Linchpin

I like “Seth Godin”:sethgodin.typepad.com/. I haven’t read all his books, but I really enjoyed “The Dip”:www.amazon.com/gp/produc… and “Tribes”:www.amazon.com/gp/produc… They were quick reads (I got the first on audio, the other in print). He seemed to crack the problem of getting a business book down to its core idea and not using any more pages than needed.

So it surprised me when I picked up his latest, “Linchpin”:www.amazon.com/gp/produc… and months later I’m still not even halfway through. There’s nothing wrong with the content; I like what I’ve read so far. But it doesn’t flow the same way his other writing does, and at twice as long it doesn’t have the same structure.

Finally I realized I was doing it wrong. The best way to approach Linchpin is non-sequentially. Now I just jump to any random page, read a few profiles for the people and companies he uses as examples, and then 5 minutes later put it down again. I get just as much out of the book, but without the guilt of staring at the remainder of unfinished pages.

Manton Reece @manton