7 Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World

1. You run out of time (and quit).
2. You run out of money (and quit).
3. You get scared (and quit).
4. You’re not serious about it (and quit).
5. You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit).
6. You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard).
7. You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent).

From Seth Godin’s book, The Dip.

Have you read the book? Linchpin by Seth Godin. Reviews are collected here at Squidoo.

Are you a Linchpin? Do you aspire for more? Do you want to lead or create or connect or give back?

Linchpins are meeting in 700 cities world-wide. More than 4000 people. On June 14th, 2010. Are you going to be there?

There are many places to connect with Linchpins online. There is the Tribe. (Now with a blog everyone can read). There is a Linchpin NING. There are a few LinkedIn groups. Now there are over 600 MeetUps. There are probably groups local to you similar to the Tampa Creative Network or Brand Tampa.

But this is In-Person! Connect with another local Linchpin live! Maybe you will connect through Art or Genius. Maybe you will Inspire each other to Ship!

(Did you know that there is a Linchpin Manifesto?)

You can meet Seth live on his book tour (dates here; Boston on June 17th)

Linchpin Meetup June 14th

PS: There is another way to meet Linchpins in-person: events like BarCamp.

There isn’t a single I in Team. But there are 4 I’s in this group: INITIATE, INVITE, INFORM, and INSPIRE. (Thanks to Ed Brenegar).

A few other posts about being a Linchpin:  Mind Map, Tampa Linchpin MeetUp, and Are you a Linchpin?.

This is my Linchpin mind map about the basics of what the book Linchpin was about.

Seth also wrote a shorter version of this book titled Brainwashed: 7 ways to reinvent yourself. At the same time be was helping to compile What Matters Now – a compilation of 70 big thinkers writing thoughts to help jump start your ideas, and hopefully your actions.

In Brainwashed and in Linchpin, the main message is Do Work That Matters. The 7 concepts are as follows:

1. Connect
2. Be Generous
3. Make Art
4. Acknowledge the Lizard
5. Ship
6. Fail
7. Learn

My take-aways were that this book followed his others, including Tribes, The Dip, Meatball Sundae and Purple Cow. A Purple Cow is something Remarkable. It’s not a commodity. It’s something that gets remarked about, talked about, word-of-mouth, stories spread (The IdeaVirus).  Seth says that we all have Genius but the Lizard Brain has stopped us from producing our Art. We aren’t using our SuperPowers to make Art, to ship that Art. By shipping our art that has been produced with Emotional Labor. It’s our Genius at work, when we can get the Lizard to shut up.  Also, there is a Generosity Economy that rewards people who create and share their Art and their gifts. (Think about the Freemium business model).  To be  Linchpin, you need to be an Artist, Generous, but also you have to be a Leader of your Tribe. Leaders Connect People. That too is an Art – and a Gift. See how all that works out?