How To Become Irreplaceable

So something I’ve been pondering over for quite a while now is the idea of becoming irreplaceable. The idea originates from a simple problem — if someone else can do your work, you’re always at the risk of getting replaced. Be it any job, business, or profession, as long as you are replaceable, you won’t get the maximum possible value for your work.

Anybody can find a teacher with the same degree and train them to teach at their school. Anybody can open another fast-food joint and drive your sales away. Any lawyer can file a land dispute case, what differentiates you?

That’s why celebrities earn so much money. Their faces cannot be replaced by anyone.

Now the question is how can you become irreplaceable? Well, you can improve your skills, work harder and outsmart the competition. But even then, you’re just ahead of the crowd, not above it. To be truly irreplaceable, you need to get above the competition.

The goal is to do what only you can do. Look at your interests and abilities. Think how you can uniquely combine them to produce work that nobody else can copy. If you can pull that off, you will be irreplaceable. You can ask any amount for your work and the market will pay.

Meng To combines his coding, design and teaching skills to create courses that make him more money than any programmer, designer or teacher.

Thomas Frank, with his marketing skills and an obsession over project management, sells Notion templates that make him over $100K a month.

Tim Urban and Lawrence Yeo add hand-drawn illustrations to their essays, making them playful and more accessible.

Hideo Kojima, a Japanese video game designer, extends his skills beyond just game design. He actively participates in every aspect of the game, be it writing, direction, soundtrack, asset creation, mechanics, programming, marketing, and everything I left out. His involvement in every step of the development process popularized him as the first auteur of video games.

Taylor Swift is not just a good musician, but a savvy businesswoman who knows what works and what doesn’t. She knows her fans, she knows her music, she knows the industry. Her strategic approach to song writing has effectively made her a billionaire.

Okay, too many examples! But the point is that these people have been able to combine their unique skillsets to produce work only they can. They cannot be replaced. They have become one of one.

Once you reach this point, when you’re a one-of-one, you’re in a place of infinite leverage. You can decide the worth of your work. You can ignore everyone. You can be free.

Of course, it’ll take time. But the good news is that it’s not a binary game. It’s a spectrum on which you can start moving right away. You can start realigning your work with your interests. You can start expanding your skillset beyond your niche. And soon enough, it’ll get harder and harder for the market to replace you.

As a software engineer trying his hands on writing, I can vouch for this ;)

What are your unique interests and skillsets that you think can be combined in a meaningful way? Do let me know!

Talk to you next week :)
Aachman