Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [12]
average products for average people and routinely interrupted us, hoping we would notice
them--and eventually, we stopped paying attention. Now, 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.
Now I want to make a similar but much more personal argument: You have no right to
that job or that career. After years of being taught that you have to be an average worker
for an average organization, that society would support you for sticking it out, you
discover that the rules have changed. The only way to succeed is to be remarkable, to be
talked about. But when it comes to a person, what do we talk about? People are not
products with features, benefits, and viral marketing campaigns; they are individuals. If
we're going to talk about them, we're going to discuss what they do, not who they are.
You don't become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to be
indispensable is to be different. That's because if you're the same, so are plenty of other
people.
The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen
as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply
about.
THINKING ABOUT YOUR CHOICE
Can You Become Indispensable?
Yes, you can.
This is an important question and it deserves a thoughtful answer.
The first thing to realize is that other people have done this before you. Other people have
survived the corporate school system, have survived their first job, have survived a
mother-in-law telling them what to do--and have still done the challenging work it takes
to become indispensable.
That's essential to know, because that means it's not impossible.
The second thing, even more important than the first, is that the people who have made
this transition have nothing on you. Not a thing.
In every case, the linchpins among us are not the ones born with a magical talent. No,
they are people who have decided that a new kind of work is important, and trained
themselves to do it.
Sure, being tall helps you become a star in basketball, but how many of us have a shot at
playing in the NBA? For the rest of us, it's not about what you're born with, it's about
what you do.
Teaching Remarkable
Where do the great artists, writers, product developers, copywriters, inventors, scientists,
process engineers, and chefs come from?
Explain this: If I make a list of great artists (Alice Waters, Herschell Gordon Lewis,
Spike Lee, Eliyahu Goldratt, Muddy Waters, Cory Doctorow, Richard Feynman, Shepard
Fairey), not one of the names on this particular list is the product of a school designed to
create him or her.
A great school experience won't keep you from being remarkable, but it's usually not
sufficient to guarantee that you will become so. There's something else at work here.
Great schools might work; lousy schools definitely stack the deck against you. Why is
society working so hard to kill our natural-born artists? When we try to drill and practice
someone into subservient obedience, we're stamping out the artist that lives within.
Let me be really clear: Great teachers are wonderful. They change lives. We need them.
The problem is that most schools don't like great teachers. They're organized to stamp
them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average.
Why are you working so hard to bury your natural-born instincts? I've never met
someone who had no art in them, though it's buried sometimes. Markets are crying out.
We need you to stand up and be remarkable. Be human. Contribute. Interact. Take the
risk that you might make someone upset with your initiative, innovation, and insight--it
turns out that you'll probably delight them instead.
Consumers say that all they want are cheap commodities. Given the choice, though, most
of us, most of the time, seek out art. We seek out experiences and products that deliver
more value, more connection,