A question very few people ask themselves

There is a question very few people ask themselves.

Not: “What do you do?”

But: “If every account you have disappeared tomorrow, what would remain?”

• If LinkedIn were gone.
• If your CV were gone.
• If your hard drive failed.
• If you could no longer access an old email account.
• If your website went offline.
• If every link became an error page.

Would your work disappear with them? Or would it still exist somewhere else?

We spend years building a career.

Yet we place every trace of it on platforms we do not own.

It is like building a house on rented land.

You may live there for a very long time. But you can never be certain it will always remain yours.

Perhaps…

The first thing we need to own is not a company. Not a brand. Not a following.

It is the story of our own work.

People always leave traces.

• A craftsperson leaves houses behind.
• A chef leaves flavours.
• A teacher leaves students.
• A doctor leaves lives restored.
• A designer leaves products people use every day.
• An engineer leaves systems that millions may never see.

Not every trace is hung on a wall. Not every achievement receives an award. Not every contribution carries a name.

But they all exist.

The value of work has never been determined by how many people can see it.

The value of work lies in what it changed.

Perhaps…

We do not need to do greater things.

We only need to stop letting what we have done quietly disappear.