For the longest time, Garmin was "the GPS company". They sold those bricks that you mount on your car dashboard and would help you get from Point A to Point B. They even had custom voice packs you could buy; and this was before it was easy to generate it with AI so you had to pay real money to the real Samuel L. Jackson, who sat in front of a real microphone and really said "Turn right here!".

But then we all got smartphones and those bricks weren't worth the metal they were stamped from. So that was the end of Garmin, right?

Not even close.

Garmin isn't a "make a device to help you navigate" company. They're a GPS company. Anything you can do with GPS, they're part of it. Those silly bricks were just one way you can use GPS. Today, they're most known for their fitness trackers but they're not a fitness tracking company. They've just taken their core skillset (the business-y phrase is "core competency") and applied it to useful areas that people want. Derek Sivers calls it your "unfair advantage".

The lesson here is - whatever you think your job, your core skillset is, it's not. Your work is more transferrable than you think. Also, your core skillset can change - mine certainly has since my career started. Acknowledging this, and then taking a chance on it, is how you can change directions in your career.