Last Friday, he told me a story about a teacher who, on the first day of class, told the students that he was giving them all an A. All they had to do was to write a paper on how they would work to earn the A that semester. By doing so, he believed the students would be freed of worrying about the grade and focus on the actual learning.

But my mentor rebutted that and said I should give myself a D. “A D never killed anybody,” he said. “Expect that people are going to laugh at you. Expect that you’re going to fail. And, once you give yourself a D, you can create your art.”

Seth Godin and me at the launch of his new book, "Linchpin." 1.15.2010

The mentor was Seth Godin. Seth is one of few people to whom I believe the term “guru” applies. He’s been educating me about marketing, branding and the business of being engaged since I found his blog in 2007, when I started working on overseeing my company’s events for senior marketing executives. He’s written some of the most well-regarded books on marketing, and I have come to enjoy his voice as a daily part of my life.

He shared the above story during the launch of his new book, Linchpin. I haven’t read the book yet. I bought it on Friday when I went to hear him speak. In hearing him sharing the story of why he created this book, I knew that the message would be something many of you would find value in.

Below are the five main concepts I walked away thinking about.

"Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?" by Seth Godin

The Narrative

He welcomed us by telling us that the people in the room (between 800 and 1,000 people) were probably the people who least need to read the book. So his hope was that we’d take what we learned, put it in our own words and share it with 10 people. What a great message. This goes back to what I wrote last week in The Narrative, in that he asked me to make him a part of my story. (Please leave a comment here if you read and enjoy this. That way, we’ll know whether or not 10 people were impacted through what Seth shared.)

I’m a genius.

“A genius solves a problem in a way that no one had ever solved it before. When you were four, you solved the finger-painting problem in a way no one else had. You are all geniuses.”

Seth said Henry Ford is the man of the century. T-Models were painted black not because black was a favorite color, but because black paint dries the fastest. Multiply that by assembly line proportions, and you can easily see the genius in that black paint.

Near the end of his talk, Seth asked everyone who was a genius to stand up. Every one of us did. He said, “I’m glad you did that. If you didn’t stand up, that would have been really awkward.” Sometimes, you just need to hear something from someone you admire to believe and embrace it. Yeah, YOU. You’re a genius. Own it and create like you believe it.

Industrial Age < The Age of Art

Seth shared a couple of hilarious photo slideshows with us. One was from “one of the world’s largest collections of photos of lunchladies.” He talked a bit more about assembly lines, how our school system was created to make everyone blend in instead of stand out, and then about the ever-maligned lunchlady. In his view, we’re quickly moving out of a time in our country’s culture when you do your time in school, work for Firm XYZ, punch a clock for 45 years and turn in your keys at the end for the cheap gold watch.

The dot.com boom and bust followed by the market implosion in late 2008 led several people to question their lives and careers and their place in the whole scheme of things. Many of those people reached out to Seth in letters and emails, and their outreach had an overall tone of “This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I worked so hard, and for what?”

These emotional frequencies are what vibrated with Seth and are in large part what led him to write Linchpin. The subtitle of the book is “Are You Indispensable?” He wants people to feel as though they’re needed. We are moving away from punching a timeclock and towards working around the clock because we’re creating something of value.

Seth gave a shout-out to Elizabeth Gilbert’s wonderful 2009 TED Talk on Nurturing Creativity. I suggest you either watch the video or read the transcript to hear from someone who is creating this Age of Art.

Lethal Generosity

“The most generous person wins.”

The poster Seth gave all attendees at his book launch. Generosity in action.

This was my single favorite takeaway. My friends and family and boss all give of themselves constantly and it really makes me look at them differently. My boss in particular is always that person who will go to the ends of the earth to make sure our clients feel as though they are the only client we have.

Seth’s example of lethal generosity comes from a London coffee shop, Prufrock Coffee. The owner gives out a Dis-Loyalty Card to customers, encouraging them to get stamps at eight other local coffee shops. If his customer visits all eight competitors and comes back, he gives them the gift of a free coffee. This is brilliant for a few reasons.

1) Prufrock Coffee is losing money every time a buyer chooses competitive coffee over theirs. But they must be generating at least some good will in the process, as he’s putting some of the businesses in his niche on the radar for other people.

2) He is rewarding loyal clients. To have them drink at eight other places and STILL come back for his coffee shows that they are engaged and that they LOVE coffee.

3) How incredibly confident must the folks at Prufrock be for them to shove their clients into the arms of the enemy and know that they’ll be back? You have to admit, that’s both ballsy and awesome.

This concept of “lethal generosity” has been coming up for me quite a bit since I first came across it in Shel Israel’s book Twitterville. You can read about his definition of it here. I will be revisiting that topic here soon.

There were many other points I wish you could have been there to hear and experience with me. I hope you’ll check out reviews from people who have actually read Linchpin, or go ahead and buy it yourself. If nothing else, you should subscribe to Seth’s Blog, as he embodies generosity by giving away free content every single day.

There’s one last point I want to share, and this is the most important one.

DO THE WORK

Just do the work. If you write, sit down (as I am now at 3 a.m.) and write. If you’re a plumber, get down on your knees and plumb the ___ out of something. Don’t let anything stop you. Go for the D, fall on your face a few times and do the work.

***

Thank you to Jon Thomas of Presentation Advisors. Jon gave away three tickets to join him and his wife at the book launch, so I couldn’t have had this amazing experience without him.

Thank you to Clay Hebert of Daily Sense. Clay spent six months working with and learning from Seth in 2009 and personally introduced me to Seth after his talk.

I learned one of Seth’s favorite ethnic restaurants is the awesome SriPraPhai in Queens. The conversation lasted all of a minute, but I will never forget that. Thank you both.

EDIT: The book is now for sale. You can buy on Amazon here, Barnes & Noble here or support your local bookstore and ask them to order it for you and other interested folks.

In addition to being one of my closest friends on the planet, Joy and I share something else. We have a healthy appreciation for the humor and the spectacle that is Tucker Max. In the beginning of 2006, when his book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” came out, it quickly became a bestseller, partly in thanks to the robust community of fans of his website, where he first began publishing his short stories.

I became a fan of Tucker’s in 2004, when a friend of friend mentioned Tucker’s website in passing and I went and looked it up. I read all of the posted stories, then found his message board. I didn’t post there, but did find the discussions to be both entertaining and intelligent.

A couple years went by, and I forgot about Tucker and his stories. Then, right after St. Patrick’s Day in 2006, he came up in conversation again. I went to check on his message board, saw that his stories (both new ones and the ones from his website) had just been published in book format.

I have never laughed so hard throughout a book in my life, not until then and not since. The book was so funny that it did drive me back to his message board, just so I could share that experience with other fans and people who knew him and these stories in real life. I joined the board, became a member of that community and a couple of months later I met Tucker in person.

As I mentioned, I moved to NYC at the end of 2006. I only knew three people in the city, one of whom was Tucker. We spent my first Christmas in the city together, and I’ve only seen him once or twice since then, as he moved to L.A. to work on a television pilot and a movie shortly after I arrived in New York.

Which brings me to today, and why I’m here. Joy and I are going to the Tempe, AZ premiere of “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” tonight and I’m so excited to support Tucker in his biggest adventure to date.

People hate on him for what he writes about and what they think he stands for. I’ve been in his community long enough now to not feel like it’s my job to defend him from these people – people gonna hate no matter what. I stand by everything I’ve written about him, and hope that more people get to know him and respect him as an artist. The guy is incredibly smart, disciplined and talented. Just because he is unapologetically himself, a lot of people want to hold him back.

People shrink away from authenticity and are jealous of people who are doing exactly what they love without restrictions. Me? I learned from that. I hope this movie blows it through the roof, breaks records and makes history. He and his friends worked this project, from the blog to the book to the movie, the way they wanted to without sacrificing their vision.

That is something to admire.

The movie (screenplay written by Tucker Max and Nils Parker) opens to the public September 25.

For everyone who ignored their to-do lists, cancelled all appointments and turned their ringers off, this one’s for you. It’s not so much my regular happy five, but it does have five things I hope you’ll get a chance to check out.

*****

1. I haven’t had time to read in forever. I had a bunch of things on the to-do list today, but since I’m still not feeling that hot, I just read. All day. ALL DAY. I don’t know if I’ve ever just read for an entire day. It was glorious. So, instead of four other happy things, I’ll give you four other happy reads:

“Living a Writer’s Life” spoke to me for obvious reasons. I think anyone who wants to live a passionate life – writing-related or not – will enjoy that one.

“You Can’t Go Back – Part 1″ I can’t pimp PhilaLawyer enough. His stuff is just so crisp and real in a “yes, that’s IT” kind of way that I can’t help kind of marveling at the dude very time he drops a new one. (By the way, his editor and publisher aren’t bad either.)

A better portion of the day was spent catching up on my food reading. This lead to one recipe, then another and, next thing I knew, I had bookmarked enough new recipes for the next month.

Beer-Braised Pot Roast. A shout-out to one of my new favorite food blogs, “Not Eating Out in New York” and to Yuengling, one of my favorite beers. Plus it’s a great recipe for my NH folks who are a wee bit covered in snow (you’ll have to do without the Yuengling though, unless you want to drive down near Boston to buy it).

“Angles, Hustlers and Suckers” Something for the pool player or strategist in all of us.

And if you’ve made it this far, you owe it to yourself to visit another blog I can’t get enough of and watch this video. Okay, so it didn’t involve reading, but I was laughing so loud that my roommate came into my room to check on me: Tracy Morgan Wasted on Live TV, courtesy of N*gga Know

I’m built of books, man. Telling you what I read is like revealing a state secret, and ya’ll know how I feel about secrets. I like ‘em in the box, where they belong.

But I’m giddy. I’m sitting here with a wedge of Fontina cheese, a Wusthof paring knife and $116 worth of booty from Barnes & Noble. So, I’ll share some of the books I bought. Not all, but some:

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E.B. White.
Anyone who went through the English program at Merrimack High is probably shuddering right now. I read it, re-read it, owned it and lost it. I needed another copy. You know I’ll be picking up “The Writing Life,” when I’m done.

Seducing the Demon; Writing for My Life, by Erica Jong.
See my blog, “Lightening, Ms. Jong and Mr. Muse.” Ms. Jong gets me. I wanna talk to her.

Inferno, written by Dante Alighieri and translated by Anthony Esolen.
I should mention here that most of my book collection is still in self-storage in Chicago, along with everything else that I value. I need to get that stuff, really. I was just going to buy the same translation of Inferno that I have in storage, but from a quick flip-through, I can tell I like this new one more.

The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions.
Because I need it.

Laughable Loves, by Milan Kundera.
I have read every novel written by this man, except this one. I’m very excited.

100 Love Sonnets, written by Pablo Neruda and translated by Stephen Tapscott.
It looks like a good collection and the original Spanish text is side-by-side with the translation. I don’t speak Spanish, but I like looking at it. It makes me feel better when I can see the writer’s original words. Same with the Dante translation I picked up – the Italian text is on the facing pages. Oh, and the book jacket is pink (yay!).

And finally
The Penguin Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form.
Out of all the thesauri (???) I have perused over the past few months, I liked this one the most. Previous to this, I have not owned a dictionary or a thesaurus since college. All I keep on me is the Associated Press style manual. Is it wacky that I have a crush on my new thesaurus?

Anyhow . . . I have eaten about six bites of cheese while writing this and feel fairly ill, since I’ve been ixnay on the dairy-ay for awhile. It was yummy, though.

Here’s what I need from you folks: book recommendations. Left to my own devices, I will read fiction, poetry and autobiography. Oh, and every cooking, fashion and music magazine (except Cosmo) currently in publication. I need to branch out. I hate sci-fi, but I would love to check out some solid recommendations from just about any other genre.

I would especially love to hear from my subscribers who’ve never commented . . . let me see your gorgeous faces, loves. Edit: This list is never “closed.” Doesn’t matter how many months have passed since I posted this, always feel free to add recommendations. Thanks.