Zaire Allen

Your value is the key to new opportunities. The easiest life and career hack is to be the person people need. If your career isn't on your desired path, others might not see you as valuable as you think. Simply put, creating value is solving others' problems. The opportunities you dream of are on the other side of being valuable to one or several people.

We often have an inflated view of our value to others. Just because we care about our creations doesn't mean they do too. Kanye West wouldn't have created five beats a day for three summers if it were that easy to be valuable. Value creation, like anything worth doing in life, is hard at first. Failure is more likely than success. But progress multiplies your chances of getting opportunities as your skills increase.

I experienced this as a self-taught Product Designer. It took three years to become valuable enough to land my first full-time role. While I thought I was the shit, employers and recruiters didn't want to hire me. I failed to convey my work's value verbally. I would've been a liability in meetings. It's harsh but true. Because of this, I learned skills that eventually helped over 250 others learn how to achieve the same results in under six months.

Increasing your value will look different than mine or most other people's stories. Determining where you'd like to focus your efforts first is important. Once you have this in mind, you can figure out if you need to learn new things to solve problems or if you need to work harder. Whatever it is, don't shy away from the task ahead.

Being valuable to others has a butterfly effect. The opportunities that come from adding value to the right person are often beyond our comprehension.