Some time ago, Seth Godin (the father of the "Tribes" and "Ideavirus" concepts" wrote a great little piece about what are you worth (see: Hourly work vs. linchpin work )? In this article he goes on to suggest that what makes you worthwhile is not so much how rare your skills are, but if there are no ready substitutes, what are you really worth? Essentially, if you have the ability to bring in an additional $1 million dollars pretty easily for a company, or sell 20% more seats for a concert quickly, or save a company 25% of their operating budget? What is that REALLY worth? $100K, $1MM or more? This is an excellent question. This reminds me of the story of Admiral Nimitz and the mechanic that after WWII the aircraft carrier Enterprise was having a problem with its boilers. This mechanic had retired in the Philippines, and after exhausting every possible solution, the crew finally contacted this mechanic and flew him to the carrier. Once he got there he ask...
How to make huge gains by being able to forecast the future that has already happened