I recently finished reading “Linchpin – Are You Indispensable” by  Seth Godin.  In my first post I talk about the fear we get of what could go wrong when wanting to do something different and tell you to not listen to your brain.  The author refers to this side of the brain as the “lizard brain”.  So what does he call the side of the brain that takes risks, that continues on when faced against fear, the artist!  To highlight one of the main messages Seth Godin communicates in this book, the lizard brain does not like to take risks, it loves coming in to work and working on a set of written rules/tasks, then going home.  It loves predictability.  The problem is that these type of employees are easily replaceable, in other words they are dispensable.  On the other hand, the employees that take risks to make improvements, that challenge the status quo, these are the artists!  And they are difficult to replace and therefore are indispensable.

So you should ask yourself, “Does my workday consist only of completing the required/written tasks, basically completing the minimum necessary, or do I go above and beyond, executing on ideas that bring benefits to my company?”.  If the latter is part of your workday, chances are you are a Linchpin, you are indispensable!