Knowledge Work Careers via Resistance and Linchpin - DBR 065

I rarely talk about what we need to do to have a meaningful, successful career.

 

So I gathered some sources...

 

The first I'll bring up is Seth Godin, the author. The book that we'll look at today is called Linchpin. He’s got some things to say about being successful in the modern era.

 

On this podcast, we're looking at knowledge work, at improving it and getting better at it. We also look at the productivity of knowledge workers. That's what Godin's book is about.

 

I'm normally about the micro level, the very base. I'm about helping you fix the wastes of attention, and to a lesser degree time, that you face as a knowledge worker.

 

This is that next level: strategically speaking, how should we position ourselves such that we can have impact? How can we arrange our work so that we create value in the world, and thus be able to take a share of that value for ourselves and be economically successful.

 

I’ll add in some thinking from Steven Pressfield and his book The War of Art. Pressfield is all about motivation and, having chosen what we’ll do to create value, how do we continually convince ourselves to do it?

 

Godin wants us to do some pretty dramatic things. Pressfield will help us not be derailed by the fear of those dramatic things.

 

Your takeaway: career growth opportunities and encouragement and tactics to avoid fear-based procrastination when confronted with those opportunities.

 

Our concern is: How do you deliver profitable value in such a way that it's meaningful to you as the creator of that value?

 

Linchpin and the changing work world

• Work is changing - 20th Century work is now a race to the bottom.
• If your business plan to be unusually good at well-known things, you've got to be better than 7 billion people.
• You don't have to have a Nobel Laureate IQ, just be willing to be curious and investigate and solve problems.

Pressfield and the Resistance

• The resistance is this set of forces acting to prevent us from producing our value.
• The muse, the "inspiration model" of great work, is really not a thing.
• If you're gonna be a linchpin, then you're gonna face this resistance.

The problems with being a Linchpin

• There aren't mile markers along the way, so we're robbed of the way we usually get reassurance.
• The (actual) course of invention
• You're not going to get a lot of support if you're in this space, because people don't understand your thing.
• We have to get comfortable with the notion that there is no previously trod path.

The risks of being a Linchpin

• You spend a whole bunch of time and effort and then quit before you're done.
• Ignoring and/or dismissing feedback out of fear.

Why you’ll face the Resistance

• You have to look to people who who don't love your stuff so that they'll be willing to tell you what's going on. Your buddies are too worried about hurting your feelings.
• Whether or not people crack open their wallet because they're serious about how valuable it is
• It's a skill just to have the guts to pitch your thing.

Prepare yourself

• Develop feedback mechanisms in your world.
• Learn to use feedback in school
• Don't expect a textbook. You're writing the textbook. You're inventing this as you go, experimentally.
• Get good at doing things in the face of the Resistance. Find a place to put the "lizard brain".

Your work is different than your parent's work. Don't learn to do the wrong things in the wrong way.