Linchpin by Seth Godin
Over the weekend I bought Seth Godin‘s new book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? On Monday I finished reading it, and in the evening I went to hear the author at the Borders in Columbus Circle, where he was appearing with Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art.
The idea of Linchpin is an attractive one. At a time when the economy has drummed into us that no one is indispensable, it’s appealing to be told that we may be indispensable after all, or that this book can tell us how to become indispensable. But the book quickly makes it obvious that it’s not so easy. Career survival requires being genuine, creative, and willing to take risks, says Godin. In fact, it requires being a kind of artist, and artists are subject to blocks.
The reason for that block is what both Godin and Pressfield call Resistance, and Resistance is very hard to overcome. Facing it requires facing our fears, and as Pressfield put it, you may find that the thing that scares you the most is the thing your soul needs. It’s easier to avoid doing difficult creative work by procrastinating on Twitter or Facebook or by keeping busy with routine, following-the-map tasks.
How do you overcome Resistance? Welcome your ideas, says Godin, even the bad ones. (I was reminded of Anne Lamott’s chapter on why “shitty first drafts” are a good thing.) Set deadlines, meet them, and move on to the next thing. Shipping all the time, he says, is the way to avoid burning out.
In the end, said Pressfield, he found that the pain of not doing the work he wanted to do was greater than the pain of doing it. Similarly, Godin said that if he ever stopped shipping, he would have to become a bank teller, and then he would have to blow his brains out.
Even if you make a habit of overcoming your Resistance and doing the creative work you were meant to do, there is no guarantee that it will make you money. It has made money for Godin, but he isn’t fooled by that into thinking it will do the same for everyone. After twenty years of studying successful people, Godin said, the only thing he’s found that they have in common is that they’re successful.
In Linchpin he makes it clear that trying to make your art pay can debase it, and that the best course for many people may be to bring their genuine, creative selves to both their day job and their novel—but without any expectation that the two can be combined.
