Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

If you can’t be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can. If your organization skipped a month’s catalog because you didn’t have anything great to put in it, what would happen the next month? Would the quality and user delight of your product line improve? Raising the bar is easier than it looks, and it pays for itself. I

We seek out experiences and products that deliver more value, more connection, and more experience, and change us for the better.

The law of linchpin leverage: The more value you create in your job, the fewer clock minutes of labor you actually spend creating that value. In other words, most of the time, you’re not being brilliant. Most of the time, you do stuff that ordinary people could do.

Creativity is personal, original, unexpected, and useful. Unique creativity requires domain knowledge, a position of trust, and the generosity to actually contribute. If you want to create a unique guitar riff, it sure helps if you’ve heard all the other guitar riffs on record. Unique implies that the creativity is focused and insightful. Deliverin

The last element that makes it art is that it’s a gift. You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art. There’s always a gift intent on the part of the artist.

The race to make average stuff for average people in huge quantities is almost over. We’re hitting an asymptote, a natural ceiling for how cheaply and how fast we can deliver uninspired work.

The challenge is in understanding when our effort can’t possibly be enough, and in choosing projects and opportunities that are most likely to reward the passion we bring to a situation.

Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people.

Artists think along the edges of the box, because that’s where things get done. That’s where the audience is, that’s where the means of production are available, and that’s where you can make an impact.