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by
Seth Godin
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October 16 - October 18, 2020
If you can’t be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can. If
“I work for blessings.”
This is controversial, but here goes: if you’re remarkable, amazing, or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a résumé at all.
If you’ve got experience in doing the things that make you a linchpin, a résumé hides that fact. A résumé gives the employer everything she needs to reject you.
The only way to prove (as opposed to assert) that you are an indispensable linchpin—someone worth recruiting, moving to the top of the pile, and hiring—is to show, not tell.
Projects are the new résumés.
If your Google search isn’t what you want (need) it to be, then change it. Change it through your actions and connections and generosity. Change it by so ...
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how do you get a job in a world filled with me-too résumés and factories? If that is the question, you don’t. You won’t often be able to persuade the standardized HR system to make an exception. A better plan: find a company that understands the value of the linchpin.
If the game is designed for you to lose, don’t play that game. Play a different one.
Amazingly, there’s a second kind of linchpin. This person says “no” all the time. She says no because she has goals, because she’s a practical visionary, because she understands priorities. She says no because she has the strength to disappoint you now in order to delight you later.
You may say, “But I’ll get fired for breaking the rules.” The linchpin says, “If I lean enough, it’s okay if I get fired, because I’ll have demonstrated my value to the marketplace.
If the rules are the only thing between me and becoming indispensable, I don’t need the rules.”
Trivial work doesn’t require leaning. The challenge is to replace those tasks with rule-breaking activities instead.
Steve won’t make eye contact. Steve takes a lot of breaks. Steve doesn’t start bagging until the last possible moment. Steve grumbles a lot.
1. Challenge and responsibility 2. Flexibility 3. A stable work environment 4. Money 5. Professional development 6. Peer recognition 7. Stimulating colleagues and bosses 8. Exciting job content 9. Organizational culture 10. Location and community
You can work for a company that wants indispensable people, or you can work for a company that works to avoid them.
Groucho Marx famously said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” The linchpin says, “I don’t want a job that a non-linchpin could get.”
We’re not at all surprised when a craftsman sharpens his saw or an athlete trains hard. But when an information worker develops her skills at confronting fear (whether it’s in making connections, speaking, inventing, selling, or dealing with difficult situations) we roll our eyes.
When you do emotional labor, you benefit. Not just the company, not just your boss, but you. The act of giving someone a smile, of connecting to a human, of taking initiative, of being surprising, of being creative, of putting on a show—these are things that we do for free all our lives. And then we get to work and we expect to merely do what we’re told and get paid for it. This gulf creates tension. If you reserve your emotional labor for when you are off duty, but you work all the time, you are deprived of the joy you get when you do this labor.
First, you benefit from the making and the giving. The act of the gift is in itself a reward. And second, you benefit from the response of those around you.
The essence of any gift, including the gift of emotional labor, is that you don’t do it for a tangible, guaranteed reward.
The essence of any gift, including the gift of emotional labor, is that you don’t do it for a tangible, guaranteed reward.
Roy Simmons coined that phrase and I like it a lot. “Most artists can’t draw.” We need to add something: “But all artists can see.” We can see what’s right and what’s wrong. We can see opportunities and we can see around corners.
You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances. An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally. That’s why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That’s why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artist, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a
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Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.
It’s not about the craft, certainly.
Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.
If there is no change, there is no art. If no one experiences it, there can be no change.
Art is the product of emotional labor. If it’s easy and risk free, it’s unlikely that it’s art.
art of interaction.
If art is a human connection that causes someone to change his mind, then you are an artist.
If we’re even, then there is no bond,
When a day’s work does not equal a day’s pay, that means that at the end of the day, a bond is built. A gift is given and received, and people are drawn closer, not insulated from each other.
The artists in your life are gift-focused, and their tenacity has nothing at all to do with income or job security.
“In house after house,” he says, “I noticed that it wasn’t the wood that had failed—it was the nails that held the wood together.”
The Poverty Mentality If I give you something, it costs me what I gave you. The more you have, the less I have. The more I share, the more I lose. How long have you had an approach to stuff or ideas or time that sounds like this?
When you give something away, you benefit more than the recipient does. The act of being generous makes you rich beyond measure, and as the goods or services spread through the community, everyone benefits.
I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.
Peter said, “I don’t care what anybody does in the beverage industry. I really don’t. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. You have to know what they’re doing, but you don’t have to follow what they’re doing.”
Passion isn’t project-specific. It’s people-specific.
People with passion look for ways to make things happen.
The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.
Being open is art. Making a connection when it’s not part of your job is a gift.
There are two reasons to give a gift. I’m not so interested in the first one—reciprocity. You give a gift to someone because then he will owe you. This is manipulative and it’s no way to build a career.
The second reason, though, is fascinating. Gifts allow you to make art. Gifts are given with no reciprocity hoped for or even possible.
There are two reasons why it’s vital to know whom you are working for. The first is that understanding your audience allows you to target your work and to get feedback that will help you do it better next time.
Art for everyone is mediocre, bland, and ineffective.
Some artists think they need a boss. Someone who will not only pay them, but also tell them what to do. The moment this happens, the artist is no longer an artist.
It’s not an effort contest, it’s an art contest. As customers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play or interaction changed us for the better. Where it’s made or how it’s made or how difficult it was to make is sort of irrelevant.
It’s his job to innovate, to create new opportunities, to connect with hard-to-reach people, and to follow the long line on the way to success.
The easier it is to quantify, the less it’s worth.
