(IV) The Zero Sum Game within the Economy Is A Lie.

New wealth can be created by reinventing a business model. Godin believes that the pie (economy) is not limited, and does not delinate how large the pie could be. The example is Kim Berry of the Programmers Guild, a non-profit lobby in Congress to ban Visas for talent programmers from outside the US. For him, it’s a win/lose, not a win/win to have diversity and foreign competition within the US programming community. This is completely absurd since programmers can be anywhere, and still program via telecommuting. Also, great talent can create innovation and more productivity, this then leads to more demand, the programmers guild could grow tenfold by enlarging the pie.  The scarcity of resources might make it clear that wealth is derived from 1^st resource acquisition, 2^nd the specialists within finance, et cetere, 3^rd the service technology and industries but Godin believes the pie can be enlarged, while Berry believes that there is a limited size to the macro-economic pie.

(II) Conformity = Dispensability (continued)

How to get things done by Bre Pettis:

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action, and completion;
2. Accept that everything is draft, ie not perfect;
3. There is no editing stage;
4. Fake it until you make it;
5. Procrastination must be crushed;
6. Get it done, so you can get something else done;
7. Once you’re done, you can throw it away;
8. Laugh at perfection
9. Failure counts as done
10. Doing something makes you right;
11. Destruction is a variant of done;
12. Done is the engine of more,
13. If you have an idea that is published on the internet, that counts as done.

You Need To Push Hard ie. Sprint Towards Innovation.

STOP CHECKING your blog, inbox, online sites that you visit. Stop the bullshit cycle that is slowing down your productivity. You need to pull an all-nighter or two in order to make sure that you project kicks ass. You should write down the due date, post it on the wall. Godin writes down his ideas, prioritizes them, builds them, and ships them out the door. It’s a habit that produces revenue & results.

(This is a series of posts on Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)

(II) Conformity = Dispensability (continued)

The ABC (attendance-base compensation) that we received in school or in work is misleading. In the work world, the average subsidize the mediocre, and the above average get screwed over. The classic Marxist theory is espoused by Godin, the exceptional workers in the factor realise that it does not pay to do factory work at factory wages only to subsidize the boss. This is a fine statement in practice, yes, but how easy is it to create an alternative to the factory? A resume is another way to conform, you do not need a resume but you need to pitch yourself. Do not try to grid it out in business, according to Godin.

Resistance Is Your Lizard Brain Acting Up

Your brain is just an evolved version of that of the lizard’s brain. We are programmed to fear uncertainty, and to not take risks. At work, sharing ideas will always leads to others attacking it because they didn’t create the idea. If they do like it, then they will turn around, and use it themselves. You should not fear failure, you should embarrass failure, and learn from it. You should seek out discomfort in order to grow. The people who break through usually have nothing to lose and almost never have a back-up plan. They are all or nothing. You need to start thinking up bad ideas, in order to create a possible good idea. You should mix the way things work, to challenge how it might actually work. The temptation to sabotage the new thing is huge, precisely because that new thing might work. Godin is betting that you won’t do anything and it won’t really matter because he’s already sold me this book…

Signs that the lizard brain is active:

1. Don’t shop on time. Late is the first step to never;
2. Procrastination, claiming that you need to be perfect;
3. Ship early, sending out defective idealism hoping they are rejected;
4. Suffer anxiety about clothes to an event;
5. Make excuses because of lack of money;
6. Do excessive networking to have only friends around you;
7. Deliberately isolate yourself from the community;
8. Demonstrate lack of desire for new skills;
9. Be snarky;
10. Start a committee instead of taking action;
11. Criticizing the work of your peers…