Careers are hard to navigate. Three things shape every career path: talent, skills and chance.
Talent is a gift you were born with. It is what comes easy to you. The subjects you understand faster than others. The sport you play with ease. It gives you a head start. A steady, hardworking person often overtakes a naturally talented one who doesn’t put in the hours. And now that same race includes a machine that never stops training.
Skills Can Be Learnt Even by AI
Every skill can be learnt. Practice and coaching help you get better at almost anything. That’s true for people, and it’s turning out to be true for AI too. AI can already drive a car better than most human drivers. It has been trained to read, write, diagnose tumors in X-rays, and much more. If a skill can be taught, it can eventually be learnt by a machine. That should worry us a little, and it should also tell us where to focus. After all AI can learn and actually outlearn any skill. That is not where humans will compete with AI.
Chance Is the Invisible Influence
When we talk about successful careers, we talk about skills and talent. Rarely about chance.
Every applicant on a shortlist may be equally qualified. If there’s only one vacancy, most applicants will go home disappointed, not because they lacked ability, but because there was room for only one. Many brilliant scientists have missed the Nobel Prize simply because it isn’t awarded posthumously. The country, year of birth and the family you were born to can open or close many doors.
Some roles have historically stayed open only to a certain gender, or people carrying a certain passport. We’ve all heard of someone who missed an interview because their flight got delayed. I also know of someone who happened to sit next to the partner of a search firm on a flight, and that one conversation became his big break.
Chance opens some doors and closes others. It doesn’t ask if you deserve it either way.
You can’t control chance. What you can control is how ready you are when it finally shows up.
Discover Your Uniqueness
You can’t control chance. What you can control is how ready you are when it finally shows up. Ask someone to teach you the thing you’re not good at yet. It’s uncomfortable, but it widens the door for luck to walk through.
You have your natural talent, and the skills you’ve built over time. But what makes you genuinely hard to replace in this new world of work is something else: your Hunar.
Hunar is a Persian/ Urdu word for a personal craft so distinct that the output of one person becomes uniquely superior. Think of it as an unsigned painting. No one needs to see the artist’s name; the style tells you who painted it. Hunar is the alchemy culled from every life experience and relationship that has shaped your judgement and work.
Scott Adams, who created the Dilbert cartoons, put it best: “There are people who understand business better than me. There are better cartoonists. I bring my understanding of business, my sense of humor and my drawing.” That combination is his Hunar. In short be number one in a field of one!
There are many people who understand talent management better than I do, and many who draw better than me. But when I use drawings and cartoons to simplify complex ideas in talent management, I’m creating a combination that’s mine alone. I bring in examples from books I’ve read, people I’ve met, and ideas from music, travel and theatre. That blend, and not any one skill in it, is what makes my ideas distinct.
Think in Combinations
Ask yourself what problems people keep bringing to you, even outside your job title. Then think of how you can bring in ideas from your hobbies or even movies that you have worked in. Blend all of it to create a recipe that makes you unique.
This is an era that rewards exactly that kind of uniqueness.
AI can learn your skills. It cannot bring in the life experiences that shaped them. That’s Hunar.
This is from my column in Times of India’s Ascent section dated 29 July 2026 about how to be irreplaceable in the new world of work
