Linchpin: Seth Godin’s look at art

Seth Godin's Linchpin  takes a look at the artist inside of all of us.  Nothing short of sparking a revolution in the way we think about our daily lives and work – Godin challenges the reader to become indispensable by engaging our work with passion instead of becoming the dull, monotonous "cogs" in a corporate nightmare.

I'll be completely transparent here: I love Seth Godin's writing/speaking/blog/etc.  You may or may not be a fan, but in my view every person who's ever had a dream and not taken the next step (dream to shipping as Godin would say) then you need to run and get this book now.  It's a quick read at just under 250 pages and it might just alter your success trajectory for life.

Painting our current grim corporate situation akin to Orwell's dystopian society in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Godin casts a vision for a world where people are paid to do what they are passionate about instead of what they've been trained to do or what they think will generate the most cash for them.

I felt that Godin's perspective was a compromise of Pollan and Levine's Die Broke from several years ago.  Pollan and Levine proposed that your job was just a cash-generator, you need not associate yourself or self worth with what you do.  Rather jump to the job that pays the most and has the best benefits.  Once you've found something better jump, because who you are has little to do with what you do for a living.

Godin, I think, would rather encourage his tribe to jump to something they feel like they are passionate about.  He does however make the point that we can find purpose and meaning in our current job – often it is more about our perspective.  He strongly encourages the reader to not think of their skills as who they are, because skills can easily be replaced with someone with the same or better skills.

Rather, to become indispensable one must be willing to work within a broken system, not be content with the present, but remain optimistic about the future.  Godin tells the reader "we" (meaning all of society) need artists, independent thinkers, and people that realize our primary ability to connect with others is the paramount virtue.  Our society has taken the process or system and removed the humanity in an order to provide consistent, cheap, and automated solutions.

In Godin's mind this is the antithesis of progress.  The artist creates, gives his gifts away, and goes back to the drawing board to create once again.  Sometimes this may be profitable, other times it may be done at a loss, but the end result is art given freely.

Reminds me of another good book by my favorite author, "Freely you have received, freely give."

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