The Afterglow Experience

Today I received some advice at work: "Become rare." I've been at my current job for a bit over two years and I've been consistently doing well at an individual contributor level. However, in my current role and company I can only bring in as much value as the number of hours that I can work and bill to clients. Within the company, in a way I am my own business. If salespeople and project managers trust me or know that I'm skilled in a certain area, they'll "hire" me, or bring me in on different projects where I can provide value. Developing a unique skill that is marketable and ensures that I remain in high demand for the foreseeable future is a key way to demonstrate value to the company, and in turn justify them paying me more. Currently, simply working in the industry I'm in makes me rare and in demand. But markets tend to adjust over time and this won't last forever. By talking to people in other departments and leadership, I can learn w...

The other day at the grocery store I bought a few sweet potatoes. Yesterday evening, as I was working, my amazing partner began making dinner and cut into one of the sweet potatoes, expecting to see a deep orange color that she typically associates with sweet potatoes. However, the flesh of these particular sweet potatoes was white. Granted, she was having a bit of a rough day up to this point and I think she really needed some food, but as an observer I have never seen such an aggressively adverse reaction to a white sweet potato. She cut off one slice of it, saw that the color was not the orange she expected, and walked away, ready to give up on that potato entirely. Substitutes like rice or pasta were considered. For some unknown reason, she absolutely hated that the inside of that potato was not orange. I am not a potato expert. At this point, my confidence that I really had grabbed a sweet potato from the store was shaken and I didn't know exactly what it was, but it sure look...