I was originally introduced to Borges via his short stories while in college. Twenty years later I finally got around to reading the essays and parables.

Wow. Just as with his stories, these pieces are tight, dense, and well worth reading. Then again, that was pretty obvious – all the adulation that could be written has already been written. Hell, I couldn’t write a collection of hosannas more effusive than the introduction at the start of this anthology.

So let’s talk about the librarian and the Librarian.

One is lionized as a god from South America, the blind protagonist in the rose. And the other is a teacher who makes my daughter excited to live with books. In this time of distance learning in pandemic, where I am an ever present spectator of my girl’s education, I now know why my daughter loves her school librarian.

Ms. Douglas brings the heat. She can control a room even over a video call, with an infectious generous energy every Friday afternoon wrangling first graders for an hour. It is a mundane display of exceptional skill.

As in my profession, there are the great and the Great.

The masters of our universe are revered in legend, but we ought to praise the vast cohort who have quietly mastered their craft, spreading the love to the next generation.

I’ve started reading this book a few years ago after Seth mentioned that this book was his masterpiece during the previous book tour for This is Marketing. When he repeated this claim again during promotional interviews for his newest book The Practice, I finally buckled down and finished it.

Spoiler: It is.

I’m not sure why I had difficulty pushing past the first few chapters during my initial reads, but it really picks up steam mid-book and earns the author’s own esteemed opinion of it.

I suspect Linchpin did not grab me in previous attempts because it is particularly ambitious. I’m quite fond the smaller format of his other books, such as The Dip and Purple Cow, which also have catchy premises that grab us on the first page. The argument for Linchpin is both obvious and takes a bit of unpacking.

To become indispensable, we need to be more than “good enough”, so we will have to take some risks. When trying to improve things, we have made a commitment that might not pan out. Once in a while, the proposed change might be a “big hair audacious goal”, but normally it’s just putting ourselves just a little bit past normal. It can be daunting to step out of line, and this book is all about encouraging us to dance with that fear.

If we want to be indispensable, we need to create a deliberate practice of testing improvements. However, there is no guarantee, experiments fail as often as not. Trying to be better takes initiative, and taking initiative means we own the results – both good and ill.

It sounds risky, but what’s the alternative? Staying stagnant locks us into today’s mediocrity and becoming obsolete tomorrow.

So we might as well become linchpins. Not everything will succeed, but work is a lot more more fun when we’re constantly experimenting!

I’ve always been a bit mystified by two political fields – economics and foreign affairs. The first because everything seems counter-intuitive, the latter because it always seems to be a choice between several bad options.

I haven’t found a good primer for foreign affairs, but this book helped me get a basic “macro” sense on economics.

Ultimately the basic issue is “what are the people producing”? If they are producing a lot, the macroeconomics are going to be generally quite good and the inverse if people aren’t producing a lot of value per capita.

That’s simple enough, but then everything starts to get funky once you add the two other core concepts of money and expectations, which can color the how production is calculated and create odd phenomena around the economy.

Secondary concepts of interest rates, exchange rates, and methods of accounting then fill out the picture. This is when things start to get a little counterintuitive, but nothing too crazy that can’t be handled with a little careful reading.

The counterintuitive part of economics is found in the fact that these basic concepts are affected by a myriad of factors – ultimately all the individual actions of all the players in the marketplace (as in each of us). Also once we get comfortable with a theory, something comes in and bowls us over, as the Great Recession, and people need to reassess their theories. Life tends to be messier than math.

Even though the basic concepts are pretty straightforward, when there are so many players (who aren’t perfectly rational) interacting with each other you end up a pretty complex field.

This book gave me a basic sense of how the big pieces of economics fits together. Even though I doubt I will read another dry textbook on economics and I’ve already forgotten some of key concepts just a couple months later, I sense a residue buried in my brain and these ideas should be much easier to recall when needed, kind of like riding a bike.

This book was just what I needed. For future reading, I’m going back to popular books about wacky counterintuitive quirky economic topics. Sometimes you need to read the fun stuff first to get you interested in a topic, but I find that exposing oneself to basic foundational stuff is always worth the effort, even if you ultimately go back to the candy.

I tend to plow through self help books, like my daughter just did with the 16 volume Roald Dahl box set over a week.

I read this over the holidays and I think this will likely be one of the most important books I’ve read in a while. So I’m following up the library copy with a purchase on Amazon.

We just tried his Focus Mapping technique with how to teach her Chinese and in twenty minutes it yielded some key insights in what wasn’t working. My wife still found it painful (she finds all such exercises difficult) but I think it was quite valuable.

After having gone through one of his “full” processes (in all a half hour of time), I tend to agree with his assertion that you can start habits at any time. There is no need to wait for a new year’s resolution. Just notice a problem, take a moment to look at it systematically, and start implementing a change.

Normally I try to write up some (slightly) deeper thoughts or anecdotes to go in my initial impressions. I also usually let these notes marinate for a while before publishing.

This one is just go, go, go.

Strongly Recommended.