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Chris Guillebeau always has something interesting to say over at The Art of Non-Conformity, and I'm loving his post "Thelonious Monk and the Search for Value."  Guillebeau writes about being an aspiring jazz musician and how he strove to copy the virtuoso pianist Thelonious Monk. Guillebeau admits, "I got the feeling that even if the imitation was perfect—mine certainly wasn’t—something would be missing."

As anyone who's ever tried to do anything knows, this business of trying to emulate your heroes can be as soul-crushing as it is self-defeating. Guillebeau goes on to hypothesize that while very few people have one thing that they excel at as excellently as, say, Thelonious Monk excelled at playing jazz, most people have unique combinations of skills that they are fairly decent at, and that it's this unique combination that gives you your very own value. (Read the whole post to learn what Dilbert has to do with all this!)

Which made me think of—stay with me here—last week's episode of Mad Men, in which office sniveller Pete Campbell tries to channel Don Draper, to disastrous effect. Why would you be a second-rate Thelonious Monk or Don Draper, when you're the only you there is? What is your own unique combination of talents, interests, and experiences? Just sitting down to make a list of these things might help you to uncover a value you never realized you had.

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