IKEA doesn’t sell you patience. They can’t sell you that, you have to provide it.

Equally, a gym membership doesn’t come with discipline. Bring your own. (Imagine every gym membership card said that on the back!)

On their own, a piece of IKEA furniture and a gym membership are 2 totally useless artefacts. They are form without function, bark with no bite. They resemble a lot of the products, services and experiences we buy nowadays, expecting that the act of purchase alone is enough to get the benefits. In many cases, it’s just the first step.

Being a Linchpin doesn’t always apply to your working life. Being a Linchpin is a daily exercise in responsibility and pushing the boat a little further out, further than you thought you had to go, or could go. Applying that mentality to everything you do is life changing, but like everything else, it requires you to bring a special something. It requires you to picture the next step and make the leap.

Maybe it’s an extra detail in a message for a friend that goes unnoticed, a kind word for a sibling even if you don’t feel like it, or a relaxing of a previously held damaging narrative, but you are the instigator and ultimately, the greatest benefactor.

Here is where it pays to be selfish. Do it with gusto.

And it gets better. You know that famous diagram showing that all the good things happen outside your comfort zone?

That’s what lies beyond. Its never a case that you will get there with what you have, you almost always need to dig in. Digging in is usually hard, and not for the faint hearted, but yea re almost always guaranteed to find something new, something that may surprise even yourself. But when you do find it, get ready to congratulate yourself.

You have become a little more you.