Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

by Seth Godin

the best future available to us is a future where you contribute your true self and your best work.

It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. Stop settling for what’s good enough and start creating art that matters.

You have brilliance in you, your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.

Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human.

What happens when the world cares more about unique voices and remarkable insights than it does about cheap labor on the assembly line?

“The web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest.

Exceptional performers are starting to realize that it doesn’t pay to do factory work at factory wages only to subsidize the boss.

the only way to grow is to stand out, to create something worth talking about, to treat people with respect and to have them spread the word.

Be remarkable Be generous Create art Make judgment calls Connect people and ideas

the competitive advantage the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion.

Would your organization be more successful if your employees were more obedient? Or, consider for a second: would you be more successful if your employees were more artistic, motivated, connected, aware, passionate, and genuine? You can’t have both, of course.

They do more than they’re paid to, on their own, because they value quality for its own sake, and they want to do good work. They need to do good work. Anything less feels intellectually dishonest, and like a waste of time. In exchange, you’re giving them freedom, responsibility, and respect, which are priceless.

Doesn’t matter if you’re always right. It matters that you’re always moving.

A brilliant author or businesswoman or senator or software engineer is brilliant only in tiny bursts. The rest of the time, they’re doing work that most any trained person could do.

She solves problems that people haven’t predicted, sees things people haven’t seen, and connects people who need to be connected.

You can work for a company that wants indispensable people, or you can work for a company that works to avoid them.

Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.

Art is the product of emotional labor. If it’s easy and risk free, it’s unlikely that it’s art.

This is more than refusing to do lousy work. It’s an insistence on doing important work.

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.

The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.

Artists understand that they have the power, through gifts, innovation, and love, to create a new story, one that’s better than the old one.

survival and success are not the same thing.

Your work is to create art that changes things, to expose your insight and humanity in such a way that you are truly indispensable.

you have to choose your art. It’s not preordained; there isn’t only one art for you.

A workaholic brings fear into the equation. She works all the time to be sure everything is all right,

Zen Habits

Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear

Anxiety doesn’t protect you from danger, but from doing great things.

Power used to be about giving, not getting.

As soon as it is part of a system, it’s not art.

Artists can’t be easily instructed, predicted, or measured,

A gift always creates a surplus as it spreads.

The diamond cutter doesn’t imagine the diamond he wants. Instead, he sees the diamond that is possible.

the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.

If your organization won’t live without a map, can you change it? If you can’t, should you leave?