Oh, well, let's just roll on. Larry has the next one. Larry says, "Hi, Professor Newport. I loved your book, 'So Good They Can't Ignore You,' but it seems to me that only a small minority of people can possess rare and valuable skills at any given time. Does this mean only a minority of people can succeed in achieving the ideal laid out in your book?

If not, what would a world where most people are so good they can't be ignored look like? Thank you very much for your time." Good question, Larry. It allows me to clarify something. Yes, the big idea in my 2012 book, "Be So Good They Can't Ignore You," is that you should build what I called rare and valuable skills.

Use those as leverage then to take control of your career, move it towards things that resonate and away from things that don't. More recently, I might talk about that as use that leverage to get closer to your ideal lifestyle. Same idea. So Larry is saying, well, how many people can really have rare and valuable skills?

How many people are gonna be a world-class writer or mathematician or something like this? And this is an important clarification. Your definition, Larry, what you're thinking of when you think of rare and valuable skills is too broad, too strict, I should say. When you're thinking rare and valuable skills, you're thinking at large scales of competition, rather, that you're the best.

That's way too strict and ambitious. When I say rare and valuable skills, I mean, you can do something for your employer that is valuable to your employer, and they don't have a lot of other people who can do that for them right now. So the scope for rare and valuable skills is your employment situation.

So everyone can have rare and valuable skills that give them leverage. I mean, let's get concrete. Let's say you went to college, you have an entry-level job, you're working at a communications non-profit outside of Boston, you have your fancy degree, but you're starting at an entry-level job. You're basically, they'll call you an associate, but you're kind of like an assistant to someone who's higher up.

You're helping organize projects and trips that they work on, something like this, right? A very standard sort of entry-level job. What would rare and valuable skills mean right there? Well, you are reliable. You accomplish the things you say you're gonna accomplish. You're organized. You learn and understand whatever it is that the people you assist do, so you can make their life easier.

Maybe they work with a particular, and I'm thinking about an actual person, actual job here. This is actually a job my wife had out of college. So I'm using this as an example, but let's say they work with a particular tour provider. They would take teachers on tours. Getting to learn how that tour operator works and the people over there, that's all valuable.

That's very valuable to this employer. And they don't have other people who can do this for him. They could try to hire someone else, but they don't know if they're gonna be good or not. That gives you leverage. Now you're able to move up. You have leverage over what you wanna do and what you don't wanna do, and you can start moving up in that job.

You move up to the next level, you do that next level well. You get good at it. You master elements of it that are specific to the job. Other people don't do it as well as you, and you move up. So what I'm trying to say, Larry, is rare and valuable is relative to the employer, or if you're self-employed, relevant to your specific clients.

Everyone can build rare and valuable skills in their particular context. That career capital is leverage. Use that leverage to keep moving your job closer and closer to supporting the lifestyle that you desire. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)