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Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Posted on 04/05/10 in blog, business about business, improvement, marketing, productivity, reviews

It’s not often that I get excited about a business book. It just doesn’t happen, ever. That’s until I read “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”  by Seth Godin and got blown away.

I was pretty disappointed with his Purple Cow book, so I figured this one wouldn’t be so great either. So much to my surprise, I really loved this book! It’s only 256 pages, which makes this a pretty quick read and very info packed. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

The short of it

You can’t be a cog in the system at your boring job any longer. Companies and customers want “artists”. An artist can be and do anything, they just have to be unique, not speak from a script and ship something stellar. You can be an artist when you work as a waitress, or run a fortune 500 company.

The longer review

I’m always frustrated with marketing and business books, because all of them tell you that to succeed, you must be awesome. Of course, everyone knows that! But how? How do we become awesome?

Linchpin doesn’t answer that either, but that’s ok because Seth actually explains why he can’t tell us to succeed. It’s so obvious I actually felt kind of dumb for not realizing it – no one can tell you how to become awesome, because if they could, everyone could become awesome and it would no longer be awesome.

Seth explains what the Linchpin is and why they’re indispensable. I particularly loved the section where he explain that since preschool, we were trained to sit down, shut up and fall in line – and that that’s now no longer enough to make it in this world.

He also explained something I’ve heard often but never really considered. The Linchpin is an artist who gives a gift –  a gift that isn’t done for any compensation. And a lot of times, because of these free gifts, they actually end up making more money! Of course, the gift is the extra deliverable, something you do for your business or customer that’s outside of your job description – and is done happily.

Who is this book for?

You. Him. Everyone. The cool thing about this book is that Seth doesn’t target it to just the business owner, or the employee. It’s pertinent advice for everyone, regardless of what you do or how you do it. It’s something so universal and awesome, I’m surprised more people aren’t doing it (but he explains why that is as well).

Chapters

1. Introduction
2. The New World of Work
3. Thinking About Your Choice
4. Indoctrination: How We Got Here
5. Become The Linchpin
6. Is It Possible to Do Hard Work in a Cubicle?
7. The Resistance
8. The Powerful Culture of Gifts
9. There Is No Map
10. Making the Choice
11. The Culture of Connection
12. The Seven Abilities of the Linchpin
13. When It Doesn’t Work
14. Summary

Want the book?

You should. Purchase one for yourself and one for your best friend. You won’t regret it, this book is a keeper!  You can purchase book from Amazon for $17.

Your Turn

Have you read Linchpin? What were your thoughts?

About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?

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