Onlyness: Defining your unique value

For all of our lives and for generations, if not centuries, workers have been told to sort of fit yourself into the job description. And so we've left and had to leave a lot of what makes us, us. We got paid for that and we got promoted for that. The more that we could fit ourselves to what work required as everything was scaling, the better off we were. That's all about to change because efficiency is what AI does really well. So now what's gonna differentiate you is what makes you you. There is something that is only you in that room can contribute around. Once you start figuring that out and once you start seeing it and saying it out loud, you start to define this space that is only yours. Management thinker, Nilofer Merchant, calls it your onliness. The spot in the world that only you stand in. Now, most of us don't know how to articulate what makes us us. We've spent so long hiding our differences, smoothing our edges, fitting into boxes that we've forgotten what our own actual story is. It's a shift to think about the messy, complicated, entirely human parts of our journeys, not as bugs to be fixed, but as features to be celebrated. But that's what I want you to do right now. First, jot down five moments that shaped who you are. Wins, setbacks, pivots. Then note the decisions those moments taught you to make. Next, as Nilofer would say, if you were given a magic wand and could fix one thing in the world, what would it be? Don't edit yourself. Say the most audacious thought that comes to mind. Then think about intersections. List the worlds you straddle, roles, cultures, communities. Circle the overlaps. Then practice using that perspective. Put it to work. When you collaborate, explain the why behind your approach, how your path shapes your judgment. Here's the thing, in the age of AI, recognizing that everyone has a complex, vivid onlyness, it isn't just poetic, it's practical. Never forget, every day you live an onlyness that no algorithm can replicate or ever replace.