We went through a marvelous innovation period in the late 18th/early 19th century. It was the first time in history that real resources were put behind the idea of interchangeable parts.
Eli Whitney, of cotton gin fame, landed the first contract in the US for interchangeable parts for muskets.
Interchangeable parts changed everything for manufacturing around the world. Prior to interchangeable parts every product needed to be made on its own, in entirety. And if that thing broke, it had to be taken to a specialist that could craft a new part for you.
It was truly an amazing time and a true industrial revolution.
Except...
It changed the way we think about everything. Including people.
We built an entire system around interchangeable people. They are called factories. You can't make it to work today? That's okay. We have someone else that we can pay the same amount to do the same job as you.
Then... we built a system to support that system called "education". So, we train people to become interchangeable. We are teaching every student (regardless of their interests) the same skills. That's the definition of interchangeable. Every person in a trained position can be replaced by someone else identically trained for the identical job.
It makes me wonder, what's the opposite of interchangeable?
I would argue that it's unique.
Unique is what we pay for. Unique is what we admire. Unique is what makes you irreplaceable. Unique is the early days of The Beatles and Apple. It's the local coffee shop that everyone loves, the TED speaker that everyone listens to. It's Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. It's Derek Sanford and Steven Furtick. Unique is my daughter and this kid that had finally had enough of the system. It's Shane Koyczan and the kid that starts mowing lawns on his own at 10 years old.
We can't continue to "educate" our kids by teaching them that college is the only route and that doctors and lawyers are the only reputable careers.
I'm not sure if you got the memo, but a "travel blogger" is a real career now and people are making more money doing it than you and I combined. You know why? Because they are unique.
We have to stop the madness. We have got to teach our kids every chance we get that uniqueness is valuable. Uniqueness is what changes the world.
In a world of interchangeable parts, be unique. Make it completely impossible for you to be interchanged. In a world of round holes. Don't be a square peg. Be a grand piano.