Early Review of Linchpin: A Gen Y Must-Read

I am a nerd and read just about every leadership, self help, and professional development book out there.

I had to put down Drive and The Happiness Project to read Seth Godin’s pre-release copy of Linchpin:  Are You Indispensable?

Seth’s writing changes a lot of people from all generations but Linchpin should be on all college graduate and young professional reading lists.

I feel scared to write this post and review, quite frankly, because his book gives away secrets and keys to the kingdom that will shake and shatter organizations and industries if you put his advice into practice.

I did not feel this scared with Tribes nor Purple Cow or any of his other books.

This is a human book, not a business book.

Your Sunday School class could read it.

We Gen Y people are at the beginning of our careers and lives as adults.  Now is the time to experiment, try new things, and determine what we want to commit our energy and passion to.  We are artists, not just workers.

On Friday I went to his talk in NYC about Linchpin.  The opening music was live bluegrass by the band the Ebony Hillbillies.  Then he talked.  There were an intimate but respectful 500 people in the auditorium.  It felt like the 1920s when people attended subversive truth-telling talks.

I was a history major and again I’m a nerd and during his talk I felt like I was living in the early 1900s when there were speakeasies and jazz and people doing what they want despite systems and factories.  People weren’t completely indoctrinated in consumer culture yet.  It was the time when American art – jazz – was established.

Seth writes a lot about being an artist in this book.  Not a painter but an artist.  Not a cook but a chef.  Not an assistant but a linchpin.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

Art, at least as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person.

It’s easy to buy a cookbook but really hard to find a chef book.

History is now being written by the artists…the future belongs to chefs, not cooks.

The future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor.

The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it, and then abandon it on a moment’s notice.

I hope you will invest the $17 in yourself by buying this book to be inspired to create art.  We really need you.

The pictures are my fan girl self meeting Seth on Friday and how he signed my book.