[binaryorganic]

I dunno... I got a lot of value from this article. Nevermind the impossibility of everyone becoming a reputable master of their niche.

1) working towards that has benefits regardless of achieving the pinnacle of noteworthy in the examples given

2) being self-aware enough to be able to articulate the value you bring is not something most people are good at, but it’s definitely something everyone should practice.

[wccrawford]

Working towards what you like doing and what needs doing will automatically build a personal moat. So long as you are learning, you are building a moat.

If you are not learning, then you risk staying at your same safety level forever.

But none of that advice helps anyone, IMO. People who want to learn are going to learn, and people who want to avoid learning will avoid learning. It's not something you can really force on yourself without a ton of stress, and it'll backfire. You have to go at your own pace when the marathon is literally decades long.

I will agree that there are soft-skills to be learned from this, such as figuring out what your personal moat is. And perhaps you might be slightly more thoughtful when selecting a new job to somewhat influence your moat-building. But most people don't spend a long time selecting the right job. They get one that exists right when they need it because they need to pay the bills. And they very, very rarely job-search while they have a good job.

[TheCapeGreek]

Yeah, "obvious" advice isn't always obvious to everyone, nor always actionable. I at least take it as a reminder of the need to get some sort of unique qualifier in my career, and the idea of "you might not be the best X or Y, but you can be the best XY".