The Red Velvet Lawyer

As part of my summer concentration on books written by Seth Godin, I recently read his 2010 Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?  It ties to many of the themes I summarized in my post, “Leaning In” as a Woman Lawyer , found here .   Godin argues that with so many means of direct communication with so many different “tribes” in a hyper-competitive world, each one of us can make an indispensable contribution, as a linchpin, to a business, art, project, or something we care deeply about.  You have the choice of being indispensable.  Just make it. He defines linchpins as the “people who own their own means of production, who can make a difference, lead us, and connect us.”  “The linchpin is an individual who can walk into chaos and create order, someone who can invent, connect, create, and make things happen.  Every worthwhile institution has indispensable people who make differences like these.”   They are artists and givers of gifts.  T...

I finished Seth Godin's new book, The Icarus Deception .  I like his "big ideas." In this book, he argues that in a post-industrial economy, in which we are bombarded with media messages, we will stand out only if we give a gift to the world that is REMARKABLE.  The gift, freely given from a place of urgency and pure joy, is our art. While I don't see an effort to clearly define what "art" he means, he uses the term so broadly that it could include any creative effort that you pursue diligently, passionately, and with increasingly greater skill and insight.  It requires you to face down your own fears of failure and inadequacy (which he attributes to the "lizard brain," aka the amygdala and other fear centers of the left brain, mostly). It requires you to pursue your art even when those around you discourage you actively and more passively.  It requires you to separate your art from your own self-worth, so criticism of your art does not unbal...