Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

While reading Linchpin I looked around a few times to see if author Seth Godin was perhaps peering through my living room window to see my reaction. It really felt like he was talking to me, singling me out. How could he know how I rationalize things? "There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do." Linchpin is a most unusual, well-organized, concise book about what it takes to become indispensable in the workplace - whether you work for someone else (at any level) or are self-employed. It's about how business has rapidly changed and how treating employees like factory workers (or doing your job like one) doesn't work any longer. We must make choices and take action to "chart our own paths" and add value that others do not. We cannot wait for a boss or a job description to tell us what to do, rather we must just take the initiative ourselves. Only then can we become indispensable "linchpins," rather than replaceable "cogs." There are so many fantastic quotes in the book too. "You don't become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to become indispensable is to be different. That's because if you're the same, so are plenty of other people." The 14 chapters in this book are each broken down into short segments with great headlines that summarize them. Godin uses special vocabulary words to describe the many factors that go into becoming a linchpin. These words have unique meanings in the context in which they are used. You'll learn interpretations for terms such as art, thrashing, gifts, resistance, pranja, ship, lizard brain, shenpa, emotional labor and others. "Art is unique, new and challenging to the status quo. It's not decoration. It's something that causes change. Art cannot be merely commerce. It must also be a gift." You'll never be bewildered or bored while reading Linchpin. It will awaken a part of your brain that you may have never used before. It will make you take a deep look inside your thoughts, patterns and habits and oblige you to realize there are things you can change right now to become more of a success, a true "artist." In fact, you may find yourself sliding down in your chair a bit while reading, like I did. But that's okay; it's part of the learning process. "If all you can do is the task and you're not in a league of your own at doing the task, you're not indispensable." This is particularly true in the chapter on page 101 entitled The Resistance. Just this chapter alone is worth the price of the book. You've got to read it twice to really capture all it offers. Here you'll be faced with all the reasons why you're currently not as indispensable as you could be - as you should be. Have you ever delayed a project and not delivered (Seth calls this shipping) on deadline just because you were trying to achieve perfection? That's resistance. It is the "lizard brain" way-of-thinking that causes us to resist. Do you find yourself doing a lot

How can I make such a statement to you baby boomers? After all, Seth says: - I didn't set out to get you to quit your job - or to persuade you to become an entrepreneur - or merely to change the world. Yet, he also says: ...fearful employees are in pain. They're in pain because they're overlooked, underpaid, laid off, and stressed out." "You weren't born to be a cog in the great industrial machine. You were trained to be a cog." " You were promised: Follow these instructions and you don't have to think". Now I ask, who can he be speaking to other than baby boomers. Who has lived under this training longer than any other generations? All of our lives, we baby boomers have been "pushed to produce, to conform, and to consume". That is why 77+ million of us are looking to end our work careers. That is why many of us are seeking an alternative to traditional retirement and searching for advice on how to start your baby boomer business. We don't want anymore "attendance based compensation". We want the choice to be indispensable and to make a difference. As consumers, employees, and business owners - we do not want to participate in the old model "of racing to make average stuff for average people in huge quantities". As baby boomer entrepreneurs, we are starting baby boomer businesses at an amazing clip. We are already half of all the self employed business owners in America. Baby boomer women are leading the way at business formation at about twice the rate of men. Seth doesn't promise you a map. What he does provide is a compass to point you in the right direction. He does advise you to focus on the audience you choose. He advises you to listen to them to the exclusion of all others. He advises making these customers happy. "Let the other guys pound sand". Baby boomers, especially entrepreneurs...this one is for you! Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Others have their own reasons for praising this book. Here are five of mine. First, this is by far Godin's most personal book in which he reveals more of his emotions and "soul" (for lack of a better term) than he has in any of his previous books. Also, from the beginning, he establishes a direct and personal rapport with his reader. I felt that he had written this book specifically for me. Although he and I have never met, I felt as if he were speaking to me and discussing ideas with me as if we were engaged in a face-to-face conversation. Moreover, unlike in most of his previous books, Godin does not climb up into a pulpit and launch a tirade, engaging his audience with a confrontational tone and Old Testament vehemence. He obviously cares deeply about the thoughts and feelings he shares but is at all times respectful of his reader. He repeatedly explains that everyone has several choices and urges his reader to make those only choices that are in her or his long-term best interest. In addition, meanwhile, Godin creates a multi-dimensional context, a frame-of-reference, in which to anchor his insights and recommendations throughout the narrative. He skillfully uses what I describe as a bi-polar strategy: passively but alertly observing what is happening (and not happening) in order to recognize and understand the ever-changing realities of the world that we share and then actively challenging whatever demeans and diminishes anyone's dignity. Finally, Godin utilizes the manifesto genre as a means by which to celebrate humanity at its best, not as an ideal beyond human fulfillment but as an attainable destination if (HUGE "if") vision, faith, courage, integrity, and commitment are sufficient to the formidable challenges that await each pilgrim. Near the downtown area here in Dallas, we have a Farmers Market at which some merchants offer complimentary slices of fresh fruit as samples. In that spirit, I now provide three brief excerpts from Godin's book. On becoming indispensable to customers: "Here's the win (actually, there are two). "If you want customers to flock to you, it's tempting to race to the bottom of the price chart. There's not a lot of room for profit there, though...In a world that relentlessly races to the bottom, you lose if you also race to the bottom. The only way to win is to race to the top. When your organization becomes more human, more remarkable, faster on its feet, and more likely to connect directly with customers, it becomes indispensable.... "Second, the people that work for you, the ones you freed to be artists [i.e. creators of unique, compelling, and substantial value], will rise to a level you can't even imagine. When people realize that they are not a cog in a machine, an easily replaceable commodity, they take the challenge and grow. They produce more than you pay them to, because you are paying them with something worth more than money.... "As a result of these priceless gifts, expect that the linchpins

I read Purple Cow but I got that for for free so I gave it the weight of, well, something that I got for free. I missed The Dip and it's too late to turn back. With Tribes I started to understand and his perspective was clearer to me and attractive but I soon enough was overwhelmed by the voices more pressing than mine in The Tribe. In Linchpin, I found a character study of stunning accuracy and thoroughness. This book breaks down every barrier we've built between ourselves and our greatness. It's done in a very kind and gentle way but it's firm in point and purpose. From my own experience reading this book (twice now) it has left my resistance no quarter (and that's why I hate* Seth Godin). I have decided (finally) to accept that Seth knows what he's talking about. The book's premise is well supported and explained in an easy to understand way and really leaves no room for dispute as he systematically goes through every excuse we throw at ourselves for keeping us mired in mediocrity. I'm sure that once I break through and act on what I've learned in Linchpin, and use the clear process of playing nice with my resistance, I will no longer hate Seth Godin. After all, a year from now when I have started to see the benefits of shipping (read the book, you'll see) I will owe no small part of that success to Seth and Linchpin. This is my first review of any book (and I read a lot). I cannot express how really, very cool it would be if a whole bunch of people bought this book, read it and then demonstrated their genius. Do yourself, your loved ones and the rest of us a favor and buy this book and read it (at least twice). *Okay, I mean "hate" in the "hostility deriving from fear" sort of way. I probably could have gone easier on him but I really wanted you to read this review and I'm guessing that if I titled the review "You should read this book" or "Seth Godin I'm Mad at You" you wouldn't be reading this right now (which you're may be thinking "that's not a bad thing") but really, get the book and prepare for the hate.

Linchpin by Seth Godin is an inspiring book written to help all of us redefine success in today's age of insecurity. In this new book best-selling marketing guru Seth Godin helps you recognize the trap of career and corporate expectations to which many of us fall victim. Instead, he recommends taking charge of your own life and career to find success more on your own terms. As Seth says in the introduction: "...the best future available to us is a future where you contribute your true self and your best work." The trick, of course, is finding the courage and resources to enable this transition from wage-slavery. That's where Seth's many (often quotable) insights and examples come to your rescue. Linchpin is full of entertaining anecdotes and case studies of real people living better despite how "the rules" have changed in our society. One of Seth's longer books, Linchpin book contains 14 chapters, including a helpful Table of Contents that provides sneak previews of each. The titles of the chapters can give you a feel for the book's substance and topics: "The New World of Work," "Indoctrination: How We Got Here," "Becoming the Linchpin," "Is it Possible to do Hard Work in a Cubicle," and "Making the Choice" are examples. "You are not a faceless cog in the machinery of capitalism (anymore)." Similar to themes in my own books, Internet Riches and e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Online Marketing Strategies, Linchipin is really a call to arms for the new decade because it rightly focuses on how and why you increasingly need to differentiate yourself to succeed. Changing your approach to counter today's job insecurity means becoming "indispensable" (aka a "linchpin") by not being afraid to contribute your own initiative and creativity whenever possible. If you'd like to learn more about how to do that and be inspired to take the steps needed, order your copy of Linchpin today. Scott Fox [...] Author of Internet Riches and e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Online Marketing Strategies