Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [38]
Until that moment, the conventional wisdom was simple: if you wanted to have a chance
to survive a hurricane, you had to build a very expensive house using expensive
materials. The only alternative was a disposable wood frame house, one that was cheap
but not particularly durable.
Popular Science reports: "The destruction was so complete in places that it was almost
surreal," Sutt recalls. "There were troops in the streets and military helicopters hovering
overhead." As Sutt moved through the wreckage of roofless and toppled-over houses, he
was struck by the sense that much of the destruction could have been avoided. "In house
after house," he says, "I noticed that it wasn't the wood that had failed--it was the nails
that held the wood together."
He devoted the next eleven years (day and night) to creating a nail that would change the
fate of millions of people. Sutt had the insight that it was a nail, not the rest of the house,
that mattered. But the insight without dogged persistence over a decade would have been
worthless.
You could argue that the millions of dollars that Sutt has earned in return for his
invention was money well earned, that it repaid him handsomely for his passion. There's
no doubt in my mind, though, that he would have done it for free. The passion wasn't in
making the money--it was in making a difference, solving a problem, creating a change
that would help millions. Ed Sutt is an artist, someone who chose to make a difference
instead of following a manual.
"Wait! Are You Saying That I Have to Stop Following Instructions and Start Being
an Artist? Someone Who Dreams Up New Ideas and Makes Them Real? Someone
Who Finds New Ways to Interact, New Pathways to Deliver Emotion, New Ways to
Connect? Someone Who Acts Like a Human, Not a Cog? Me? "
Yes.
The Poverty Mentality
If I give you something, it costs me what I gave you.
The more you have, the less I have.
The more I share, the more I lose.
How long have you had an approach to stuff or ideas or time that sounds like this? We've
been taught it for a long time.
Digital goods call our bluff. If you read my e-book, we both win. If you share it, so do
your friends. Attention is precious, and if you're willing to trade your attention for my
idea, we both thrive.
But it goes far beyond that. When you give something away, you benefit more than the
recipient does. The act of being generous makes you rich beyond measure, and as the
goods or services spread through the community, everyone benefits.
But that's a hard thing to start doing, because you've been taught that what's yours is
yours. If you don't have enough (and who does, say the marketers), then how can you
possibly give away what you have? And yet, every day, successful people race to give
away their expertise and to spread their ideas.
A Practical Reason to Become an Artist
Some people become artists because they have no choice. It is who they are and thus
what they do. I'm not sure I can offer encouragement to these artists, as they already have
everything they need to do their thing.
Others, perhaps you, hesitate. It doesn't seem like a reasonable way to support your
family or make a difference in the world.
The role of art keeps changing.
For the longest time, ART (in capital letters) set you apart. Art was not a living, it wasn't
practical, and it certainly wasn't a way to get rich or even change the world.
Over the last century or so, as capitalism has created huge surpluses of cash (or at least
unevenly distributed piles of cash), the number of people willing to act as patrons has
skyrocketed. So has the demand for souvenirs of art and art as an investment. As a result,
art has moved from its own sphere into a sphere nestled right next to capitalism. The
culture industry has turned artists of every kind (singers, playwrights, actors, painters)
into millionaires and rock stars. But they were still of their own sphere.
Now, as