I’m a huge fan of Seth Godin. HUGE. I’ve bought 5 of his books (the paper type) and another couple eBooks.

But here’s the thing – I haven’t read a single one of them. Seth gets my money because of his blog, his talks and his interviews. I’m buying the souvenirs of a great trip and I haven’t even gotten off the plane yet. I get something out of the guy almost every time he communicates with the world and for that I gratefully give him my hard earned cash.

So a month or so ago Seth announces on his blog that he’s going to do something a bit different for his new book Linchpin – he’s giving away review copies, not to the mainstream media, but to bloggers and fans. All I had to do to lay my hands on one of these was to donate a few bucks to a worthy charity, The Acumen Fund. My credit card was out of the wallet before I was done reading the blog.

I messed up the order – in spite of being given very specific instructions regarding checking my shipping address. I was so excited to get my order in that I missed it. Bugger. In spite of the fact that the website warned me that there was no recourse I called anyway and Seth’s team was very kind and made everything right. (By the way, how freakin’ amazing would it be to be on this guy’s team?)

I asked Titus Ferguson (our social media guru) if he would write up a review and he was on board.

I waited patiently. A few weeks later I received one e-mail from Seth’s team saying that Canada Customs was having issues and thanking us for our understanding. No problem. Another blog entry a week or two later apologized once again. I’m a patient man.

Well the book was released on Tuesday this week (turns out he released a bunch of bonus material as well) and my review copy still hadn’t arrived. I was a bit disappointed but I knew that it was out of Seth’s hands.

Today I received the book and as I expected there was a note included (there’s no way he’d send these out without a note). What the note said did surprise me – this wasn’t the book I ordered this was a SECOND copy of the book – a thank you present.

This blog is really for the fine folks at Canadian Customs – you can keep my other copy of Linchpin. Just please read it and pass it on to another person on the team when you’re done. There are lessons in there that could make for a world of change in your life and in your organization.

CONTEST UPDATE: A fellow Londoner Scott Webb at Nuwomb Creative is giving away a copy of Linchpin – Details on his blog

On the off chance that you read this entry I just want to thank you Seth – you’re a stand-up guy – much respect.