A few weeks ago in this newsletter I mentioned my friend Can, the COO from the chemical company.

Can is a great leader. His teams love him. They would go to the ends of the earth for him. He takes good care of them. He teaches them things they couldn’t even learn at Harvard Business School. He expands their minds and broadens their experience by giving them really cool projects to work on. He takes them to elite conferences where they can learn from the best of the best.

Still, Can wakes up worried every morning. He’s done such a good job that one of these days the CEO is going to push Can out and replace Can with one of Can’s very own people.

And then where will Can be? Out on the job market, fending for himself, competing against a ton of people 10 years his junior.

And so when Can wakes up he sits on the edge of the bed, looks at the ceiling over his head, thinks of his wife laying asleep next to him, their kids sleeping in the next rooms, and the food those kids will eat for breakfast, and the private schools they go to, and he knows that the day will come when he can’t provide these things to his family anymore.

What’s he going to do then?

You know I’m going to recommend to him that he speak on panels at conferences, because getting people ready for that is what I do for a living. But that leaves the question unanswered. What’s in it for Can?

Here’s what’s in it for Can, and why I encourage Can to get out there and keep doing it:

Can has knowledge rattling around in his head that few others have, including, and especially, the CEO at the other company who can hire him when he gets pushed out. Earlier in Can’s career, he knew valuable things too, but he could express them to his manager and, when the time came, he would get promoted as a result.

But now there isn’t really anywhere for Can to go. Sure, there’s the CEO role, but that’s a long shot.

However, when Can speaks on a panel, others see his wisdom at work, and he shows that he’s not afraid to speak in public (a rare and valuable skill), and he inherits OPSC (reminder: OPSC = other people’s social capital). So word gets around, and when Can applies for that new job with the CEO at that other company, he’s not one of 30 submitting a CV, he’s one of 5 and the CEO takes his phone call.

One of these days Can is going to get pushed out at his current company. There’s no stopping that, that’s just the way the world works. But now when it happens, Can is going to have a way up, and so he sleeps better and doesn’t sit on the edge of the bed worrying anymore.