Thanks for getting me to the right link for this! Good stuff here, and in contrasting what you focused on and what I got out of the book and reviewed over at my blog, I’m happy to say I agree with your points.

That said, what did I like about the book? I liked the focus on treating your work as art, focusing on things that can’t become commodities as your core competency, giving gifts and not expecting anything in return (which of course, you always benefit from – not every time, but certainly OVER time) and a focus on shipping product (whatever your individual product happens to be) to make yourself differentiated.

I liked those focus points a lot, and I also agree with your take. Good stuff, thanks for sharing… Nobody can be an indispensable Linchpin in one company, but they can make themselves valuable anywhere by focusing on some of the other concepts in the book…

Thanks – KD

Your “worst idea for a career ever” just might be so! But the best things are never easy. My crew is grappling with this same worst idea that just feels so right. We started out (before my time) as a web and graphic design firm but realized that some clients came to us without a clear picture of who they are and what they wanted to be. Recommending any channel (print, web, etc.) before figuring this out felt (and continues to feel) like selling snake oil. For me, push marketing is dead. Any “campaign” that is 100% outbound without thought to interacting with your audience is a clear sign that you are not working hard enough to become indispensable.

At Fathom, we keep trying to check in with ourselves to make sure we’re not crazy. We have a long way to go, but we’re pretty psyched that the conversations we’re having with clients is more like “how can we do things better?” than “can you make my logo bigger?”

Thank you for your responsiveness. I can’t tell you how refreshing that is.

More than just a gut check, you’ve brought the conversation into a room where it needed to go next, now that a bunch of us have digested Linchpin or are in the middle of doing so. We need to kick this stuff around and really make it our own, or not.

I am one of those “marketing guys” you refer to (altho very much not a guy) and link to (thanks for that, BTW) in your post. Here’s what I see it comes down to:

FEAR.

We don’t want to think we’ve got something interesting to offer up because then we’ll have to do it. It’s much easier to sit on the sidelines and be good enough.

But, I ask this: if you’re not going to do it, who will?

Jennifer M. is spot on — it’s easy to confuse indispensable with irreplaceable, but that notion is not what Godin, in my opinion, is going for.

Godin’s mass rally cry isn’t about everyone inventing a new shoe for Nike or opening up the new Starbucks. He’s talking about taking charge of your little slice — doing something that’s not in your job description, being generous to someone you don’t like or telling someone you think they’re wrong because they need to hear it.

And, that’s what you’ve done here. So, like it or not Jason. You are indispensable.

I say that if you believe you’re not important, you will act unimportant. If everyone believes that it’s the next guy’s job to be interesting, we will all be waiting around for that “guy” to do the job. And, how the hell can we get anything done if everyone does that?

I found this to be a refreshing counter-position, Jason! I am in the middle of Linchpin and though I find much of it inspiring, I have been sensing this underlying creepiness to it. You just nailed it.