Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [65]
Don't proceed until you get a yes. Iterate if you must, but don't get started simply because
you're in a hurry. Do not accept "Well, I'll know it when I see it." Not allowed.
Once you get your yes, go away and build your project, thrash-free. Ship on time,
because that's what a linchpin does.
Rethinking Your Goals in Light of the Resistance
What does the success of your project look like? Have you defined success in terms of
critics, or some other measure that doesn't actually serve your needs? Are you hoping for
a great review or a gold star or applause? A profit? Big sales? Changing people's minds?
The chance to do it again?
The resistance is happy to set up unachievable goals as a way of dissuading you from
doing the work. After all, if it's impossible to achieve something and it's going to be
painful to try, why bother? When we agree to define our success on others' terms,
especially other people who don't particularly like us and aren't inclined to root for us,
we're giving in to the resistance.
If you decide you want to please the critics, the same people who make a living hating the
sort of thing you do, it's easy to give up in advance.
If you declare that you want to build a giant brand, something in the top fifty of all brands
of all time, it's easy to hit roadblocks. That's because your goal is largely impossible. The
roadblocks don't make your project more likely to succeed; they kill it.
The Grateful Dead puzzled industry pundits for a long time. Why didn't they want to sell
more records? Why didn't they want a gold record? Why didn't they want to get their
music played on the radio? The answer is simple: they were playing a different game, a
different tune. Instead of buying into a system that would tear them down and corrupt
their vision, they built their own system, one that was largely resistance-proof. One
concert a night, night after night, for decade after decade. Play only for people you like,
with people you enjoy. How can the lizard brain object to that?
The result is sneaky and effective. When you haven't set up a judge and jury for your
work, you get to do art that doesn't alert the resistance. And then you can leverage that art
into the next thing.
Amplifying Little Thoughts
Do you remember what you had for lunch yesterday? If you take a second, you probably
do. Now, do you remember what internal dialogue and little thoughts you had racing
through your mind a few minutes before lunch yesterday? Almost certainly not.
Little thoughts are ephemeral. They come, and inevitably, they go. We don't remember
them an hour later, never mind a week or a month later.
A decade ago, I came up with the idea for Permission Marketing. In the shower. I still
remember the where and the when. It was one of those little ideas, something that could
easily disappear. The resistance would be happy if all your little brainstorms disappeared,
because then they wouldn't represent a threat, would they?
The challenge is in being alert enough to write them down, to prioritize them, to build
them, and to ship them out the door. It's a habit, it's easy to learn, and it's frightening.
The Resistance Gets Its Next Excuse Ready in Advance
Are you in the wrong industry? Does your spouse hold you back? Is it the economy?
Perhaps it's the vendetta your boss has always had against you.
The resistance is working overtime to be sure that you won't actually do anything
remarkable. As a result, the list of excuses in reserve is longer than you might expect.
When it finds a useful crutch, a loser's limp, the resistance will milk it for all it's worth.
But removing that excuse, calling the bluff, probably won't be sufficient. There's always
another one at the ready.
The only solution is to call all the bluffs at once, to tolerate no rational or irrational
reason to hold back on your art. The only solution is to start today, to start now, and to
ship.
THE POWERFUL CULTURE OF GIFTS
Gifts?
I must have been absent