Do you have this approach to life?

Seth Godin said he hated such approach, for it cheapens us. There are two reasons why this bothered him:

1.Are you willing to sell yourself out so cheap? Do you mortgage an entire (irreplaceable) day of your life for a few bucks? The moment you are willing to sell your time for money is the moment you cease to be the artist you’re capable of being.

2.Is that it? Is the transaction over? If we’re even at the end of the day as the formula, work <=> pay, then you owe me nothing and I owe you nothing in return.

I think such approach limits a person’s potential to give his best.

And honestly, most of us do possess this mentality. I’m sure we’ve at some point of our career had out of frustrations voiced statements along these lines:-

The boss paid me peanuts, this is what he deserves.

Why should I sweat over this proposal? I was paid this much and my boss was paid double my income. Now, tell me why should I care?

Sounds familiar?

The very thought of “I’m giving more than I’m paid to do” has inadvertently stamped our approval of “A day’s work for a day’s pay” approach.

Seth Godin said this approach will not make us indispensable but rather, replaceable. Instead, if we changed our perspective of looking at the day’s work as an opportunity to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters, our work gets better and our art becomes more important. Competition for our gifts will increase and we’ll discover that we can be choosier about whom we give them to.

In other words, we become more valuable and any sane employer would want to keep such an important person which Seth Godin coined as the linchpin.

The Poverty Mentality

If I give you something, it costs me what I gave you.

The more you have, the less I have.

The more I share, the more I lose.

How long have we had an approach to stuff or ideas or time that sounds like this? We’ve been taught it for a long time.

And without realizing it, we carry a calculator along to work, always counting and when we think we had clocked our energy more than what we are paid to do, we tell our brains to stop – “Enough. Time’s up.”

It’s not just about our work output alone. This mentality affects the way we view our expertise and ideas too. I believed you heard statements like…

I spent three years to get to know what I know now. Do you think I’m going to share with you for free?

But the world is changing. Rapidly. The rules have changed. Now, more than ever, successful people race to give away their expertise and to spread their ideas.

We have a choice on whether we want to make ourselves indispensable or not. For in the words of Seth Godin, if you’re the linchpin, the company has to treat you better. Pay you fairly. You won’t be the first to be shown the door in a slow period, for the linchpin is necessary. The linchpin has power!

The above is much inspired with some portions quoted from Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin