Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [74]
is to connect people. The connections she creates require emotional labor on her part. She
risks rejection. She has to engage with people who might not like her right away, or she
must engage with ideas that challenge her. The magic of her art is that this gift continues
to multiply. As her network increases, more value is created. Sunny rarely charges for
what she does, because the gift nature of her work is what makes it so powerful (and
because she loves the work).
The Magic of Living Below Your Means
One of the reasons people give for not giving gifts is that they can't afford it. Gifts don't
have to cost money, but they always cost time and effort. If you're in a panic about
money, those two things are hard to find. The reason these people believe they can't
afford it, though, is that they've so bought into consumer culture that they're in debt or
have monthly bills that make no sense at all.
When you cut your expenses to the bone, you have a surplus. The surplus allows you to
be generous, which mysteriously turns around and makes your surplus even bigger.
How to Receive a Gift
It's possible to destroy an artist by refusing his gifts.
It's possible to destroy him by wasting his gifts as well, or by receiving them in the wrong
way.
Hollywood kills artists every day. They find an independent filmmaker who has made a
wonderful gift of a film. Then they buy him off, give him too much money and not
enough freedom, and choke him to death. The record industry destroys artists regularly
by forcing them to conform in exchange for the promise that they will spread the gift of
their art.
Why, precisely, is that customer service rep going the extra mile? What's in it for her to
deliver a gift so precious when she's not in line for extra cash? Cash-focused, short-term
profit seekers can't bear this. They don't want a relationship that isn't based on money,
and they want to be able to turn the art on or off at will.
For some artists, the benefits are all internal. Creating art is an intrinsic good, something
they enjoy. They don't want anything, don't seek anything, and if they're particularly
resolute, won't get anything.
Most artists, though, are seeking some sort of feedback. They want to know that the art
they are creating is causing a change, that it's working.
And some artists want fame and fortune.
Every artist I've ever met wants to build bonds, wants to cause connections to be made.
Do you think that Bob Dylan wants fans stalking him, wants to be treated awkwardly
wherever he goes, wants to be invited to your kid's birthday party because you know a
friend of a friend of his son's? Dylan doesn't want to be your friend, he wants to cause
you to change or connect.
Do you think the innovative kid in the mailroom wants a fifty-dollar check in his pay
envelope as payment for the new system he pushed for that saves the company a million
dollars a year? Is that why he did it?
A gift well received can lead to more gifts. But artists don't give gifts for money. They do
it for respect and connection and to cause change. So the best recipients are the ones who
can reciprocate in kind. With honest gratitude. With clear reports about change that was
created. With gifts that actually cost us, not just a tiny gratuity or faux appreciation.
Manipulation of the Gift Economy
As soon as you draw the map and mechanize and monetize emotional labor, you ruin it.
The pasted-on smiles of a guide at Disney World, for example, have far less power than
the genuine connection a tourist makes--even for an instant--with a blue-collar worker
manning the controls of the ride.
That's why telemarketers who read scripts never achieve the results of salespeople who
actually speak what they believe. As big business has realized that people crave
connection, not stuff, they've tried to institutionalize it, measure it, and reward it. And
they fail every time.
Think of the flight attendant standing at the exit to the plane, saying "B'bye, B'bye" over
and over