Seriously, if we’re not providing an extreme amount of value to our coworkers and customers, what are we doing there? Are we easily replaceable? Or are we a linchpin?
So what do I do with that? How do I become irreplaceable?
I don’t know about you, but there’s an innate sense of “just push harder” where we love smashing our heads against the wall to make things work. TV doesn’t work? Hit the side of it. Something stuck? Kick it. A cord stuck? Yank harder. But that’s not the case here. I’ve tried that too many times.
The old cliche is true: work smarter, not harder. We need to reinvent ourselves. We need to rethink ourselves. So what does that mean?
For starters, it means creating action points to act on. For me, I need to spend what little of this summer is left to grow considerably more in my knowledge and thought process.
To accomplish that, here are several goals I have for the remnant of the third quarter.
- Finish reading High Output Management by Andy Grove
- Start and finish Essentialism by Greg Mckeown
- Publish the next three blog posts already in the hopper
- Further hone the craft of writing by drafting and publishing 6 more posts
- Read at least two more Patrick Lencioni books (gosh, he’s good)
- Clear through my Pocket (getpocket.com amazing tool to save websites for later reading) list of articles which is longer than the full text of the Affordable Health Care Act
- Get my Asana (asana.com, for project management and tracking — great tool if you need project tracking tech) list under control and effectively delegated and prioritized
These will not “make me smarter” or more capable by themselves. However, these are just the first few steps of an even greater plan. There’s much, much more, but it’s time to start somewhere.
Lao Tzu said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The metaphor applies. It’s time to start walking toward becoming irreplaceable.
Jeff Beaumont 