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linchpin

A Business (And Life) Lesson

by Dr.Mani on August 2, 2010

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“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings”

- Rudyard Kipling, ‘IF…‘

Imagine this:

You spend 15 years building an online business and fund raising process.

You work within constraints that are seriously limiting, even crippling – but forge a way through it all, to set up a tenuous (but working) system.

You wake up one morning to an email which notifies you that the hinge on which the enterprise swings has come undone – and everything is in ‘free float’.

  • No order buttons work.

  • No donations can be accepted.
  • No subscriptions will be paid.

In short, everything that had been automated, systematized and organized was suddenly gone!

How would you feel? What would you do? Where would you turn?

This was my dilemma last Wednesday.

But telling a Type A personality something cannot be done is the surest way to bring out all his latent energy, drive and determination to the forefront!

I went into over-drive.

Five days later,

  • I have an alternative payment processor set up, and am taking orders in my business again.

  • I have completely re-designed my non-profit website from the ground up – with a revised strategy that will bring in three times more in contributions to charity.
  • I have started working on a new business plan to double (or maybe triple, or better) my business profits – of which a portion goes to charity, again.

In other words, by staying focused on what really matters – little children getting life-saving heart operations – I was able to look beyond a disaster that threatened the very existence of my online business and fund raising, and create a functional alternative… in less than a week!

Today morning, I was reading Seth Godin’s LINCHPIN, and came across this passage:

“What does it take to lead?

“The key-distinction is the ability to forge your own path, to discover a route from one place to another that hasn’t been paved, measured, and quantified. So many times we want someone to tell us exactly what to do, and so many times that’s exactly the wrong approach.

“Diamond cutters have an intrinsic understanding of the stone in their hands. They can touch and see exactly where the best lines are, they know. The greatest artists do just that. They see and understand the challenges before them, without carrying the baggage of expectations or attachment. The diamond-cutter doesn’t imagine the diamond he wants. Instead, he sees the diamond that is possible.“

Long ago, I stopped imagining the business and non-profit I want. I’ve focused on the one that is possible. So, when something shifts, I shift with it – to reach my goal.

Do you?

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I felt Seth Godin’s LINCHPIN was “Nothing New”, but…

by Dr.Mani on January 26, 2010

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LINCHPIN - Seth Godin

Seth Godin is remarkable. Always. At least, I think he is.

But when I read an excerpt of his new book, LINCHPIN – let’s just say I felt a bit let down!

In this post, I’m going to explore WHY.

First, a quick reminder about the fallacy of trying to judge or describe the whole after seeing only a part – like the 5 blind men who described an elephant variously as being like a rope, a tree trunk, a knife, a rough carpet and a thick snake (after feeling, respectively, the tail, leg, tusk, back and trunk).

All I’ve read is the digital excerpt, NOT the entire book.

Still, I had hoped for some a-ha moments in even that sample – so when I shared this short message with a good friend inside TRIIIBES.com, I wasn’t sure what to expect in reply. I wrote to Marcos Gaser:

“Maybe Seth set his bar too high with Tribes. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood while reading it. Maybe Linchpin just describes what’s in my daily routine. Whatever the reason, I just didn’t find that magical ‘A-ha’ in the excerpt, the way I’m used to with Seth’s writing. I’ll give it another read a day or two later, to see if it’s ‘just me’!”

Well, let’s just say I didn’t need to read it again. Because Marcos’ short, insightful reply made the reasons clear to me in a flash of brilliance…

I am not a marketer by study or experience, and so Seth Godin’s earlier books had many a-ha moments – because they were about marketing.

TRIBES, and more so LINCHPIN, are not about marketing any more – they are about personal development.

LINCHPIN (and even TRIBES, in a way) is about throwing off the shackles of ‘conventional mediocrity’, about ‘following one’s heart’ and ‘making a difference’, about ‘attracting your audience by being unique, special, meaningful’ – and those are things I am ALREADY working on, understand better, have a certain experience with!

The essential premise is that “Everyone is an ARTIST”. And here, in Seth’s words, “artist means someone willing to stand up, stand out and make change.”

Maybe more traditional, corporate and ‘factory world’ readers in Seth’s audience (who may have viewed his earlier work with some ennui and a “So, what’s new?” attitude) will find many a-ha moments in LINCHPIN, the way I did in Purple Cow, or Free Prize Inside, or All Marketers Are Liars, or Survival Is Not Enough.

Like Rajesh Setty says in his very nice review of LINCHPIN,

“In LINCHPIN, Seth focuses on BEING rather than DOING. Seth’s compassionate plea is for everyone to ‘be’ an artist – be a Linchpin rather than a cog in the wheel.“

Does this sound like a familiar theme from my blog posts here?

Having explored how difficult, scary, yet fulfilling it is to stop being a cog in the wheel, and for many years seeing one important purpose of my own blog to inspire as many others as possible to stop hesitating and take that plunge to ‘follow their heart’, I have probably instinctively tuned out much of what I read in LINCHPIN as being “stuff I already know, realize and completely agree with”… and might have dismissed on that ground alone!

So, thank you Marcos for showing me why I probably thought LINCHPIN was “nothing new”… and how, for that very reason, I need to tell many people who read my blog to get their own copy of LINCHPIN – and then think hard about making that decision to make a difference, in any way they like!

In his interview with Hugh McLeod, Seth Godin ends with:

“My work is done here, as the saying goes. To unleash something like this on the world, to go out this far on a limb and have people support you and embrace you and run with it… it’s the most ama­zing feeling.”

Do you want that feeling for yourself?

Then you should read LINCHPIN – and then follow YOUR heart.

Another good reason to do it is because, usually, reading Seth Godin’s books has nice “fringe benefits” – like TRIBES got me entry into Triiibes.com, a place where I’ve met some amazing LINCHPINS.

Here are a few reviews of LINCHPIN by fellow Triiibesters – you may find them interesting too:

Today, on his blog, Seth said: “It took me ten years to write this book. I’m hoping it changes a few people.”

The book is LINCHPIN.

You can get your copy here.

Read it – then decide.

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