This is the introduction to email # 4 in the Street Smart Consulting series of emails.
I liked it a lot, I hope it is of some use.
The last great battles in the world have been fought over influence and economics. Before that they were fought over land.
Today - the worlds great battle ground is talent.
This is a dramatic shift from the way that "work" used to be, and we see it today in the way that entire countries structure themselves to make it attractive for talented individuals.
But not everybody is going to see this change.
Unfortunately, many people are average or ordinary - and nobody wants ordinary!
If I want ordinary I can get ordinary. And with low wage economies like India and the Philippines feeding the global labor pool - I can get it pretty cheaply also.
So if you are going to be ordinary, you had better be cheap.
Extra-ordinary talent, on the other hand, is rare no matter where you live. So rare that business will line up to pay large sums of money to have access to the value that extra-ordinary talent can offer.
This is why good CEO's earn phenomenal money, this is why people will pay a fortune and travel a long way to see Santana play guitar, and it is the reason why Seth Godin and Alan Weiss get packed seminars
with very little notice.
Because they are not ordinary, they are extra-ordinary.
They offer an extra-ordinary experience, extraordinary value, or an extraordinary perspective. Something that is so rare that it is worth paying a lot for.
Your goal is not to become skilled - it is to become extraordinary
I have really enjoyed putting this email series together. You can subscribe on the right hand side of this page if you want to see what it's all about.
