Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch has a skill that is of great value.
They call him “Beast Mode” because once he gets moving he’s near impossible to stop.
Watch him in any play, and you’ll see with one, two, even three tackles on him, he just keeps stepping.
In the statistic “Yards after contact,” Lynch not only dominates the league, but nearly every other running back in NFL history.
He’s a difficult man to drag down, and this is just one of his sources of value, what I call a Tentacle of Value.
Tentacles of Value
If you can imagine, like an octopus with its eight tentacles, to win in your career, you want to have multiple ways to crush it!
This requires knowing what is valued in your career and being able to do it.
In the NFL nothing is more valued than yards, and Marshawn’s skill to keep driving forward is highly valued, but this isn’t enough to win on the field.
In addition to driving yards, Lynch must create value by being a safe pair of hands and creating an opening in the defense, among other tentacles of value.
The same is true in every career.
What Are Your Tentacles of Value?
In my old business of investment banking driving revenues is the equivalent of driving yards and your tentacles of value include the ways you do it.
But even then, driving revenues is only part of the game, and if you want to win, you must define your unique tentacles of value that enable you to build comparative advantage.
This requires stepping back, determining what is valued in your career, identifying where you win, and building your skills to do it.
This is just one thing my book, Do What You Want on Wall Street, is designed to help you do.