January 17, 2021

Your job is not to do the easy thing

close photography of grilled meat on griddle
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If your job is doing something trivially easy, you’re in trouble. There is always someone willing to do that job for less money than you, and that job may just be replaced by a robot eventually.

There’s a time in our life when flipping burgers for a summer might make sense, but that shouldn’t be your long-term goal.

As Seth Godin has frequently said:

If the boss can write it down, she can find someone cheaper than you to do the work.

Of course, your job description can be written down, but it’s more than that. It’s the creativity and connection you can bring to work that make you hard to replace. The more you can bring beyond just checking off a list of tasks, the more indispensable you’ll become.

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