How You Can Become Irreplaceable?
What it takes to become irreplaceable?
Recently I watched an interview of this young and wildly successful business professional from India, who is in his late 20’s. He is very smart, enthusiastic, humble and a great conversationalist. In this interview, he mentioned an incident that made him question his existence.
The story goes like this, when he was working for one of the biggest conglomerates in India as an automotive designer, he decided to go abroad for an MBA and got into an Ivy League. So he gave his notice of resignation to his boss and was ready to leave the job in three days.
A day before he was about to leave the firm he had an epiphany when his boss came to him and introduced his replacement. He was shocked by the fact that they replaced him with another employee in just two days.
'I was thinking that if they can replace me in a matter of two days, then what am I doing with my life, am I that easy to replace?' he recalled.
This made him rethink what he was doing with his life and was he really creating any true value with his work and what legacy he wanted to leave behind when he is gone.
This realisation made me rethink my own life, it struck me hard. And to add to this, with the book I have started reading recently called Deep Work where Cal Newport explains how the majority of today’s jobs are going to vanish with rising technological advancements, it is no less than an epiphany for myself. So if this is the case, What can we do to make ourselves irreplaceable?
Most of today’s entry-level jobs are going to be non-existent in a few years as they are easily replaceable by machines. With the rapid improvement in technological innovations, we should be looking for jobs that are hard to replicate by machines. In fact, this alone is not enough we should be in a position to constantly upgrade ourselves with new skills and keep up with the advancements in our field. This would be the first thing to consider if you want to be irreplaceable.
Now to achieve this the journey only gets tougher from here on. All the skills necessary to get these kinds of jobs are not easy to acquire, it requires immense dedication, hard work, smart work and obviously deep work. All the successful people who have become irreplaceable, if they have one thing in common it’s their ability to quickly learn new things and adapt to changes. This ability is crucial to be irreplaceable. This is where the ability to perform deep work can help us stand out from others.
Deep work is when you concentrate on one single task for a prolonged period of time without any distraction. I know it is simple to say in words but difficult to execute. With consistency and discipline for days or weeks or even months, you can get a hold of it.
Recently I am starting to realise how much difficult it has become for me to concentrate on a task that requires deep focus. When I sit down to read a book I could hardly concentrate for more than five minutes without distraction. This distraction can be attributed to the fact that I got so much used to this context switching world where with today’s technological advancement we can seamlessly switch from one application to another, check messages and emails as we are attending an online class. This can be looked at as a luxury but we can’t ignore the damage it is causing to our ability to concentrate on one task at a time.
But the good thing is this problem can be tackled with the help of deep work. Most people today are very distracted, this gives the disciplined one’s the opportunity to learn new skills quickly by practising deep work and become irreplaceable. I can’t emphasize enough on the importance of deep work in every aspect of your life. The sooner you realise this the better you can become.
Reference:
www.youtube.com and Deep Work by Cal Newport
Share this with someone who needs it. Have a great day! Until next time, Peace✌️.
