指尖阅读—你的生涯你做主（十七）

If you want to chart a course that differentiates you from other professionals in the market place, the first step is being able to complete the sentence, “Acompany hires me over other professionals because…” How are you first,only, faster, better, or cheaper than other people who want to do what you’redoing in the world? What are you offering that’s hard to come by? What are youoffering that’s both rare and valuable?

You don’t need to be better or faster or cheaper than everyone. Companies, after all, don’t compete in every product category or offer every conceivable service. Zappos focuses on mainstream shoes and clothes. If it tried to offer over-the-top customer service on a range of high-end luxury products, it couldn’t be the place for quality shoes delivered with terrific service,because its focus would be diluted and its differentiation eroded. In life,there are multiple gold medals. If you try to be the best at everything and better than everyone (that is, if you believe success means ascending one global, mega leaderboard), you’ll be the best at nothing and better than no one. Instead, compete in local contests – local not jut in terms of geography but also in terms of industry segment and skill set. In other words,don’t try to be the greatest marketing executive in the world; try to be the greatest marketing executive of small-to-midsize companies that compete in the health-care industry. Don’t just try to be the highest-paid hospitality operations person in the world; try to be a top-notch hospitality operations person in a way that’s aligned with your values so that you can sustain your work over the long run. What we explain in this chapter is how to determine the local niche in which you can develop a competitive advantage.

Competitive advantage underpins all career strategy. It helps answer the classic question,“what should I be doing with my life?” It helps you decide which opportunities to pursue. It guides you in how you should be investing in yourself. Because all of these things change, assessing and evaluating your competitive is a lifelong process, not something you do once. And it’s done by understanding three dynamic puzzle pieces that fit together in different ways at different times.

敢于冒险，敢于尝试新鲜事物，能够在逆境中坚持不懈、奋斗不止，有极大的韧性，能承受较大的压力，善于学习，悟性极高，有方法、有思路、有创意等等，这些都有助于提高自我的价值。只有不断的挑战自己，提升自我价值才能让自己的事业线延绵不断！