Making myself dispensable

A wise manager told me many years ago that my career goal should be to make myself dispensable. People who are indispensable may feel more important and more needed, but they are also under intense pressure all the time and create a bottleneck for everyone else. Making yourself dispensable--by sharing what you've learned with others--enables others to do what you do. And in the end, collectively you can all make a much bigger positive difference.

This week I'm celebrating the 13th anniversary of being self-employed as a cybersecurity writer. It's been an incredible journey. So far this year, I've co-authored 11 new NIST publications, with more in progress. I know I'm one of the luckiest people in the world to get to do what I do on a daily basis.

And yet--I could do more. I should do more. I want to help others improve their cybersecurity writing. I'm not sure what that's going to look like--books, websites, videos, blog posts--but there are a lot of possibilities. And the ultimate goal is to make myself dispensable. It's not exactly a genius business model, but that's OK. It's the right thing to do.