There are times when an author or adviser gets the right message at the right time. Nassim Taleb did this in his book Black Swan, which predicted the elements that would create the economic crisis we are currently managing our way through.
Seth Godin had this same gift with his book Linchpin last year, which accurately described the new challenges that workers face and the shifts that must take place within our work habits and systems to become truly irreplaceable in a quickly changing world.
Now with Poke the Box, Godin is following up with a discussion of how to get the gumption to start doing the thing you are passionate about, instead of sitting on the sidelines watching the world go by and waiting for someone to tell you what to do.
If I had to recommend one book, it’d still be Linchpin (book review here), but Poke the Box is a great motivator as well and will challenge your assumptions and help you to think about all the reasons and excuses you use to keep yourself in the status quo.
Even if you are a gifted self-starter, this kind of reminder is always good. The book is full of solid rational on why we fear change, movement and risk and sets us up to really think about what we believe we are capable of.
As Godin points out in his book, there is a difference between being in flux and being at risk:
“I define anxiet as experiencing failure in advance…and if you ahve anxiet about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.
Over time, people have begun to confuse flux with risk as well. WE have concluded that if things are flowing, if there is movement, then of course there is risk.
Those who fear risk also begin to fear movement of any kind. People act as though flux, the movement of people or ideas or anything else that’s unpredictable, exposes us to risk, and risk exposes us to failure. The fearful try to avoid collisions, so they avoid movement”
This book definitely gets my recommendation.
David Curry
