Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [78]
Seeing clearly means that you're smart enough to know when a project is doomed, or
brave enough to persevere when your colleagues are fleeing for the hills.
Abandoning your worldview in order to try on someone else's is the first step in being
able to see things as they are.
Annoyed at Intent
The car across the street won't stop honking its horn. Not the car, actually, but the person
in the car. I can't get a thing done, it's so annoying.
The next night, the wind is blowing hard. Every few minutes, a leaf or twig hits my
window. It's sort of comforting knowing that I'm safe inside. I work away.
What's the difference?
I'm giving a talk. The microphone stops working. The overworked guy in the stage crew
forgot to change the batteries before I started. I'm annoyed. Almost angry. Right now, I'm
not thinking about how overworked he is, or how many things he had to do. I'm thinking
about how evil he was, how he deliberately sabotaged me for no reason. All this hard
work, sabotaged by a careless error. I walk over and pick up the backup microphone, but
my rhythm is shot.
A few weeks later, another talk. The bulb in the projector burns out midway through.
Couldn't be helped. A hiccup of nature. I don't miss a beat and finish the talk without the
slides.
Equanimity is easy when we're dealing with a random event. Stuff happens. We don't get
angry at birds chirping or even a thunderstorm occurring during a play. But if a cell
phone goes off, that's an entirely different story. We need to sit and seethe, as if that
seething is magically sending horrible vibes to the offender and he will never do it again.
The linchpin understands that getting angry about the battery in the microphone isn't
going to make the battery come back to life. And teaching the stage-crew guy a lesson is
senseless and not going to help much, either. So you deal with it.
If you accept that human beings are difficult to change, and embrace (rather than curse)
the uniqueness that everyone brings to the table, you'll navigate the world with more bliss
and effectiveness. And make better decisions, too.
Teaching Fire a Lesson
Fire is hot. That's what it does. If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself,
but being angry at the fire doesn't do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson
so it won't be hot next time is certainly not time well spent.
Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it's not human. But human beings are
similar, in that they're not going to change any time soon either.
And yet, many (most?) people in organizations handle their interactions as though they
are in charge of teaching people a lesson. We make policies and are vindictive and focus
on the past because we worry that if we don't, someone will get away with it.
So when a driver cuts us off, we scream and yell. We say we're doing it so he'll learn and
not endanger the next guy, but of course, he can't hear you. There's a media mogul who
stole from me in 1987 and I haven't spoken to him since. He doesn't even know I exist, I
bet. So much for teaching him a lesson.
The ability to see the world as it is begins with an understanding that perhaps it's not your
job to change what can't be changed. Particularly if the act of working on that change
harms you and your goals in the process.
Elements of Attachment
The first sign of attachment is that you try to use telekinesis and mind control to remotely
control what other people think of you and your work. We've all done this.
You work really hard on something, or you debut a special project, or there's a
particularly important meeting. You've done everything you can, and now the crowd is
deciding on its reaction. Are you wrinkling your forehead and willing them to make a
choice? The focused energy of brainpower mind control is exhausting and completely
ineffective.
You will exhaust yourself in this effort, and it will never work. No one ever says, "I'm
glad I spent hours turning this situation over and over in