What Everyone Ought to Know About Linchpins

Seth Godin’s Linchpin

Greatness Is Grown

Everyone has incredible potential to accomplish great things.  It’s not that anyone can’t do it and it’s not that they were born so they could never do it.  It’s that they haven’t been given the right care, attention, information, love, water and sunlight to grow and be linchpins, leaders or trust agents.

Seth Godin said it best:

Seth’s Blog: Surely not everyone: “We make a difference to other people when we give gifts to them, when we bring emotional labor to the table and do work that matters. It’s hard for me to imagine that this is only available to a few. Yes, the cards are unfairly stacked against too many people. Yes, there’s too many barriers and not enough support. But no, your ability to create and contribute isn’t determined at birth. It’s a choice.”

(Via Seth’s Blog.)

(A choice made easier or harder by the circumstances you find yourself in or allow yourself to be forced into.)

Being a Linchpin Isn’t All Genes

Seth also had every right to be angry when a newspaper reporter asked him:

What inherent traits would make it easier for someone to becoming a linchpin? Surely not everyone can be a linchpin?

Are people so utterly brainwashed?  And yet every day there are people who call others “stupid”, who look down on others and grind them into dirt, who abuse their power, age or position.  They destroy and pull down the confidence, will and dreams of others.

It is easy to perpetuate.  Destruction (trolling?) was always easier than creation.

Grow Your Revolutionaries

What allows linchpins to flourish, to grow and become stronger is confidence, determination and a strong supportive, caring network. The potential is in everyone and some people because of circumstances find themselves needing more help to get out of the hole than others.

They say the best wine grapes are those grown at the right temperatures (Burgundy), with the right soil with just enough calcium (like those in the Niagara region).  You want a great wine, wonderful people and amazing results then you’ve got to invest in their potential or find a good set up that will help you do that.

PS.  Thank you Seth for being a continual inspiration and motivator.  If there’s one person who could be called the master gardener of the soul that would be you (and Chris Brogan).

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