From the Groundswell blog, another review of Linchpin:

You need to read Seth Godin’s Linchpin. Or be a cog in the machine. Your choice.

In my mind, one of the most valuable things in this book is a chart on page 181. There are two axes. The x-axis goes from passive to passionate. The y-axis goes from attachment (that is, inflexible dedication to your own world view) to discernment (knowing what to live with and what to seek change in). I would call that y-axis “wisdom”. Seth wants you to aim for the upper left, high passion plus high wisdom, the realm of the linchpin.

From my years of experience working with people, passion is a trait most visible in the young. Wisdom is a trait that is more visible in people who are more experienced. This is why there are so few wise and passionate linchpins. Seth would never be so crass as to typecast people by age, but I know there are plenty of experienced and wise but passive people (he calls them bureaucrats, you know the type) and plenty of young, passionate, and inflexible people (he calls them fundamentalist zealots.) This is why the wise, passionate person stands out.

The real reason I like this book is that after nearly 30 years of work I have arrived in a place Seth would describe as a linchpin and I am loving it. I have always been as passionate and creative as I can, just to amuse myself, why work if it’s boring. This is a childish quality but I retain it at age 51. On the other hand, I have learned some discernment that I sure didn’t have in 1982. Every quarter, my boss (and I have had many) sets goals with me related to what the company needs. At the end of the quarter, often, what I accomplish is very different from what we thought would be useful. But typically, that boss looks at what I did and says “that was what we needed” and rewards me anyway. I cannot be a cog, and fortunately, they have recognized that a cog is not what they need. In the long term, all of my success so far has come from this sort of thinking.

Susan L. Reid has an article for Financially Preparing Small Business Owners for 2010 at the American Express OPEN Forum.

The first two ideas are to hire a business coach and focus on the near-term. I believe that both of these are fantastic ideas. I use a local free service via the University of New Hampshire Business School for business coaching and I have found their assistance to be invaluable.

Focusing your efforts and thinking on the near-term is also very good advice. The important thing is going to be to get to the end of the year “in the black”. The results of the 2010 mid-term elections in the US are going to be anybody’s guess right up until November, so small business owners need to focus on being prepared for just about anything.

The third idea, I believe, warrants even more discussion.

3. Reinvent your business.

2010 will be the year when you will have to reinvent yourself and your business. The world is not the same world you inhabited just a few years ago. Don’t get caught up in thinking that, once the economy settles, we’ll all be returning to the way things were. There is no going backward. And, honestly, even if you could, would you?

To respond to events, do something new and innovative. Something other people would not expect you to do. The old way of doing things doesn’t apply any more. So be brave and try something new in your life and business.

While the next 12 months will bring new challenges, look forward to more signs of recovery in the upcoming months while, at the same time, putting into place a plan for your business that will weather a double-dip if and when one should occur.

How can you re-invent your business? I can think of at least two examples:

Turn a service into a product

If your small business is a service of some sort, turn part of it into a resource that your customers can purchase. For example, perhaps an bookkeeper manages the accounts of some specialty firms and has created spreadsheets with all sorts of custom templates and macros. One of these may be applicable to other businesses. These potential customers may not be able to afford your ongoing bookkeeping services, but they may be interested in purchasing the accounting tool and doing it themselves.

In addition, you now have the opportunity to market to these customers with other products that you develop, or possibly add services in the future. Make the product once, sell it multiple times. Sell upgrades. Sell customization.

Turn a product or service into a training course

Once again we are looking at something that you can do once, convert it into a digital format, and sell it multiple times. Whatever your business I am sure that you have a set of frequently asked questions or frequently recurring situations that you must handle for your clients or customers.

Turn this FAQ resource into a training tool, using PDF or audio or video format. That is what Brad Shorr and I did with the Writing for the Web course, to teach our own clients the basic tools of do-it-yourself SEO (Search Engine Optimization). By adding this training course to our website packages we were able to cut down the amount of time spent coaching our clients on the same information over and over.

What type of small business do you have, and how can you re-invent part of it for 2010? Share in the comments.

My friend Robert Hruzek has invited me to join in the February groupwrite project: What I Learned From…Children:

So the questions you have to ask yourself are this: Have you ever learned something from your children? From someone else’s children? When you were a child yourself? When a friend or acquaintance was a child? When you were standing next to a child?

The Lovely Bride and I do not have any children, but we do enjoy the company of the children in our families. One thing that always inspires me about children, mostly 7 to 9 years old, is that they do not yet believe that lots of things are impossible. Let me repeat that:

They do not yet believe that lots of things are impossible.

The key word there is “believe”.

By the time we (all us grown-ups) get into High School we have a pretty firm grasp on the things that we believe are true. (Read this post Linchpin Review and buy the book for more on that topic)

• If you don’t get good grades you can’t go to college.
• If you don’t go to college you will never get a good job.
• Marriage ends in divorce.
• You can make a million dollars on the Internet.
• You can’t make any money on the Internet.
• The people in Washington DC know what they are doing & it is best for all of us.

Sadly, some of the things that adults believe are patently untrue.

One of the things that Seth Godin writes about in his latest book, Linchpin, is that we do not have to believe these things anymore! We must regain our child-like ability to believe in the impossible, then go out and do something remarkable.

In the 2+ years that I have know Robert I have seen – with my own eyes – things that everyone told me were impossible. I have seen bloggers and podcasters become media enterprises. I have seen regular people with a good idea share it with other people and make something incredible (and some $$ too!).

I have regained my own ability to believe. I started my own business (In Context MultiMedia – develop your small business and yourself through Social Media Literacy & Productivity tools and tactics.) I spoke at a conference for people that wanted to learn about what I had to say.

I have re-learned not to believe that lots of things are impossible. (Oh, and I lost most of that fat belly too!)

Chris nails it in this 2-minute video. Read the list of things that he does, then pop over to Kitchen Table Talks and watch the video.
My advice:
Learn it, live it. There is no substitute for hard work and preparation:

“Lucky” is absolutely what I am. Here’s what I do to earn my luck:

* Write a blog post or two a day.
* Write a newsletter every week.
* Comment and connect with others daily.
* Answer and send hundreds of emails daily.
* Read voraciously.
* Work with the best clients I can find.
* Reach into new markets weekly.
* Travel extensively.

Seems lucky to me.