A Linchpin Makes a Difference

Excuses are easy to come up with for why you haven't made a difference in the world yet. It's hard to make a difference in the world. Not only are the tasks difficult, the things that have happened to us in the past can be like a handicap to us. Maybe in your place of employment, maybe in your home, with your family, or friends, or church - you look around, and you wish things were different. You see how things could be better. But you are too afraid to make a difference for good. So you complain. Or go negative. Or give up and walk away.

When it comes to your workplace or ministry, you can either focus on the tools you don't have yet to do better, or you can work on your attitude towards the people you must interact with. It's easy to do nothing, or to do little because of inadequate (fill in the blanks). If you want to make a difference in the midst of less than ideal circumstances, what should you do? 
What's a linchpin to do?

Here's some advice from Seth Godin:

In a pre-Internet world, where Amazon.com couldn't have existed, would Jeff Bezos be a nonpassionate lump? If Spike Lee hadn't found a camera, would he be sitting around, accepting the status quo?

Passion isn't project specific. It's people specific. Some people are hooked on passion, deriving their sense of self from the act of being passionate.

Perhaps your challenge isn't finding a better project or a better boss. Perhaps you need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate. People with passion look for ways to make things happen.

The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin. (92)

Being open is art. Making a connection when it's not part of your job is a gift. You can say your lines and get away with it, or you can touch someone and make a difference in their lives forever.

This is risky and it's impossible to demand from someone. The decision to commit to the act is a personal one, a gift from the heart. 

Certain sorts of art make us cry without embarrassment. (93)

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. That's why emotional labor is so much more valuable than physical labor. Emotional labor changes the recipient, and we care about that. (95)

Are You Indispensable at Work?

This book is different. It's about a choice and it's about your life. This choice doesn't require you to quit your job, though it challenges you to rethink how you do your job.

The system we grew up with is a mess. It's falling apart at the seams and a lot of people I care about are in pain because the things we thought would work don't. Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. They have become victims, pawns in a senseless system that uses them up and undervalues them.

It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map.

Stop settling for what is good enough and start creating art that matters. Stop asking what's in it for you and start giving gifts that change people. Then, and only then, will you have achieved your potential.

For hundreds of years, the population has been seduced, scammed, and brainwashed into fitting in, following instructions, and exchanging a day's work for a day's pay. That era has come to an end and just in time.

You have brilliance in you, and your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must. I'm hoping you'll stand up and choose to make a difference.

I like my work. I have a great job. And yet there is still the need to be reminded: create art that matters! There are those times where I get focused on the numbers, on the pay, on the benefits - on what I get out of my work. But I know that what makes my job most meaningful to me flows out of the meaningful work I do for others. And Seth Godin is imploring us to make our work a gift of art that makes a difference.

Whatever your job is, you can do it with a smile and a touch of humanity, you can go the extra mile - not because you want job security or to brown-nose the customer or impress your fellow employees. You perceive your tasks as opportunities to present a gift to the recipient because you don't want to feel like a cog in a wheel, you want to be fully human. You do your job with an attitude of art: there is craftsmanship involved in the details of your work, in how you interact with other humans.


Either you settle and punch the clock and gripe about your boss, OR you view your job as a platform to impact the lives of other humans, speaking words of kindness and helpfulness, serving customers and fellow employees with dignity and respect. The workplace doesn't have to beat you down, you don't have to let others suck your humanity out of you. You can make a choice - that is what makes you full alive!


This is what makes you a Linchpin, that indispensable person at work - your attitude, your humanity, your gifts. For some of you, it won't take much effort to stand out and become indispensable. For others, your efforts at becoming a Linchpin will raise the bar for everyone - and that's the kind of difference that makes you indispensable. Because of you, stuff happens, good stuff - stuff that comes from the choices you make with your attitude, your artwork.

Are You Indispensable?

The world has changed (again) and the stakes are higher than ever.

Now we're facing a full-fledged revolution - a hypercompetitive world involving art and gifts and fear and the ability for you (for anyone) to make an indispensable contribution to something you care about. If you're not indispensable (yet) it's because you haven't made that choice. 

My goal is to help you see that the choice is yours.

So says Seth Godin.

If you have a job, you need this book. If you are looking for a job, you really need this book. If you have friends who need a better job, you ought to read this book. What is this book? Linchpin. (Click here to Amazon.com for lots of insightful reviews, and to purchase...)

It's a call for people like YOU to make the kind of choices that make YOU indispensable at work. But to become indispensable requires that YOU make the kind of choices that bring humanity to your work, your whole-self. Think about it: what would make YOU indispensable where YOU work? This book seeks to light a raging fire of motivation for YOU to be the kind of person who is indispensable.

I'll be posting more blog entries in the weeks to come as I work my way through the book. Here's some ideas from the beginning of the book:

A genius looks at something that others are stuck on and gets the world unstuck.

So the question is: Have you ever done that?

Have you ever found a shortcut that others couldn't?

Solved a problem that confounded your family?

Seen a way to make something work that wasn't working before? 

Made a personal connection with someone who was out of reach to everyone else?

Even once?

No one is a genius all the time. Einstein had trouble finding his house when he walked home from work each day. But all of us are geniuses sometimes.

The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

This book is about love and art and change and fear. It's about overcoming a multigenerational conspiracy to sap your creativity and restlessness. It's about leading and making a difference and it's about succeeding. I couldn't have written this book ten years ago, because ten years ago, our economy wanted you to fit in. 

Now, like it or not, the world wants something different from you. We need to think hard about what reality looks like now. What if you could learn a different way of seeing, a different way of giving, a different way of making a living? And what if you could do that without leaving your job?

Go to the library and check out this book. Better yet, borrow mine when I've finished reading it. Or buy your own - it's worth the investment. Just get the book in your hands, the ideas in your brain.

These days everyone is worried about keeping their job or getting a job or their concerned for their friends and family how are having employment woes. It's rare to find someone who loves their job. And yet, that love (art, gift, humanity) is going to be the key to the future of work. Not because you close your eyes to the hardships of your workplace, but because you bring a new attitude, a new perspective, a new resolve as to what kind of indispensable person you are going to become - and the gift you are willing to give.

Work can't just be about wage. That demeans you and everyone else involved. Work is supposed to bring meaning to your life and those who benefit from your labor. Become indispensable where you work.

Try it, try becoming a Linchpin.