Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to drive your career and create a remarkable future

by Seth Godin

If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at the fire doesn’t do you much good.

our responses turn into reactions and we set out to teach people a lesson, we lose. We lose because the act of teaching someone a lesson rarely succeeds at changing them, and always fails at making our day better, or our work more useful.

Lab assistants do what they’re told. Scientists figure out what to do next. It’s not a surprise when a scientist is surprised. That’s what happens when she is doing her job properly. To explore, to follow hunches, to see the landscape and plot a new course. Setting yourself up to be surprised is a conscious choice. Scientists never believe that it’s all figured out, totally settled. They understand that there’s always another argument or mystery around the corner, which means that the map is never perfected.