How to Discover Your Irreplaceability

It’s painfully difficult to see our own uniqueness and value

Photo by Alexei Maridashvili on Unsplash

I was about to dance in the ensemble of my first Broadway show when I heard someone utter the phrase: “Everyone is replaceable.” It struck me like the bolt of projected lightning on the upstage scrim. I’m not special.

As I finished my pin curls and headed to the wig room, I mentally chewed on this piece of information. It’s true, I told myself. If I broke my leg, they could just hire someone else, teach them the show, and nobody would know the difference.

Decades later, I realize that person was wrong.

Here’s what I now believe to be the truth: Yes, everyone can be replaced in their job. But everyone is not replaceable.

Replacing a person often comes at such a huge cost to a company that sometimes people are kept in positions far longer than they should. See, everyone brings their own attributes to the table. Some of those attributes can be replaced. Some cannot. But they all come at a price.

The price of replacing people

Again, people can be replaced. But, things are never, ever the same after the replacement is made. You are special specifically because you are…you. An employer might be able to fire you and hire someone else, but that someone else will never do the job in the specific way you did. Here is a list of just some of the things you bring to the table in any position or job:

• The skills you have acquired in your life that apply to the job at hand
• The knowledge you have gained through your life’s experiences
• The relationships you have with the people in the company
• The relationships you have with individuals outside the company that you might use to the company’s benefit
• The knowledge you have of the job you are currently performing
• The passion and drive you have to improve and/or learn
• Your inimitable personality

In my case, in this specific Broadway show, I played a ridiculously silly character. The goofy way I interpreted my choreography would never look the same on someone…