Linchpin Quotes

My wife, who is the linchpin of my life, claims that I have a presence much bigger than my physique. She says that people measure me by the impression I make on them.
I find this notion ludicrous. It is bullshit born of love. ~ Dean Koontz

What if there were no longer only two sides? Not just capital versus labor, but a third team, one that straddled elements of both? I think there's a huge opportunity for a third kind of participant, a linchpin, and now there is an opportunity to change all the rules that we've lived with all our lives. There is a shortage of this third kind of worker, and that shortage means that the market needs you desperately. The con game is ending, at least for people passionate enough to do something about it. ~ Seth Godin

Needless to say, this fragile experiment began by taking for granted the ugly conquest of Amerindians and Mexicans, the exclusion of women, the subordination of European working-class men and the closeting of homosexuals. These realities made many of the words of the revolutionary Declaration of Independence ring a bit hollow. yet the enslavement of Africans -- over 20 percent of the population -- served as the linchpin of American democracy; that is, the much-heralded stability and continuity of American democracy was predicated upon black oppression and degradation. Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white -- they would be only Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and others engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. ~ Cornel West

When Christians start thinking about Jesus, things start breaking down, they lose their faith. It's perfectly possible to go to church every Sunday and not ask any questions, just because you like it as a way of life. They fear that if they ask questions they'll lose their Christ, the very linchpin of their religion. ~ A. N. Wilson

When your organization becomes more human, more remarkable, faster on its feet, and more likely to connect directly with customers, it becomes indispensable. The very thing that made your employee a linchpin makes YOU a linchpin. ~ Seth Godin

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. ~ Seth

The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin. ~ Seth Godin

If you create a system that makes the small donors the linchpin of the system in terms of how members of Congress directly raise the funds for their campaigns, then it gives everyday citizens much more of a role - a leveraging role - in the funding of those campaigns. ~ John Sarbanes

The alternative to tourism The linchpin, the engaged one, the graceful actor in an unfolding play - these people don't seek to only inspect. They're not traveling in order to tick a checkbox. Instead, they open themselves to the world they bought a ticket to, knowing full well that they will be changed. ~ Seth Godin

It's becoming clear that people who reject the worst of the current system are actually more likely to succeed. -Seth Godin, Linchpin ~ Sophia Amoruso

This is like the Six Sigma approach to quality. Six Sigma refers to the quest for continuous improvement, ultimately leading to 3.4 defects per million units. The problem is that once you're heading down this road, there's no room left for amazing improvements and remarkable innovations. Either you rolled ten strikes or you didn't. Organizations that earn dramatic success always do it in markets where asymptotes don't exist, or where they can be shattered. If you could figure out how to bowl 320, that would be amazing. Until that happens, pick a different sport if you want to be a linchpin. ~ Seth Godin

For many of us, the happiest future is one that's precisely like the past, except a little better ~ Seth Godin

Marriage is a linchpin in many women's lives, but many other things can create a satisfying life. I adore my career. It stretches every physical, emotional, and intellectual muscle I have. ~ Geraldine Stutz

Harriott maintained that Zafar was the evil genius and linchpin behind an international Muslim conspiracy stretching from Constantinople, Mecca and Iran to the walls of the Red Fort. His intent, declared Harriott, was to subvert the British Empire and put the Mughals in its place. Contrary to all the evidence that the Uprising broke out first among the overwhelmingly Hindu sepoys, and that it was high-caste Hindu sepoys who all along formed the bulk of the fighting force; and ignoring all the evident distinctions between the sepoys, the jihadis, the Shia Muslims of Persia and the Sunni court of Delhi, Major Harriott argued that the Mutiny was the product of the convergence of all these conspiring forces around the fanatical Islamic dynastic ambitions of Zafar: ~ William Dalrymple

The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.
Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.
The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.
Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.
I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.
The job is not the work. ~ Seth Godin

1. Your business needs more linchpins. It's scary to rely on a particular employee, but in a postindustrial economy, you have no choice. 2. You are capable of becoming a linchpin. And if you do, you'll discover that it's worth the effort. ~ Seth Godin

We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference. Some organizations haven't realized this yet, or haven't articulated it, but we need artists. ~ Seth Godin

Fear for a linchpin is a clue that you're getting close to doing something important. ~ Seth Godin

This is not a book for the wild-haired crazies your company keeps in a corner. It is a book for you, your boss, and your employees, because the best future available to us is a future where you contriubute your true self and your best work. Are you up for that? ~ Seth Godin

In the linchpin economy, the winners are once again the artists who give gifts. Giving a gift makes you indispensable. Inventing a gift, creating art - that is what the market seeks out, and the givers are the ones who earn our respect and attention. ~ Seth Godin

The Russian people and Russian culture are the linchpin, the glue that binds together this unique civilization. ~ Vladimir Putin

As a chef, I could not wash my hands - nor clean pots, pans, utensils, meats or produce, nor make soups and sauces - if I did not have clean water. Were this to happen, of course, these would be the least of my concerns. Because water is the linchpin of survival: without it, not much else matters. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

One thing you will learn with experience of dealing with politicians, is never to be surprised at anything.

- The Linchpin, Pg. 72 ~ Neeraj Ashok

Love is the linchpin that connects the material world with higher levels of existence. ~ Julianne Davidow

There are two ways a linchpin can use 'no.' The first is to never use it. There's a certain sort of indispensable team member who always finds a yes. She always manages to find a way to make things happen, and she does it. It's done. Yes. Those people are priceless. Amazingly, there's a second kind of linchpin. This persona says 'no' all the time. She says no because she has goals, because she's a practical visionary, because she understands priorities. She says no because she has the strength to disappoint you now in order to delight you later. When used with good intent, this negative linchpin is also priceless. She is so focused on her art that she knows that a no now is a worthy investment for the magic that will be delivered later. ~ Seth Godin