…competent, inspiring, passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry, driven, adoring, inspired, an artist, a genius, someone who cares…?
With all these remarkable, powerful, important options available to each of us, why do so many of us default to competent? (Seth Godin’s blog)
[Sunrise in South Africa – Sep. 2011]
This was my first experience with an audiobook that I mentioned in my post about pros and cons of audiobooks. Whether you prefer the audiobook or printed version, I recommend it to anyone who reads my blog (is interested in enhancing life). In the words of the author:
“I didn’t set out to get you to quit your job or to persuade you to become an entrepreneur or merely to change the entire world. All I wanted to do in this book was sell you on being the artist you already are. To make a difference. To stand for something. To get the respect and security you deserve. If I’ve succeeded, then you know that you have a gift to give, something you can do to change the world (or your part of it) for the better. I hope you’ll do that, because we need you.”
And I think he has done a great job of it. A linchpin is someone that is remarkable. They bring the emotional labor to their work. They pour themselves into what they do because they know it is the right thing to do, and they become better people for living and working this way. This also makes them very scarce, and that scarcity makes them valuable – indispensable. I love what Seth says about art:
“Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another. … I think it’s art when a great customer service person uses a conversation to convert an angry person into a raving fan. …Nobody cares how hard you worked. It’s not an effort contest, it’s an art contest. As customers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play or interaction changed us for the better.”
Seth also explains the lizard brain and resistance – part of the answer to my questions in the post about Contradictions. You can read more reviews here.
A very interesting post in Seth Godin’s blog:
Fewer college grads have jobs than at any other time in recent memory—a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual student survey said that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one. So, what should the unfortunate 80% do?
How about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):
Beats law school.
If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?
One of the best books I’ve read on leadership, change and innovation. Here’s an excerpt:
“Every tribe is different. Every leader is different. The very nature of leadership is that you are not doing what’s been done before. If you were, you’d be following, not leading. All I can hope for is that you’ll make a choice. Every leader I’ve ever met has made the choice, and they’ve been glad they did.
“You can choose to lead, or not. You can choose to have faith, or not. You can choose to contribute to the tribe, or not. Are there thousands of reasons why you, of all people, aren’t the right one to lead? Why you don’t have the resources or the authority or the genes or the momentum to lead? Probably. So what? You still get to make the choice. Once you choose to lead, you’ll be under huge pressure to reconsider your choice, to compromise, to give up. Of course, you will. That’s the world’s job: to get you to be quiet and follow. The status quo is the status quo for a reason.”
Mush Panjwani 