Only Do What Only You Can Do
Lean into your calling so hard you never show up as a carbon copy of anyone else.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 85%
Carter's personal motto, and her answer to how she profits in life, came from a student who arrived at Columbia from India mid-career: only do what only you can do. She applies it by leaning hard into her calling — service, equity and empowerment through negotiation — and partnering only with people and organisations that use negotiation as a tool to help each person on earth reach their highest and best. The payoff isn't just focus, it's authenticity as leverage: knowing what only you were meant to do means you're never showing up as a carbon copy of somebody else, you're showing up as 100% yourself in every area of your life. That, she says, is her seat of power and the determinant of all her success. It pairs with her career philosophy: she never knew where she was going next, so at every stage she made the best relationships she could, knowing one of them would open the next door.
Origin
A student who came to Carter from India in the middle of his career told her the line: only do what only you can do. It became her personal motto. Separately, she found her calling in law school when she enrolled in the mediation clinic she now teaches, went down to a dingy jury room in the downtown Manhattan courthouse, helped two people resolve a dispute, and felt what she describes as Morgan Freeman's voice from above saying 'this is it, Alex.'
Core principles
- 01Only do what only you can do.
- 02Knowing what only you were meant to do means you never show up as a carbon copy of somebody else.
- 03Showing up as 100% yourself in every area of life is your seat of power.
- 04Careers aren't planned — relationships open the next door.
- 05Partner with people and organisations aligned to your calling.
How to run it
- 1
Find the calling by doing, not planning
Carter never knew where she was going next. She found her calling by enrolling in the mediation clinic and actually sitting in a courthouse jury room helping two people resolve a dispute — not by mapping a career.
- 2
Make the best relationships you can at every stage
Since you can't know the next step, invest in relationships and trust that one day one of them will open the next door. That's how the resume that looks preordained actually gets built.
Watch out People look at a finished resume and assume every step was planned. It wasn't.
- 3
Name it in one line
Carter's: service, equity and empowerment through negotiation. A calling you can't state in a sentence can't filter your commitments.
- 4
Filter every commitment through the motto
Only do what only you can do. Partner with people and organisations that use your thing as a tool toward the outcome you care about.
- 5
Show up as 100% yourself
Leaning into what only you were meant to do means you're never a carbon copy of somebody else — in every area of your life. That's the seat of power that drives everything else.
In the wild
In law school, Carter enrolled in the mediation clinic she now teaches, went down to the courthouse in downtown Manhattan, and sat in a dingy dirty jury room helping a couple of people resolve their dispute. She describes it as hearing Morgan Freeman's voice coming down from above saying 'this is it, Alex, you found what you should be doing for the rest of your life.'
→ She went on to Goldman Sachs and a very large law firm, but always knew she'd come back — and has now been at Columbia Law School for more than 12 years.
Carter works at the UN and Fortune 100 companies, but every week during a normal semester she also goes into small claims court in Harlem to help people with small business disputes, family disputes, housing and relationships. High stakes, she notes, is relative — to somebody on this planet a $200 dispute is a really big deal.
→ She refuses to specialise up-market because her calling is the tool, not the tier. The everyday wins are the ones that mean the most to her.
Common mistakes
Showing up as a carbon copy
Carter's early struggle came from literature telling her she had to be the biggest, most aggressive person in the room. Imitating a template that isn't yours is precisely what costs you your seat of power.
Waiting for a planned path
Carter never knew where she was going next. Waiting for the plan means not making the relationships that actually open the doors.
Is it for you?
Best for
Professionals with a broad skill set choosing what to concentrate on, and anyone copying a template that doesn't fit them.
Not ideal for
Early-stage generalists who genuinely need to try many things before their calling is identifiable.
From the transcript
“only do what only you can do”
“what i tried to do at every stage was i made the best relationships i could and i knew that one day one of those…”
“leaning into that knowing what only i was meant to do means that i'm never showing up as a carbon copy of somebody else i…”
From the episode
Alexandra Carter: Negotiate Anything
Alexandra Carter