In Pursuit of Relevance: Lessons on Staying Relevant in Work and in Life

_____________________________________________

In 2005, as I was leaving a company, a colleague named Bob handed me a card with a single sentence inside: "You make your job look easy." Twenty years later, I still have that card.

The job wasn't easy, and Bob knew that better than almost anyone. To me, his sentence signaled mastery and an attitude toward work. I like to think I'm level-headed, the kind of person who can take a team through turbulent times, and that card was a sign that it showed from the outside.

There's a Maya Angelou line I really like: people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. I believe that what Bob felt, sitting next to me through the stressful stretches, was safety. This person's got it. And even if he doesn't, he'll have tried everything to get it. That kind of trust goes a long way.

That, to me, is where relevance begins. Relevance is a question you never stop answering: are you valuable to the people around you? Is your skill, your presence, something they would miss? The uncomfortable part is that the answer moves. What made you valuable five years ago may buy you very little today.

Far From the Eyes

In French we say loin des yeux, loin du cœur: far from the eyes, far from the heart. Once you're no longer around, the space you held begins to fill with other things, and it happens without malice or decision. People still like you, but they've simply stopped seeing you.

Visibility gets seen as vanity, but I think of it as maintenance: friendships need presence to stay alive, and so do reputations. The real reason most of us stay out of sight, though, is fear. Fear of rejection, of being found out as less than we hope we are. Hiding feels safe in the moment. It also keeps you far from the eyes, and the heart follows.

Fear Is Fuel

I used to have crippling stage fright, and I mean crippling. In a room with three people, if I got called on, I froze. I told myself I was a junior, I was this, I was that. Underneath it all, I simply hated the thought of being seen failing.

In my field there's no opting out of presenting, so I worked at it in small doses, one uncomfortable room at a time, until the day an event organizer called me at Cirque du Soleil about a conference in Las Vegas. Five hundred people. My heart was pounding just listening to him describe it. I said yes anyway, hung up the phone, and booked a coach for the next six months to get myself ready.

I still get nervous before a stage. What's changed is my relationship with the nerves. When you feel fear, you have three options: fight, run, or freeze. Fear is the surge of energy behind all three, which is why the person who freezes and the person who moves are running on the same fuel. What you do with the surge is yours.

So say yes first, while your heart is still pounding, and become ready afterward. Readiness turned out to be something I could build in six months, but the invitation might not have waited for me to be ready. Relevance waits on the other side of that fear. Staying valuable to people starts with letting them see you, heart pounding and all.

The Human Advantage

Relevance never sits still, and few things have moved it faster than AI. A bot can now do parts of many jobs faster and cheaper, with fewer errors. I run a research, data and AI firm serving some of the world's largest enterprises, so I watch this from the front row, and I see the same split everywhere: some people freeze at the thought, and others use it as jet fuel.

The most lasting answer I've found is also the least technical. When a client decides who to work with, part of the decision is a feeling. Do I like this person? Do I want them around? I remember reading a Harvard Business Review study that looked at more than 10,000 working relationships, and feeling a little vindicated: when people choose work partners, likability tends to win out over ability.1

I've lived it from both sides. Years ago I took the head analytics job at Cirque du Soleil, and the honest reason was the woman who interviewed me, more than the brand or the title. I walked out thinking, this is the type of person I want to be around, and she became one of the best bosses of my career. My wife likes to say I never stuck with one thing, and she's right. I went from engineering to consulting to entertainment to founding my own firm, and looking back, the through-line was people.

Someone could replace almost any supplier with a bot tomorrow. They might keep the person anyway, because of how the work feels together. Safety, again. The same thing Bob felt. Relevance asks whether people find you valuable. Being someone they trust, and like having around, may be the steadiest way left to answer yes.

Start Small

If you take one idea from this piece, let it be this one: resist the comfort of not trying. You have far more to gain from attempting something with an unknown outcome than from standing still, and most of us know it, and we stand still anyway.

Motivation can't be handed to someone, so I'll offer mechanics instead. Shrink the first step. During COVID my sports all stopped, I put on weight, and even ten pushups felt like a mountain. Ten! The first workout session was miserable. The next one was slightly less miserable, and the one after that easier again, until a full workout felt normal and a three-hour walk felt like a gift.

Chemists call this activation energy: some reactions take a burst of energy to start and significantly less to keep going. A train at rest takes enormous force to move, and once it rolls, you'd have to fight it to make it stop. We overestimate the cost of starting and underestimate how little it takes to continue.

Staying relevant works the same way, in a career and everywhere else. The first small appearance, the first yes with your heart pounding: that's the expensive part. Everything after costs less. And somewhere down the line, someone may hand you a card you'll keep for twenty years.

_____________________________________________

1 Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo, “Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks,” Harvard Business Review, June 2005. hbr.org