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Book Review: Linchpin

July 14, 2010 By Joe Rawlinson

Prolific author Seth Godin’s book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? is a powerful wake-up call to everyone stuck in the status-quo our society has created.

The core of Linchpin revolves around how you can be indispensable and why this is so desperately needed. As an employee you don’t want to be easily replaced. As a business owner, you want your product or service to be essential to your customers.

Status Quo

Godin outlines how our modern day society is the product of the industrial revolution and an educational infrastructure that produces factory workers. Factory workers don’t just work on an assembly line, they are in almost every job you can imagine today, even “white collar” jobs. People are just cogs in a machine.

The old system where you did your time, worked for your company, and then were taken care of later in life are over. In order to survive in the new reality, you need to be indispensable.

Becoming Indispensable

How do you become indispensable? Godin argues that you need to be an artist. Create something meaningful and unique. Be someone that doesn’t follow the established rules. Connect the dots of ideas and concepts that others are missing. Work on something that matters rather than just for money.

Being indispensable is knowing what to work on next without having to be told what that is.

The first part of Linchpin focuses around the employee and how she is essentially trapped in a system that doesn’t have her best interest in mind. The rest of the book outlines how to break free of this system and evolve to someone that is indispensable as an employee, entrepreneur, business owner, or whatever you want to be.

Recommendation: Read this Book

Seth Godin’s Linchpin really resonated with me as it calls out what seems so wrong with our current society and educational system. For us and our kids to be truly successful and happy long-term, we can’t rely on the antiquated system of yesterday, we must become linchpins.

This book is inspiring and compelling in its calls to action. You will want to make changes to your life after reading this book.

You can buy Linchpin on Amazon.com

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