Back on December 2nd, Seth wrote a post entitled Get a Review Copy of My New Book. Read it here. He offered 3,000 people an opportunity to get a copy of Linchpin in exchange for using Donor Tools to make a minimum $30 donation to the Acumen Fund. How clever. He raised $100K in 2 days for a worthy cause and got lots of us to write weblogs and tweet about Linchpin. A clear example of a virtuous circle.
I own lots of books by Seth and I am a fan of this book as well. I thought I’d get my one negative observation out of the way up front. I think the book could have been 20% shorter (an arbitrary %-age on my part). I think Seth overdoes the examples everywhere in the book.
Linchpin documents Seth’s point of view on how to thrive, not just survive, in the world as it is, not as we want it to be.
Seth implores all of us to lean in, stand out, be an artist, make a difference, do the work, create a map, stand up, become indispensable, take a risk, ignore your lizard brain’s impulse to make you do nothing or run the other way, take charge of your life because the alternative is to be a “cog in a big machine” and be replaced by someone else who can do “it” faster and for less money.
Seth references Thornton May who points out that your future is not secure if you assume you can count on attendance based compensation. Jobs that you can just show up for are not safe. Dan Sullivan speaks of a related concept in his How the Best Get Better (buy it here); he calls it existing in the time & effort economy.’ Seth says that if everyone or anyone can do your job then you can be replaced. Scarcity equals value.
For Dan Sullivan the answer is to live in an entrepreneurial economy. For Seth, we must all become artists – where art is defined as a personal gift that changes the recipient.
An artist is a customer service rep who continually handles irate customers so well that they become raving supporters. An artist is the Con Ed crew member who has the talent for calming scared customers when there is a gas leak, making him more valuable than all the other crew members, including the crew chief.
Read the book. Seth cogently answers all the arguments. “I can’t afford to rock the boat.” “I have no special talent.” “I’m too old.” None of them stand up.
As Seth says near the end of the book, don’t be seduced by the “future quo”. Your world is going to change. Companies do go out of business. Companies do lay people off. Create your own map to a life in which you become indispensable.
Photo credit: Scott Clark and Net_Efekt
